Difficult Passages
Difficult passages are something we should devote special time towards. Many of us are strapped for time these days and therefore we need to create effective practice habits. Conquering difficult passages is a great way to maximize the effectiveness of your practice, because you can quickly make huge strides in your technique and musicality. There's not much use practicing passages that you already have great command over.
Difficulties are usually produced by a number of factors, including:
- Rapid notes
- Rapid changes of texture
- Rapid changes of dynamics, color, articulation, rhythm, erc.
- Shifts
- Barring for long spans of time
There are many ways to practice difficult passages. One of the most common is to start slow and gradually ramp up the tempo. This can be a good method, however the danger is that you end your practice in a hairy situation. There is some research to suggest that your last run through of a passage has a big impact on your post practice improvement (PPI).
"You must do everything right to maximize PPI. Many students do not know the rules and can negate the PPI with the result that, when they play the next day, it comes out worse. Most of these mistakes originate from incorrect use of fast and slow practice; therefore, we will discuss the rules for choosing the right practice speeds in the following sections. Any stress or unnecessary motion during practice will also undergo PPI and can become a bad habit. The most common mistake students make to negate PPI is to play fast before quitting practice. The last thing you do before quitting should be the most correct and best example of what you want to achieve, which usually a moderate to slow speed. Your last run-through seems to have an inordinately strong PPI effect."
--- Chuan C. Chang, Fundamentals of Piano Practice, 15. Post Practice Improvement (click here to download the book)
Slow - Fast - Slow
A simple way to ensure that our PPI is effective is to end our practice at a slow tempo. One systemetized way to do this is to slow down again once we reach our maximum tempo, resulting in a Slow - Fast - Slow method.
I recommend using the metronome and gradually increasing the tempo for each repetition by about 5-10 clicks. This helps ensure rhythmic accuracy and keeps you from suddenly jumping the gun and suddenly increasing the tempo by a large amount. It also forces you to practice slowly for the majority of the time - twice the amount of time you are playing fast.
"How much extremely slow repetition is required to trigger a rise in performance level? The results are often almost immediate, after perhaps only two or three careful, slowed down repetitions. This quick improvement often causes us to stop short. We observe the marked improvement, become satisfied that the treatment has worked, and move on. Yet staying the course somewhat longer and investing in a few more slow, careful repetitions will often yield even more marked benefits or, perhaps more important, will help ensure that the improvement will be long-term."
--- Stewart Gordon, Mastering the Art of Performance, Oxford University Press, 2005, pgs. 58-59
The danger of slow practice
Slow practice can be dangerous as it may easily lead to mind wandering. When playing at extremely slow tempi, the music can sound incoherent, therefore I recommend not playing much slower than half of your ideal tempo.
The other danger is that when you play slow, things can become so easy on a technical level that you can just lose focus. What you should do is switch your focus from mechanics to music. Playing slowly gives you a great opportunity to pour your attention into musical details and convey them as vividly as possible. Keep those ideas sounding strong as you ramp up the tempo and write these ideas into your score.
Some musical ideas to think about include:
- Dynamics
Crescendo? decrescendo? climax point? first phrase soft and next phrase loud? etc
- Articulation
Music shouldn't always be totally legato! Think of music as speech. How would you speak or sing the phrase and what articulation would that produce?
- Tone
Make every note beautiful and intentional. Paint the music. What color/s do you want to give the music?
Keep a list of difficult passages
Keep track of difficult passages and practice them frequently. You can even build a regime out of difficult passages. The 'Encyclopedia of Virtuosity, Vol 1: 210 Difficult Passages' by Michael Savary is an example of this being done and published. You can make a book like this for yourself. Scan the music, copy the difficult passages into a Word (or similar program) file and viola!
Build your technical routine around the difficult aspects
Many technical exercises were created for the purpose of solving specific aspects of difficult passages. Some of these things include:
- Finger independence
- Horizontal Shifting
- Vertical Shifting
- Barring
- Stretching
Keep track of precisely what is causing you difficulties in a passage and build your technical routine around those things. My online warm up course is a great place to start, because I have done some of this work for you. Work on the exercises in that course and they will enable you to more easily conquer difficulties as they arise. Someone who has developed great barring, shifting, stretching, etc. skills will be less likely to find extended passages of barring, shifting, stretching, etc. difficult.
Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know your thoughts. What difficult passages have you been struggling with?
Difficulties are usually produced by a number of factors, including:
- Rapid notes
- Rapid changes of texture
- Rapid changes of dynamics, color, articulation, rhythm, erc.
- Shifts
- Barring for long spans of time
There are many ways to practice difficult passages. One of the most common is to start slow and gradually ramp up the tempo. This can be a good method, however the danger is that you end your practice in a hairy situation. There is some research to suggest that your last run through of a passage has a big impact on your post practice improvement (PPI).
