SLOW vs FAST practice

In my little experience of playing scales and the like I found that it often seems that a very low speed feels unnatural. I could probably play it faster, but with a tradeoff: I would train a couple of bad habits that would dramatically punch into my face when I increase speed.
I think it's a good idea to up bpm when you got muscle memory down, you know where to put every finger and speed feels natural, too then I think it's time to increase speed. Don't ask me how much. It purely depends. I found that increasing 6bpm is quite right for me because it isn't that much so my muscles and my brain can still handle it, therefore I got the new speed down rather fast. It's all relative, though... :wink:

btw: nevermind word repetition! I got up 5min ago... :D

T'S LIKE MOST THINGS IN LIFE PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT , CUT CORNERS AND THE ONLY ONE WHO SUFFERS IS YOU .

TEACHERS LIKE SLOW SO NO BAD HABITS ARE THERE TO START WITH LEARN CORRECTLY AND YOU'LL BE BETTER FOR IT

YEAH YEAH HEARD IT ALL BEFORE " IT SOUNDS BETTER IF I GO FASTER"

SOUNDS BETTER FOR WHO

IS IT EASIER OR IS IT QUICKER ?

QUICKER SO YOU CAN GO AND MURDER SOMEONE'S SONG ?

FASTER IS BETTER BECAUSE YOU DON'T LIKE DOING IT ?

BE HONEST NOW " NO ONE LIKE DOING REPEATITIVE SCALES " BUT DO BASKET BALL PLAYERS LIKE TO DO THEIR SKILL DRILLS ?

NO THEY WOULD RATHER BE RACING UP DOWN THE COURT .

CHEERS

Actually, I find its best to mix the two(I'm not a proffessional tutor though, so take it with a pinch of salt.)

Basically, if you want to play a sweep arpessio at 200BPM, it doesn't make sense to repeatedly practise it at 60; You'll perfect it at 60, but still sound sloppier at speed. I find its best to practise at say, 60, 70 and then up to 150, and so on, slow then fast until you reach your desired speed.

ow my ears lotto king, theres no nead to shout.

But sometimes when playing chords you are advised to keep the tempo and just 'plop' the fingers down.

This is different from starting off slowly and getting it perfect before moving on.

I've heard this about just keeping the tempo and trying to hit the chord all in on go before. It is important I think not to place the fingers for the chord one after the other.

For arpeggios starting slow is a must - but is the above technique wrong?

i know exactly what you mean, sometimes its harder to play slow, and you have to conquer that..

if you can play something fast, but not slow, then its only when you can learn to play it slow and in time, that you can truely play it fast, you might be able to play it fast, but i bet the timing is off or you arent even considering it.

i play fast, practise fast* i mean, a lot more than i do slow, but i started practising slow, and looking at the stuff i missed, when i play something fast, it hides the rattling of the strings, but when i really slow myself down i hear all this other noise even though im doing what i can to mute it.

Point is, practising slow, i found a flaw in "what i thought was my", good technique, and im constantly working on getting past it, then i will be totally comfortable back to playing faster again.

Here is what I'm curious about. My observation is at times going super slow on a piece sometimes screws up my timing. I often run through it fast just to get the timing, then go back to playing really slow. I learned how to play "dust in the wind" by Kansas over the course of the year. To warm up I play it slow. Man, playing it slow I find really messes up my timing to the point where I'm actually getting confused and start hitting the wrong notes and I have to stop because I don't know what to do next. When I speed up, my rythym, my timing all comes back and honestly it sounds way better than slow.

BTW, not at all advocating practicing faster as I always start a new song slowly. But there must be a reasonable point when it's time to start moving at a faster pace.

It doesn't hurt to play a song slowly at all. One of the key things is before you play, you should get your head in the right timing...If you are playing at a certain speed, you should be thinking about it at the same speed... Anyone, within reason, can play fast...knowing what you are doing though, which is what makes a better 'fast' player, only comes when you are in the right 'mind timing.' Once you've got that, then you should be able to play any piece from as slow as 1BPM to your maximum speed. :)