Play slow until you know or let it fly?

[farmerjones]

Yes, i've said the reason for the jam is because you can't throw yourself a curveball.
It teaches you how to think on your feet. I have to admire the disaplined practiced, because when im woodshedding i'm more or less medicating myself with music i want to hear and play. Speed to me is accidental. Speed for me, comes from complacency. Clean is a good notion. A good goal. But let's lay all that aside and put the music on like an old favorite sweater. That's when it's goooood and you know it.

[abuteague]

I play fast when I have it memorized. If I don't have it memorized, then I'm fooling myself thinking I can play it fast and there are obviously other things to work on, not to mention, I obviously don't know the tune yet.

[Denny Gies]

My experience is that going slow and clean at first has lead to the ability to rip it. But you do have to put yourself out there; a jam is a great place to do that. If that doesn't work, take two aspirin and call me in the morning.

[JonZ]

Well,dang it all. JonZ you edited your post and now my reply sounded from outer space. lol.. Guess I should have quoted you. Instead I'm curious about your "Pyramid of Practice Speed". I've never heard of it but definitely been there before. Is that yours?

No, I think the Egyptians came up with it. Or maybe Al Dimiola...

There are some musicians who are known for speed who suggest a small amount of "too fast" so regular fast seems easier.

[Mike Scott]

However if you always play fast out of control, you will never have a good sound. It's a balance of both.

Well said. I don't think there is anything more to be said. Although I seem to default to Greg's points 1 & 2 in the OP.

[JeffD]

Yep, I've got 9 years into the mando and about 6 years on guitar before that so I've been through the process. :

I realize, from other things you have said. But folks reading the thread can benefit. I hope so anyway.

My main point I guess is that for non conservatory types, I think the best way to go is to jump in the middle, and then swim out to all the edges. Its not a step by step, at least that hasn't been my experience. Everything you don't work on suffers. Be it intonation, strumming, singing, hearing the chord changes, sight reading guitar chords, tremolo, double stops, everything you don't do doesn't get done.

I let the jam define the skills I needed to work on first, because I threw myself into jamming long before I "was ready". Working to fill a need is much easier than working on stuff you are not sure where you will use.

[stringalong]

I learn every tune/song that i play 'up to tempo'. I play it as cleanly as i can & if i fluff a few notes,i work on it until i don't. IMHO,if you start off slow,that's fine,but you still have the 'speed barrier' to break,& even if you can pick the tune cleanly at a slow tempo,you could still louse up when you come to pick it faster - so why not get it all done at the same time ?. It still takes practice but at least you're practicing 'both' your picking accuracy & speed,
Ivan

I spent years playing too fast. Due to my teacher's advice you the forum's, too, (wimpy notes thread) I learn a fiddle tune by playing along with a YouTube version that fits our local jam version of a tune. If wimpy problems come up, I practice it slow and clean it up that way. I spent too many years playing mostly fast -- I guess I just got tired of missing some of the notes. I also agree that as a mandolin player, I don't need all the notes the fiddler plays.

[Timmando]

I agree completely with the posts about removing notes to increase speed. I would also like to add that the use of slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs can increase your speed also. I was learning from tab, a version of gold rush...it had all the notes on the start up, just like a fiddle, basically an arpeggio A scale with about 8 note hits. I was having trouble playing at even medium speed and decided to listen to Monroe playing it..he brushes his way into the startup, hits about 3 notes of the scale and he was picking it at regular tempo, with Byron Berline...so if Bill can do it that way, I don't need to hit all 8 notes either!

[HeimBrent]

I'm an ADD-case if there ever was one, so actually learning what I'm supposed to play and then ramp the speed up slowly is out of the question. Typically I'll just figure out the basics of a song and play it at full speed, picking up bits and pieces I've missed as I go along. The whole "playing clean"-thing tends to come with practice. The more I play it at full speed, the better it gets. As long as the speed is within my comfort zone, that is.

That being said there are two exceptions from this.

1) Stuff with a lot of notes, as in longer solos etc. If I really want to learn the piece, I'll sit down and figure it out slowly. But then I'll go full tilt at once. I just hate playing stuff in other tempos than I'm used to hearing it in. It just doesn't sound right.

2) When it's original material. I can spend hour after hours getting one of my original parts 110% correct. The fact that I need to record everything as I go along adds to this. My memory rarely serves if I come up with something and don't record it straight away, and I hate listening back to something I've recorded and hear mistakes.

