Breaking the speed barrier

Irish Flute
1

Hello everyone!

Long time lurker, first time posting for anything other than selling.

I’m hoping you folks can provide some insight into playing faster. Yep, digging this topic back up. I’ve done my research but with all the tips out there, I’ve plateaued and none seem to help me get over the hump.

For all those who’s advice is: “don’t worry about playing fast. Play musically”. Yes! Absolutely right! And I can, but only up to a certain tempo! I’d like to get past this.

A bit about my playing / practicing habits. I’m sure quite a few of us do the same. I take a tune I like by a favored musician. Open it up in a slow-downer. Learn it while gradually increasing speed. Try to push till I reach a speed that causes trouble, then back down to a comfortable pace. With most tunes, I end up playing very comfortably at the 75% mark. 80% is tricky but doable. 85%-90% introduces slop into the technique. Anything above, I’m missing notes and am lost in the tune.

There are many bits of advice floating around. A few that I have taken to heart are:

  • Relax. Pay attention to grip and posture. (Yep, doing my best on this. I try to consciously monitor how tense I am and adjust accordingly)
  • Use a metronome. Start slow. Gradually increase speed. Eventually, bump the speed above the desired tempo, then back down. (How does one deal with the point when you are stuck at the same speed for months on one tune?)
  • Just play, the speed will come. (Fair enough. I want to be a flute rock star by 30 so I’m running out of time.)

A few questions:

  • What’s wrong with my fingers and why can I not move them faster? OK. The fact that they look like sausage links doesn’t help my case. Skip this one.
  • Does the speed just “kick in”? (As in, you are playing and all of a sudden you realize “whoa, I’m playing fast and it doesn’t sound like crap!”)
  • Any specific tunes that may be the catalyst in breaking over?
  • Does gaining speed in one tune seem to transfer easily over to another? Is the increase in speed an overall increase in technique or just getting faster at the one tune?

Thanks to any who reply!

Cheers!

  • James
2

Not an answer to any of your specific questions but ornamentation can be sacrificed for speed. So, if you can’t play it as fast as you need/want to with ornamentation then you can drop the ornamentation in order to keep up with everyone else. Davie Migoya mentioned this in a thread a while back and it has helped me a ton at my local session where they play certain tunes obscenely fast.
As for developing speed, i have nothing to offer. I now understand that i cannot increase my level of proficiency in any other way than patient persistent practice.

All the best,
Bob

3

How does one deal with the point when you are stuck at the same speed for months on one tune?

… my “method”, more out of accident than design, is to play something(s) else for a while, then come back to the troublesome piece after a few days. It may be related to the scenario wherein when practicing “too hard” one ends up simply repeating the same mistakes over and over.

YMMV … good luck :slight_smile:

4

I assume that there are some tunes that you can play at 100%. I also assume that there are only parts of some tunes that you can’t play at 100% and that you can play the rest of the tune up to tempo. You have to slow down and concentrate on the parts of a tune that you can’t play fast. Don’t play the whole tune, stumbling on the tricky part every time through. Isolate the difficult passage, make an exercise out of those notes, and play that passage as an exercise until you don’t stumble on it any longer.
Some tunes can take years before you get the all kinks out. But you have to concentrate on those tricky parts. You have to play them out of context before you can play them well in context. The need is for extended deliberate practice. This is presented in an excellent artice, The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance. It’s not the easiest read. You have to sort of slog through it. In general he is saying: slow down and repeat those parts that present a technical problem, whether it is in your golf swing, your curveball, or your high A fiddle ornament.
It won’t happen overnight and there is no easy way forward. But every great player does this. This four-minute clip might also lead to something that might help you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY7QNxXbziA There is no secret, unless it is this: there is no talent that leads to fast playing. Talent is a self-referential tautology (just like this sentence).

5

This problem is familiar to me still, so I am looking forward to the answers in this thread, too.
Now, I don’t know if it is possible to generalize in this case, but what helped me a lot so far was practicing real slow. Initially, I did this to practice accuracy and discovered, more or less by accident, that it helped immensely to build up speed. What I did (actually, still do) is this:

  • Metronome 100

  • first click foot down while playing two quavers

  • second click foot up while playing the next two quavers

  • and so on, while trying to focus on a precise timing (not bothering too much about the other aspects).

  • It is also possible to play two quavers per foot-tap (same speed), but I am under the impression that this is not as relaxed as the above mentioned method. Anyway, in each case, there are two quavers per click played.

This is really playing in slow motion, but after a year or so I was able to play quite reasonable at a speed I wasn’t able to play before. Every now and then, I meet with a fiddle player for some tunes; she practices the same way, and I can only say that both our speed improved significantly over time.

Of course, this is no instant solution, it takes patience which can be frustrating if you like quicker results. And, as I said, the fact it worked for me doesn’t mean it may work for someone else. Besides, there may be some easier and more professional ways to improve speed - ways to which I myself am looking forward to reading about!