"You must do everything right to maximize PPI. Many students do not know the rules and can negate the PPI with the result that, when they play the next day, it comes out worse. Most of these mistakes originate from incorrect use of fast and slow practice; therefore, we will discuss the rules for choosing the right practice speeds in the following sections. Any stress or unnecessary motion during practice will also undergo PPI and can become a bad habit. The most common mistake students make to negate PPI is to play fast before quitting practice. The last thing you do before quitting should be the most correct and best example of what you want to achieve, which usually a moderate to slow speed. Your last run-through seems to have an inordinately strong PPI effect."
--- Chuan C. Chang, Fundamentals of Piano Practice, 15. Post Practice Improvement (click here to download the book)
Slow - Fast - Slow
A simple way to ensure that our PPI is effective is to end our practice at a slow tempo. One systemetized way to do this is to slow down again once we reach our maximum tempo, resulting in a Slow - Fast - Slow method.
I recommend using the metronome and gradually increasing the tempo for each repetition by about 5-10 clicks. This helps ensure rhythmic accuracy and keeps you from suddenly jumping the gun and suddenly increasing the tempo by a large amount. It also forces you to practice slowly for the majority of the time - twice the amount of time you are playing fast.
"How much extremely slow repetition is required to trigger a rise in performance level? The results are often almost immediate, after perhaps only two or three careful, slowed down repetitions. This quick improvement often causes us to stop short. We observe the marked improvement, become satisfied that the treatment has worked, and move on. Yet staying the course somewhat longer and investing in a few more slow, careful repetitions will often yield even more marked benefits or, perhaps more important, will help ensure that the improvement will be long-term."
--- Stewart Gordon, Mastering the Art of Performance, Oxford University Press, 2005, pgs. 58-59
The danger of slow practice
Slow practice can be dangerous as it may easily lead to mind wandering. When playing at extremely slow tempi, the music can sound incoherent, therefore I recommend not playing much slower than half of your ideal tempo.
The other danger is that when you play slow, things can become so easy on a technical level that you can just lose focus. What you should do is switch your focus from mechanics to music. Playing slowly gives you a great opportunity to pour your attention into musical details and convey them as vividly as possible. Keep those ideas sounding strong as you ramp up the tempo and write these ideas into your score.
Some musical ideas to think about include:
- Dynamics
Crescendo? decrescendo? climax point? first phrase soft and next phrase loud? etc
- Articulation
Music shouldn't always be totally legato! Think of music as speech. How would you speak or sing the phrase and what articulation would that produce?
- Tone
Make every note beautiful and intentional. Paint the music. What color/s do you want to give the music?
Keep a list of difficult passages
Keep track of difficult passages and practice them frequently. You can even build a regime out of difficult passages. The 'Encyclopedia of Virtuosity, Vol 1: 210 Difficult Passages' by Michael Savary is an example of this being done and published. You can make a book like this for yourself. Scan the music, copy the difficult passages into a Word (or similar program) file and viola!
Build your technical routine around the difficult aspects
Many technical exercises were created for the purpose of solving specific aspects of difficult passages. Some of these things include:
- Finger independence
- Horizontal Shifting
- Vertical Shifting
- Barring
- Stretching
Keep track of precisely what is causing you difficulties in a passage and build your technical routine around those things. My online warm up course is a great place to start, because I have done some of this work for you. Work on the exercises in that course and they will enable you to more easily conquer difficulties as they arise. Someone who has developed great barring, shifting, stretching, etc. skills will be less likely to find extended passages of barring, shifting, stretching, etc. difficult.
Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know your thoughts. What difficult passages have you been struggling with?
Skype Lessons:
Tired of wasting time when you practice? I can form a routine for you that will ensure you make every minute as productive as possible.
You can also learn how to see music as a language, helping you understand and read it way more effectively.
All you need is a laptop, tablet, or smartphone and a Skype account (free to create).
Contact me and we can set up a free consultation to get you started on your journey to realizing your full potential on the guitar.
"Daniel's thorough knowledge of the guitar is evident and you can tell straight away that he has many years of experience under his sleeve."
--- Alejandro
"Daniel was the first teacher I had that showed me how to become a true musician."
--- Collin
"Daniel's more than a guitar teacher he's a technician, under his guidance my tone, time, technique and more have improved so, so very much."
--- Jeremy
Tired of wasting time when you practice? I can form a routine for you that will ensure you make every minute as productive as possible.
You can also learn how to see music as a language, helping you understand and read it way more effectively.
All you need is a laptop, tablet, or smartphone and a Skype account (free to create).
Contact me and we can set up a free consultation to get you started on your journey to realizing your full potential on the guitar.
"Daniel's thorough knowledge of the guitar is evident and you can tell straight away that he has many years of experience under his sleeve."
--- Alejandro
"Daniel was the first teacher I had that showed me how to become a true musician."
--- Collin
"Daniel's more than a guitar teacher he's a technician, under his guidance my tone, time, technique and more have improved so, so very much."
--- Jeremy