[greg_tsam]

Interestingly enough, if I've learned something well enough to play fast and clean then I go into a jam and they're playing it at medium speed I get fat fingers. This happened last month and I completely flubbed it. Then, asked my banjer buddy to play it "banjo speed" and he took off like a racehorse with a bee in his bonnet. Blazing. Sure enough my lead came out smooth and much cleaner than previous. Guess I got used to being in overdrive.

But I can play a blues song with inflection and nail a slow waltz no problem. Love 'em. I'm partial to a lot of tremolo double stops up and down the neck.

So maybe my medium gear is broken?

[Ivan Kelsall]

From stringalong - " I spent years playing too fast.". Well,too fast is exactly that TOO fast !.However, i do understand your point. Again,it's all about what we choose to do as invididuals. I learned close to 50 years ago when teaching myself Banjo,that 'for me' ,playing slowly & then trying to fit in with a group of people jamming,who played tunes/songs up to tempo,doesn't work. You've got to hit the speed button some time & putting it off isn't the way to do it (IMHO).
When i'm learning a new tune,i listen to it often enough to get the tune 'in my head'. Once i do that,i can 'replay it in my head' & play along with what i'm mentally hearing & it's not a slowed down version either.
From Greg - "....I get fat fingers..". That's usually when you're hearing YOUR version in your head & trying to slow down something that you've come to instinctively play faster. What you've said about being able to play it fast & clean ie - 'being in overdrive',proves that you can do both. It just needs the practice - as usual,
Ivan

[chriss]

... when im woodshedding i'm more or less medicating myself with music i want to hear and play ...

+1 and amen to that. I am BLESSED to not depend on selling my music to buy dinner. As such, I play for enjoyment as much as for improvement, tho I do enjoy improvement too. Somebody smarter than me once pointed out there's a difference between "playing" and "practicing." True dat.

[AKmusic]

I learn every tune/song that i play 'up to tempo'. I play it as cleanly as i can & if i fluff a few notes,i work on it until i don't. IMHO,if you start off slow,that's fine,but you still have the 'speed barrier' to break,& even if you can pick the tune cleanly at a slow tempo,you could still louse up when you come to pick it faster - so why not get it all done at the same time ?. It still takes practice but at least you're practicing 'both' your picking accuracy & speed,
Ivan

I understand the reasons why some folks think they should start out playing slow and build towards "up to tempo" - and I guess I would agree: If that is the way a person thinks it should be done - then that is the "right thing for them to do". But I agree with Ivan, and the method he describes is pretty much the way I learn songs and tunes - up to tempo. I feel like I'm not aimming at the right goal if I'm not working at a full tempo. I might rehearse a difficult phrase a few times or work on figuring out a phrase at a slower tempo - but I almost always practice full tempo. It has worked for me - for a long time.

How can we truly say how much is gained or lost by using either method? Those kinds of things seem to get harder to quantify when we get down to how it applies to any individual.

I do know that songs or tunes that are learned at slower tempo has the potential of giving folks the illusion that all the fancy stuff they learn to play at the slower tempo is still gonna work at a faster tempo. And even if you can play it "cleanly" - it can lead to different kinds of mistakes. Too many notes or embellisments at a faster tempo can destroy the opportunity for artistic expression and will fall way short of what the song or tune really needs.

[greg_tsam]

Last nights jam went well except for the psycho mando player that thinks we are in direct competition with each other. I thought it might come to blows for a second but decided it wasn't worth it. Haha.. Someone will have to remind him music isn't a sport. My gig tonight is a trio and completely different. Fast, slow, lots of singing bluegrass standards.

I noticed that having abandoned my "let it fly" attitude and concentrating on simply melody that there's been a shift, much needed I might add. So going back to basics helped and now I'm slowly letting the ornamental come back out but a little more disciplined and behaved now. I like it. Music is a never ending journey that keeps getting better and better.

[JeffD]

I really bristle at that competitive psycho mando player when I see him, or his cousin, at a jam. There is so much that two or mandolins can do together if the players just got out of the way.

I don't in the least mind a flash of exhuberance now and again, a healthy "hey look-a-dis" now and then can be fun. But when egos are involved, and the air is rife with testosterone, count me out. My consistent view is, when I get that competitve vibe, is to let it go. "You win." Even when, on occation, it is a tune I am damned good on and can scorch his tailpiece with, I refrain entirely. I am into the music for so many other reasons, that just ain't one of them.

