Playing Slow Is Hard

[chordbanger]

A lot of musicians who I play music with have a hard time playing music that is supposed to be played slow, such as a beautiful waltz. I have been told that the hardest thing for any musician to do is to play slow.

[JeffD]

The late Larry Downey, a local fiddler of some renown, once said:

"If you can't play slow, you've got no business playing fast."

[Steve Ostrander]

Can't be BG. There's only two types of BG: fast and real fast.

[JeffD]

Can't be BG. There's only two types of BG: fast and real fast.

Yea if you can recognize the tune, its not fast enough!

[Rick Schmidlin]

Doc Watson said learn slow, I sometime play slow.

[journeybear]

Playing slow does require doing something other than slinging a lot of notes around, so you lose the ability to impress listeners that way. You have to rely on your talent, which may be daunting for those who have relied too heavily on their high notes per minute ratio. Thus exposed, one searches for other methods.

It's difficult to play single notes in this context without sounding overly plinky. That's why the most common approach is tremolo. This doesn't work in all situations, and also tempts one toward schmaltziness or corniness. (I tend toward ironic corniness, which often becomes a kind of in-joke for my bandmates, and probably does not translate to the audience, so I have to be careful not to overdo it.) Another approach is cross-picking or arpeggiating chords. An occasional bent note provides some variety, but you can't build a whole solo that way. But you can put one together using all these methods, plus whatever else I've temporarily forgotten. So, yes, it is hard, but not impossible - plus look at all these ways to play that you often don't get a chance to use!

[mrmando]

It's not that hard for one person to play slow, but it gets harder every time you add another musician.