Stop With The Need for Speed!!

Do you have the need for speed?

Today, we're going to be talking about why faster doesn't always mean better when it comes to music.

There's a lot of content out there that pushes music students and hobbyists to do everything fast. Think about it. How many times have you come across videos where they're trying to sell you a course, promising

results fast? Even if you aren't being sold a course, there's tons of videos out there trying to get you to become fast.

It's like we have an obsession with the word fast.

It's easy to get caught up in all of that, honestly. In this day and age, we're used to getting search results in a fraction of a second. We're used to getting our questions, and getting knowledge fast. We're living in the information age, after all!

But here's a secret that really shouldn't even be a secret.

Faster does NOT always mean better results. Let's get into it.

Technology has spoiled us a bit, even I have to admit that, and I love tech!

We love having the ability to get things in an instant. Whether it's groceries, fast food, information, you name it! We're used to things being presented to us very quickly.

But when it comes to learning a brand new technique on your instrument of choice, a lot of people push the notion that we have to learn how to do it fast.

Here's why I actually disagree with this way of thinking.

While, yes. It's great to learn something quickly, but instead of using the term "fast" or "quick," I think it should be more that we need to learn slowly, efficiently, and effectively.

The difference is, anyone can go through something fast. However, just because you think you went through the material quickly, doesn't mean you actually were able to process it in full.

Remember, when it comes to music and learning new things, it takes time for our brains to actually process things--especially when we're doing multiple things at once. This is why I'm a big proponent of taking things slow. Start things slow enough to where you can actually feel yourself comprehend that new technique, or piece of music.

The reason why I like the term efficiency is, as Merriam Webster puts it: "...capable of producing desired results with little or no waste (as of time…)."

If you think about it, while, yes. It may seem like it might be taking you a little longer to learn something as opposed to watching a five minute video and carrying on with your life.

By taking that extra time to study what you're doing and perfecting it as much as you can in that moment; until you get it right. You're saving yourself time from having to do that task from scratch all over again.

In other words, efficiency, and in turn, effectively.

That being said, don't get it confused with needing to refresh material. There's a difference between learning something for the first time versus refreshing yourself on certain details cause it's been a while. It's more than okay to refresh material!!!

Anyways, back to the topic at hand.

The other bonus to taking your time is that because you're taking the time to comprehend it, your retention of that information is going to be a lot better than just skimming a video or book.

But wait-! There's more!

Here's another reason why I like to take my time when it comes to learning.

When it comes to music and tempo (also known as the rate of speed in a musical passage), for whatever reason, it's always kind of easier to speed up our playing to reach our target tempo. However, for whatever reason, we naturally find it a lot harder to play slower tempos.

If it helps to picture, think about an audience. When the music is upbeat, the crowd can clap along to the music somewhat easily. However, when the music turns into a slow ballad, or if the music is slow in general, most

of the time the audience can't clap along to the song. It's a lot harder. It's kind of similar.

So, why would you want to learn how to play your music slowly when the target tempo is nowhere near that?

When we start to learn new music, it's often best to start at a very slow tempo. This again helps your brain process all the information that's going on. It also actually allows you to learn how to play the music slowly and clearly.

As one of my instructors would say: "if you can learn to play the music slow, you can play it fast."

Again, this stems from the fact that you took the time to process the information, and it gives you the ability to boost your metronome up slowly with more and more practice, a lot easier. Best of all, you aren't messing up any of your techniques either.

Let me give you a very real scenario.

Let's say you started trying to learn a huge passage filled with sixteenth notes, very close to your target tempo for the very first time. Let's say the target tempo is a very fast tempo. Let's say 180 bpm.

You're actually going to find that you're missing notes. They don't sound clear. It's a mess. You might get some anxiety because of the tempo and tense up actually, which leads to wrong techniques being played. And because you're a determined person, you keep at it over and over again, and it isn't getting better. It's maybe even getting worse. Now you end up getting used to playing with the wrong technique and now this is an extra thing you have to correct. In order to correct it, now you have to slow down your tempo so you can find a comfortable speed to work with. Essentially, wasting your time.

How do I know this? Because this has happened to me on many occasions, and it's happened to many musicians too--including the pros.

Now, if you slowed down the tempo, initially, and took your time processing the material, slowly building it to that 180 bpm tempo, it's likely your technique won't need correcting because there's nothing to fix. It's perfect! Each individual note sounds nice and clear. You're avoiding that possibility of anxiety once you do reach your target tempo of 180 bpm. Why? Because you took the time to learn slowly, efficiently, and effectively.

It's easier said than done, I know this for a fact, but the sooner and more frequently you can get into the habit of starting things off slowly, the more efficiently you're going to be able to learn.

Sometimes I start my learning tempo at 30 bpm! Super slow!!

That's normally a great place to start, but not every metronome is going to go that slow. Some metronomes start tempos at 40 bpm, some 50 bpm. It can vary, but these are all fantastic starting tempos to get you learning, in my opinion.

So remember, faster doesn't always mean better when it comes to music. Take your time with it and enjoy the journey for what it is. It's okay not to get things right away within the first 3 tries. That's why it's important that we take the time to practice. Little by little, you'll get to your goal eventually. In the process, we also want to practice and get into the habit of using our time efficiently and effectively, by starting off slowly.

So, with that, I'll leave you with my question of the day.

QOTD: Have you tried learning something at/or near the target tempo of your music? If you have, how did that go for you? Tell me your best stories!