Being a forever newbee
Im working on a few jigs and reels. Does anyone have advice or know of exercises to that would help me speed up my playing.
Thanks in advance
Freddo
As an eternal newbie myself, the only advice I have for you is practise, and alot of it. Often very slowly so that your fingers learn what to do (mine have their own life!), and then speed things up gradually.
Cheers!
I’d worry less about speed than about keeping proper rhythm, even if it’s slow. Speed will come with time, but bad rhythm habits are hard to correct. Use a metronome!
Good advice from Crooked
The tempo of your playing will often increase naturally. The more you play a tune, the more familiar it will become, and you may find that you have to hold yourself back eventually. As a general rule, then, you should really focus on control, technique, and expression in your playing, not tempo.
That being said, a good excercise is to start playing a tune at a tempo slower than you would ordinarily play it. Pay particular attention to your embellishments when you play slowly remembering that the slower you play a tune, the more open your embellishments should be. After playing the tune once through, play it again at a slightly increased tempo, and continue to focus on your embellishments and phraseing. Continue to repeat the tune, each time at a slightly increased tempo, until you make a mistake. When you do make a mistake, slow the tune back down again, and start over.
The most important point to keep in mind while you’re doing this is that messy, rambly playing counts as a mistake. Remeber that you’re trying to play music, not show off how quickly you can move your fingers. Well executed, musical playing should be your bar, not speed. If you can’t play at a tempo without playing well, you can’t play at that tempo. The purpose of this excercise is not just to increase your ability to play quickly, it’s to increase your ability to play full stop. Being able to play tunes at certain tempos may be a condition to being able to play well, but it is not a sufficient condition. You only cheat yourself if you train your fingers to move very quickly, but with no control.
Some very good advice has been posted above. The beauty of Irish music is that (some of) it is played at a fast tempo, good for dancing but that it doesn’t sound rushed. If you play at a fast tempo but it sounds like you are rushing it or struggling to keep up then you are missing it.
You could try playing faster.
Ok, ok, that probably sounded sort of smartass.
Practice a tune a zillion times untill you can play it in a deep sleep standing on your head, and gradually speed the tune up until you can’t manage it. Then try the tune again at that unmanagable speed, and again and again, untill the unattainable speed it met, and then speed it up some more.
I tend to make fewwer mistakes playing fast. If I play slowly, I have time to think about every note, whichis really hard unless it’s a tune I’ve known for ages. When I play faster, my subconsious takes over and playing is more like humming or whistling, insted of playing the whistle.
Most people would probably not agree with that. Maybe it’s different for most people.
Speed is overrated. Lemme try to condense what’s been said above, and maybe some other stuff.
- slow down – speed is overrated, and much ITM on commercial recordings is played too fast (and over-ornamented) anyway
- work on phrasing – get the lilt or lift in your playing
- listen – look and listen to the transcriptions on Brother Steve’s site to get an idea of what to listen for
- there are no shortcuts – give it time and your tempo will increase naturally
I’m very guilty of aiming for speed when I should be going for style. It slows down the learning process in the long run.
Really? According to what? According to who? If you listen to old piping recordings, like Ennis or O’Mealy, you’ll hear some extremely fast, heavily ornamented playing.
It certainly does.
I don’t claim to speak for anyone but myself, and the ornamentation comment was definitely not aimed at pipers. I just personally find that the more I listen, the more I prefer players like Mike Rafferty and Jack Coen who play in a more relaxed style.
I’m with Charlie, Speed Kills…many perfectly good tunes that is! 
Playing fast is way overrated, and totally secondary: Learn to “wow” yourself and others with how good you can make a tune sound and “feel” at really slow tempos, and you will have learned everything you need in order to play faster, which will come over time.
It’s nailing the rhythm and ornamentation subtleties, and learning to play rock solid with regards to your timekeeping, that make tunes sound really good at faster tempos, however those things need to be mastered at very slow tempos, so they don’t fall apart or go missing, when you speed up.
Loren
Absolutely right!!
Metronomes have their uses in that (if, for example, you are practising a difficult bit in a classical concerto) you can find a tempo on the metronome that you’re comfortable with and gradually wind it up a click every day or so until you reach the desired speed.
Ultimately, however, metronomes are no substitute for developing your own internal “rhythm clock”.
I’ve been finding (as I’ve been diligently practicing a few jigs as of late) that consistently practicing really does help your speed. A half an hour each day has really improved the ones I’m working on in a relatively short amount of time. So I really think that if you keep plugging away at your tunes, the speed will come as you become more comfortable with the tunes you are learning. Just keep practicing! 
This is going to irritate some people, but here it is anyway. . . in the almost two decades that I’ve been playing this music, I find that GENERALLY the ones who complain about the speed of the music are the ones that can’t play with any speed. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy taking things at a relaxed pace, but this is dance music and needs to be at a fast enough tempo to dance to. If you’re in a session and everyone wants to play at a relaxed pace, then fine, do it. But, if you want to play for dancers, you’d better be able to pick up the pace. Now, Mike Rafferty and Jack Coen are brilliant, and often play a relaxed pace, but I’ve played in sessions with them that were going at quite a clip and they had no problem keeping up. Nor did they complain about the tempo.
Okay, so how do we learn to play faster? There isn’t a big secret. One, the most important thing, learn the tune completely. Two, play it with people who can play at a faster tempo. If you don’t have that option, get out the metrenome and practice with it, upping the tempo until you’re comfortable, then up it again. It’s like speed trials for runners. Work up to it.
Okay, if I’ve offended anyone, I apologize, but this is just the way I see things.
Mark
I forgot to add:
Record yourself, record yourself, record yourself… and listen with a very critical ear: Things have a tendancy to sound better when you’re playing them, than they do when you listen back. It can be very rough on the ego, but it keeps you honest, and therefore focused on what still needs work.
Loren
No offense here Mark, I’d largely agree: Eventually you have to push yourself and work up the tempo if you want to fit in at sessions etc. What I, and I believe others, are suggesting, is that one must first have the details under control, before working up to speed - too many people jump right from “memorizing the notes” to playing uptempo, with the result being bland, playing with no lift, drive or “feel”, or worse yet, all sorts of counterproductive rhythmic and ornamentation things happening.
I suspect, that anyone who is past the point of really having the details down solid, wouldn’t be asking the question about speed anyway, hence the focus on that aspect of things. However, it’s possible I’m assuming too much in that regard.
Loren
Yep, I agree with you. That’s why I said the first step was knowing the tune completely.
Recording yourself. . . yeah I forgot that one. That always helps.
Mark
Seems we’re all on the same page 