In our experience, it doesn’t matter if a student is 12 or 64, it always seems to take awhile to establish a routine of slow practice. Most students – regardless of age – usually get the rationale for slow practice, but that doesn’t mean they do it. And really, we get it. Slow practice is well, slow. And for some people that is the same as boring. But once you have slow practiced long enough, it becomes a central and indispensable part of your practice.
“If you learn something slowly, you forget it slowly.” – Itzhak Perlman
When we say slow practice, we’re talking about both playing slowly when you start to learn a piece as well as refining a piece through slow practice once you’ve got the basics down. Here’s why slow practice is slow so important: it allows you to play both the music and your cello accurately. When you first start a piece, playing through it slowly allows you to ensure you are playing everything on the page correctly. You’re teaching your hands exactly what you want them to do to establish the right patterns and habits from the beginning; you don’t want mistakes to become the established habit. Later, as you start to refine the piece, playing slowly allows you to listen closely for what you’re actually playing and to attain the precision that makes a piece sound polished.
And to be clear: we are not advocating for ONLY slow practice all the time. There is of course a point where one needs to push the tempo up and start to work on speed as well. But to us, slow practice is a basic practice technique everyone must learn and implement when appropriate.
Now Let’s Talk About How to Do It
When first learning a piece: When starting a new piece, sight-read through the piece slowly (or whatever smaller section you’re starting to work on), which allows you to get a general feel for it as well as notice any especially tricky spots. Next, identify a small section, perhaps one measure, and work very slowly on it with several correct repetitions. Choose a slow speed that allows you to play it accurately. If you can’t play it accurately, you need to either go slower and/or limit the section to an even smaller amount of notes, perhaps even just two notes. Once you can play it accurately, do it with many correct repetitions (at least five) to make sure it’s set in your fingers. Work this way through the whole piece to teach your hands exactly how to play the piece.
On a particular trouble spot or to polish: When you’re trying to take the piece to the next level or have a stubborn trouble spot that doesn’t seem to be getting better, do the same process but on a more detailed level. Let’s say you’ve been struggling with the ‘minuet bowing’ of 3 quarter notes, Down Up Up, where the two Up bows are under a staccato slur.
- Start by singing the bow directions to the tune. “Down, Up, Up”
- Do the bowing pattern on one open string. Say the bowing direction before you play the next note. “Down [play], Up [play], Up [play]”
- Do the bowing pattern on the open strings used in the measure, but without the left hand. (In other words, you still play on the correct string but don’t finger any notes). Say the bowing direction before you play the next note.
- Add the left hand. Say the bowing direction before you play the next note.
- Play as written (still slowly!) but without stopping to say the bow direction. Once you’ve done many correct repetitions at the slow tempo, start to gradually move up the tempo.
The reason for articulating the bow directions is that we want the brain to issue specific commands to the hands. Each of the above steps should be done with several correct repetitions. Sure, it looks like a lot when it’s written out, but we’re talking only 3 notes here – it won’t take you long at all. Plus, if you can teach it to your hands correctly and efficiently from the start, you’ll learn it much faster in the long run.
If you want to read more about slow practice, there are many excellent articles and videos out there, just do a quick internet search and you will find allll sorts of ideas and opinions.