[onassis]

Interestingly enough, if I've learned something well enough to play fast and clean then I go into a jam and they're playing it at medium speed I get fat fingers.

Absolutely! Happened to me twice at last nights jam, with tunes I know really, really well. The slowness made it difficult to tap into the pulse and rhythm of the tune, it felt very disjointed. I finally had to think of it as an entirely different tune, one that just happened to share the same melody.

[Bertram Henze]

...Guess I got used to being in overdrive.
...
So maybe my medium gear is broken?

I really bristle at that competitive psycho mando player when I see him, or his cousin, at a jam.

Many apparently competitive players have really just lost a few cogwheels in their gear. Treat them gently, the poor creatures.

[Beanzy]

I really bristle at that competitive psycho mando player when I see him, or his cousin, at a jam. There is so much that two or mandolins can do together if the players just got out of the way.

Last nights Jam was great for this. There were 17 of us and the person leading one song yelled out "mandolins", well you'd swear we had the lead all rehearsed between the 3 playing mandolin at that time. I worked up and down some double stopping with a solid rythm leaving big openings where needed, while the player to my left played up the board and the other vamped around the melody, 1/2 way through with a nod I swapped to up the board with the guy on my left chopping a chord melody and the other mandolin did a long wind out to the end of the break, based on dropping more and more 'hints' of the resolution. It really worked well because it was all about playing for the others rather than for what would make the individual stand out. Do you know I couldn't now tell you what the tune was.

[chriss]

snip - How can we truly say how much is gained or lost by using either method? Those kinds of things seem to get harder to quantify when we get down to how it applies to any individual.

I agree with this. I dunno how others read or see a thread like this. FWIW, for me, I enjoy+ appreciate hearing how others approach learning tunes, tempo's, how to get a tune to sound like what they want, etc. What worked, what didn't, what about it did or didn't work. It's pretty sure that only a minority of what others write will end up really accelerating my music DIRECTLY. But reading it all helps me to look at + think about what I'm doing differently and introduces lots of other possibilities, and that generally ends up being very helpful in one way or another.

[JonZ]

I'll admit that I want to bust the best solo at my jam. Competitiveness? Not sure.

[Cindy]

When I get bored going at the pace I can play cleanly I give myself a chance to play fast and mess up just so I can *almost* hear what it might sound like. Then when I slow down my fingers tend to have a little more pep in them.
As for jams, I play licks around the chords (so far so good). Is that what you mean by pentatonic bashing?

[JeffD]

When an unavoidable break comes my way I just play the melody as cleanly and beautifully as possible, with a little tasteful decoration perhaps, but clean, simple, and sweet. At the end of the day I want them to notice the tune, not so much to notice me.

As for winning or losing - the instrument has not been invented that can measure how little I care about whether you won or not or think I lost or not.

[JonZ]

Well, you are certainly a winner in the humility contest!

[Ivan Kelsall]

Although i can play fast if i think i need to (want to),i really don't like to do it.I hate those tunes/songs played at breakneck speeds,for me they loose a lot.I've mentioned here several times what Bill Monroe himself told me back in 1966 when he played the main Folk Club in Manchester UK. Being a totally naive 21 year old Banjo player,only 3 years into it,i asked him who his 'fastest' banjo player had been. I can't remember who he said,but after a moment's thought he said - "Son,you go too fast,you don't see much scenery".I didn't realise right then what a very profound & meaningful statement that was,but it's something i'll never forget.
Personally,i like nice medium tempo tunes/songs,something that you can really sink your teeth into,& work around the tune.If anybody has the Bela Fleck recording "Drive",then the tune "Up & Around The Bend" illustrates what i mean.
I know that audiences like the 'hell for leather' speed of some tunes,that's fine - hand me my banjo & i'll go for it,but not on Mandolin.I personally believe that the Mandolin is much more worthy than to be used to simply 'thrash out' a tune - that's my opinion. As an afterthought,although it's more capable of 'thrashing' (IMHO),i feel that the Banjo sounds better at a medium pace as well,when you get some nice,intricate picking going on,
Ivan

[chriss]

... "Son, you go too fast, you don't see much scenery" ...

right, true wisdom there, thx for posting.

+1