Practice - Precision vs. Tempo

[davidbeinct]

Last night I was practicing and really concentrating on smooth, buzz and mute-free chord changes. I was playing Let it Be and by going slow enough to get the chord changes so smooth I was basically going too slow to sing the song with any kind of flow. I went to the guitartricks video of the whole song and played along with it, then played it again, concentrating on keeping that tempo. It sounded much better to my ears even though the chord changes weren’t always perfect.
I know I have to be careful not to ingrain bad habits, but is there value in sometimes just letting it all hang out? In skiing speed can hide a multitude of technical sins, but sometimes you just have to let go and go fast, even if technically you’re not skiing as well. Is guitar similar?

[rick-slo]

Tempo has a greater effect than small errors in accuracy. For practice I sometimes use the Fartlek Training technique of varying speed (tempo).

[JonPR]

Steady tempo is the critical thing.

It's good to practice at a slower tempo than you're comfortable at, to resist the urge to speed up. (Use a metronome, obviously.)

When playing faster than is comfortable, then it's important not to slow down, so if I'm playing so fast I can't get all the chords right, then I just play partial chords, or miss some of them out entirely.

I.e., it's good to get out of your comfort zone at either end (too slow and too fast), some of the time anyway - using a metronome to check.

[FwL]

I'm a firm believer that you have to "floor it" once in a while regardless of mistakes. It teaches/reminds your brain and nervous system what you're trying to achieve. When you slow back down to practice tempo, you have a clearer picture of what needs to happen to get both speed and accuracy up.

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[DukeX]

Rhythm groove is first for me. Once I started concentrating on rhythm/groove instead of perfect technique (which I'll never come close to anyway), my playing improved considerably. I started having a lot more fun also.

[Sonics]

Play slowly and get it right. A metronome is useless until you have the notes under your fingers. No one's listening to you so play it slowly!

[TBman]

I 'd rather play it right and slower than sloppy and fast. Speed comes naturally with familiarity of the positions.

It all depends on how bad it gets though. If the "mistakes" are minimal then who cares, but don't expect it to get better by playing certain things wrong.

[AuntieDiluvian]

I find that I often have to play slowly when learning a technically difficult piece, but I always try to maintain a steady tempo regardless of how slowly I may be playing it.

In performance, there is nothing worse than a player who speeds up and slows down to hit every single note. Better to gloss over a few here and there while keeping the groove intact than to mess up the timing.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by davidbeinct

Last night I was practicing and really concentrating on smooth, buzz and mute-free chord changes. I was playing Let it Be and by going slow enough to get the chord changes so smooth I was basically going too slow to sing the song with any kind of flow. I went to the guitartricks video of the whole song and played along with it, then played it again, concentrating on keeping that tempo. It sounded much better to my ears even though the chord changes weren’t always perfect.
I know I have to be careful not to ingrain bad habits, but is there value in sometimes just letting it all hang out? In skiing speed can hide a multitude of technical sins, but sometimes you just have to let go and go fast, even if technically you’re not skiing as well. Is guitar similar?

Hi david b

I’ll slow the tempo to keep precision. Nothing more noticable than sloppy playing for fingerstylers (except maybe an out-of-tune string that the player doesn’t notice or make faces at and attempt to tweak on the fly).