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Flatpicking practising, how slow to dial back for 'good learnin'?
I'm still working on my flatpicking, and I'm still using Carl Miner tunes to help me along my journey (thanks Carl). I'm trying to work a tune up to speed that I've been working on for a few months, it's his TNAG demo of a 1954 00-18, and I thought I'd try recording it at various tempos to watch back.
Note that I didn't record the full tune, I just took all the different parts, condensed them together and played 'em. (to save time/effort in recording). Here's the outcome: And here's the question: if you were trying to get this up to speed (125bpm), what tempo would you spend your (precious) practise time playing it at? I reckon I mostly play it around 100bpm, and work on parts at that tempo, then push it up to 'fall apart' speed, then back again. As always, I'm grateful for any AGF insights and comments to help me along my path! Tom |
#2
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But that's just me. I like slow tunes, myself.
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Grabbed his jacket Put on his walking shoes Last seen, six feet under Singing the I've Wasted My Whole Life Blues ---Warren Malone "Whole Life Blues" |
#3
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My approach:
I might note “104+” which means play at 104, 108, 112. I Usually limit myself to three repeats, but yesterday I was refreshing on 2nd position scales, so took much more time on it |
#4
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I was instructed to never get faster until I play the tune cleanly :
Increasing the speed while mistakes still appear is the key to make more mistakes since the previous ones will stick and speeding up is a call for others.
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Needed some nylons, a wide range of acoustics and some weirdos to be happy... |
#5
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Ok, I play fingerstyle. but we use the same technique to learn things. I can't give a definitive answer, but whatever speed is right before the speed that you know you going to mess up a harder part. It's screwing up the harder parts that stops us from finishing a tune, so those are the parts that have to be done slower, without the mistakes. It doesn't matter what relative speed it is to the final product. It's not going right, so slow it down until it does go right and then bring it up over time.
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Barry Sad Moments {Marianne Vedral cover}: My SoundCloud page Some steel strings, some nylon. |
#6
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Dude, thanks for doing this. Obviously, the way you're going about this is the tried and true method, and the progress you've made with this tune shows it. But I think the question you ask is good one. I saw an interview with Molly Tuttle once, and she encouraged folks to play at full speed at times even if it falls apart, to learn the feeling of where you want to go. I'm a skier, and I often make the comparison to guitar playing. We master easy terrain, our technique is great on that terrain, but at some point you have to introduce yourself to the harder terrain where the technique falls apart. I wouldn't spend the whole day there, or all of your practice time, but occasionally introducing that fast paced challenge into the playing is a necessary component.
And I couldn't help but notice the different facial expression you have as you hit the higher pace. Looked like you were about to go off a cliff! Nce job with this! And Carl Minor is the man!
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'19 Waterloo WL-14X '46 Gibson LG2 '59 Gibson ES125T '95 Collings 0002H '80s Martin M36 |
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As always, thanks for the replies!
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The sport reference is one I always like - loadsa ways you can put the idea that practicing a move/technique in isolation doesn't translate into being able to do it for real. And you're right about the effort, pushing the tempo is hard work for me! Tom |
#8
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Try to play the trouble spots much more than the rest of the tune once you get the general flow going.
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Barry Sad Moments {Marianne Vedral cover}: My SoundCloud page Some steel strings, some nylon. |
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Last edited by fantex; 03-31-2023 at 04:48 PM. |
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Adding another sports metaphor: If you want to telemark ski powder then you can't hold back. It is all about charging the rhythm or it just doesn't work. As I found out last week LOL!!! I'm trying to get a small section of cross-picking wired in a song, and the difference in feel between playing it slow and firing it off at speed is night and day. "Fast" is not slow speeded up - it is physically something very different. So I would fall into the Molly Tuttle camp of trying it up to speed to get the feel as well as breaking it down slow to get the pattern. Great playing BTW, far more advanced than anything I play. It must be taking loads of work!
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I'm learning to flatpick and fingerpick guitar to accompany songs. I've played and studied traditional noter/drone mountain dulcimer for many years. And I used to play dobro in a bluegrass band. Last edited by Robin, Wales; 04-01-2023 at 02:20 AM. |
#12
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Yes if you want to play at the limits of your personal technical limit then you need to think about whether or not your using the most efficient fingering possible and dial that fingering into the memory at a slow speed. But even when using the most efficient fingering I have realised this play slow and gradually speed up on it's own doesn't quite get me to the kind of speed I am trying to attain. Neurologists inform us that this is because our conscious brains are not built for speed and if we want to perform a series of highly controlled physical movements as fast as possible then we need to relax , stop paying so much attention to what the hands are doing and leave the subconscious memory to take control of our movements. |
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#14
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I think it depends in part of your skill/experience level vs. the demands of the thing you're learning.
For many players with only a few years (or less) of experience, they don't really have that automatic mode that lets them play groups of notes quickly and automatically as one unit. So for that level of player, starting slowly and gradually sneaking up on a tempo fast enough for performance is the only way that's going to lead to a good result. But once you develop the more advanced skills where your thinking and your fingering is operating very efficiently on entire chunks of notes, you probably need to decide if a given tune or a given passage is going to be play in fast mode or in one note at a time mode and practice accordingly.
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Grabbed his jacket Put on his walking shoes Last seen, six feet under Singing the I've Wasted My Whole Life Blues ---Warren Malone "Whole Life Blues" |
#15
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That's something noted by neurologist Josh Turknett in the Laws of Brainjo, once control has been granted to subconscious long term memory it's difficult to go back to conscious control without the wheels falling off.
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