Finally, I’d like to add something Breandán Breathnach wrote on the subject of speed:

»Double Jigs [dottet crotchet] = 127
Single Jigs [dotted crotchet] = 137
Slip Jigs [dottet crotchet] = 144
Reels [crotchet] = 224
Hornpipes [crotchet] = 180

To play the music at a quicker tempo detracts from the melody; to play it somewhat slower can do it no harm. It was customary for many of the older musicians when playing for themselves to adopt a slower pace that that demanded by dancers." (Breathnach 1974, p.ix).«

Quote from: The Parametres of Style in Irish Traditional Music, by Niall Keegan. In: Inbhear. Journal of Irish Music and Dance, Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2010, pp. 63 - 96, p.88.

Cheers,
Maurice


P.S. I apologize for my bad English!

6

Some things might though. For me it’s very common to get to the stage where I can play along with a recording at about 90% of the correct speed, getting slightly better rhythm each time round, then after a nights sleep find it can do the same thing at full speed. I may notice that something isn’t getting better and have to isolate that and work on it.

Then again, I have been playing for five years and am still not really comfortable with reels at ‘session tempo’ and often don’t play even when I know them quite well. It is getting better - very slowly.

7

Here is a method recommended by my slow session leader. Play the tune at a comfortable tempo then alternate playing faster and slower. For instance being a beginner I might play a jig at the following tempos:

69
75
63
81
57
87

When playing slowly concentrated on relaxing and visualizing your fingers. As mentioned above woodshed any sections that are problematic.

My regular instructor also has me play fast along with him to practice recovery.

When I was younger I could ski moguls without thinking so I am hopeful my brain and fingers will eventually attain a similar zen state.

8

It just might not be possible. And that’s just fine. Those who play fast and play WELL fast have been playing for years and years, most of whom started playing when they were young. I personally don’t think I’ll ever playing really fast because I started too late and don’t have enough time to practice productively to even have a chance at top speed. Listening to Mike Rafferty puts it all in perspective for me.

9

I think JD has it exactly right.

The article he cites is interesting and I’ve only read portions. But I’d suspect a bit of self-selection here that influences motivation to deliver the requisite amount of practice. In general, correct but maybe more here than meets the eye.

I think of solitary animals (say, hawks) as Swiss Army knives. Each individual needs to be able to cope with whatever challenges are presented, and wide variation is punished. Their toolkit may not perform all tasks perfectly, but any individual can do everything adequately or it dies. Social critters like us are rather different, and there may be a considerable variability in the ease or even potential to acquire specific abilities. That’s good because the entire group benefits from having the best screwdriver, the best saw, the best corkscrew - which can’t do the other things particularly well.

That said, humans are very adaptable. Given enough dedication and work, almost anything should be learnable. Maybe not at the same rate.

Years back I read something by a woman guitarist, who learned about effective practice from a US Army manual on, of all things, typing. It was terse and direct. In brief: isolate the hard stuff, practice at a slow speed many more times than you’d ever believe necessary, take a break, do it again, then pick up speed, take another break, etc and link up the hard with the easy. It worked for her and when I make myself do it, for me also. I don’t do that enough. So this discussion is motivational.

In the cited article, I think starting on page 376, there’s mention of correlation with naps. I find this really significant. I can’t hope to really learn anything terribly useful without a period of deep sleep. Brain and learning studies have supported this role. Sometimes I’ve been amazed by what I learned while sleeping!

10

Great advice all!

I’ve spent the past few practice sessions really slowing down the tunes. I’m am beginning to become aware of the exact trouble spots and now make a conscious effort to work through those. What has seemed to help most, may be one of the most obvious tips. Isolate the problematic parts. I seem to have overlooked that. A concept so simple. Thinking it over, I tend to practice a tune start to finish without taking the time to focus on specifics.

Replies to the post have gotten me thinking about how I practice in general. Thanks so much to everyone who provided insight!

Cheers.

James

11

Not sure this will answer your question but I recently started to see the flute playing more like a big whole of attitudes/practices/style/etc, etc… So, in order to improve more and more, focus on breathing and how to hold a flute properly will make a big part in moving forward to play faster & properly.

12

Has anyone put numbers to the fast session players? How fast do they play?

13

An interesting question; but maybe more to the point, how fast do they play well?

Playing as I do for dancers, with tempo defined by their needs and not those of musicians; and with a fiddler and piano guy who sometimes like flat keys and/or awkward transitions for a wind instrument, I have to make compromises. Figuring out what to strip away without losing the feel of the tune or, most importantly the rhythm, is sometimes the challenge. More practice will surely help with everything.

But in a session setting, more tempo choice should prevail. Still, I can see a competitive motivation or excitement might sometimes usurp the musical aspects.

The interesting thing to know is how fast really good players opt to play different kinds of tunes, when they can choose freely. This is kind of a hard assessment…and subjective.