How many of you use slow practice in your practice routine? Slow practice is a tried and true method for working through and solving all kinds of difficult passages in our repertoire. (Simon wrote a blog post about three different ways of slowing down that you should be using in your practice routine if you’re not already!)
Slow practice is an essential part of the learning process and can help identify problems we might otherwise miss while playing at faster tempos as well as give our fingers the time they need to choreograph difficult movements in the hands.
When Slow Practice Isn’t Enough
However, have you ever tried slowing something down and you still struggle to play a passage or difficult left-hand shift accurately? Our fingers have a mind of their own and sometimes we’re asking our little muscles and tendons to make intricate movements they’re really not used to in their everyday activities. Naturally that means even when we try and slow things down our fingers might still resist. We must take time to develop these movements so that we begin to get control of our fingers and they can go where we want them to and not where they want to! I’d like to discuss with you a practice exercise that can help a great deal in this kind of situation where slow practice isn’t quite enough: it’s called spot practice.
Spot Practice
Spot practice is a lot like slow practice, but with one important difference: while slow practice reduces the tempo to give your fingers more time to make the movements they need to make and to identify problems you couldn’t notice when playing at faster tempos, spot practice removes tempo as a factor altogether.
Here’s how spot practice works: when you get to a tricky spot in a passage (something slow practice should have helped you identify as a trouble passage!) we want to STOP. Completely pause right at, say, that difficult left-hand shift. Then take it step by step, without the tempo: (1) Determine exactly the movements your fingers need to make to get from where they are to where they need to go; (2) Begin to prepare your fingers over the strings they are going to go; (3) Shift positions and carefully and in a relaxed manner place your fingers to land the shift; (4) Repeat. That’s it! The point here is to give your fingers the time they need to make that shift accurately.
“Whatever you do, don’t play it faster than you can do it accurately.” -Martha Masters
Focus on Accuracy
One popular method for learning repertoire is the “play-through method”: play through it and, if you make a mistake, start over and try again. Unfortunately what this method does is actually reinforce the mistake so that we start to make the mistake into a habit: our muscles start to build up memory of the motions we’re training them to make. What we want to avoid in our practice is playing through mistakes and inaccuracies. Instead we want to make quality repetitions in the practice room, which means our focus must be on accuracy when utilizing spot practice.
Bringing Slow Practice Back in
Once spot practice has done its work and you feel very comfortable with the shift or finger movements without the tempo it’s time to bring slow practice back in to work up to your target tempo. Start from a very slow, steady tempo (it has to still be slow enough to give your fingers the time they need to get where they need to go) and then gradually work up to your target tempo without rushing the process: be patient and let the process do its work. Use a metronome so you know exactly where your comfortable tempo is, so if you move up and it’s too fast you know exactly what tempo to back up to. If you bring the passage or shift up to tempo too quickly without really reinforcing accuracy and quality repetitions, once again you’ll be building up bad habits and spot practice won’t benefit you the way it could.
What will you make of it?
Spot practice is an excellent practice method that can make a difficult passage much easier than it at first seems. It can really build confidence and all but ensures that you’ll be able to play the passage without mistakes more times than not. The real question, though, is: Will you make this a part of your practice routine and stick with it? Spot practice can only really be effective when we begin to purge older, bad habits and replace them with new, good habits.
A Challenge
So I’d like to offer you a challenge:
Take a difficult passage–just one passage, just one shift even!–from your repertoire and give spot practice a real go this week. Remember the key features of spot practice:
- Stop at the difficult spot;
- Plot the movements your fingers need to make and make those movements one step at a time without the tempo;
- Repeat so you can play it accurately until it becomes comfortable;
- Then use slow practice, starting at a slow steady tempo, to work back up to your target tempo.
- And, most importantly, don’t play it faster than you can do it accurately.
Leave a comment below and let us know how you do with spot practice!
This was an excellent 10 minute video. The clarity of the explanation of spot practice and slow practice is excellent. For me it was something I have heard of before and often use, however Dave gives extra tips and its always useful to be reminded of technique tools. Occassionally I have reversed engineered a spot practice. For example I do the end note and work backwards seeing how my hands and fingers even arm position adjust or should be in that perfect position. Again excellent video
Great idea to reverse engineer the process, John! Glad you found the video useful. Thanks for the nice comment.
Peace,
Dave B (CGC team)
Outstanding video Dave. Extremely helpful in managing the many challenging shifts in the B section of Romance Anónimo. Many thanks and warm regards, Mark
Glad you found it helpful, Mark! That B section definitely has some challenging shifts. All the best to you.
Peace,
Dave B (CGC team)
Just the technique I needed Dave. Hopefully this will get me out of the problem I have controlling my left hand.
Thanks
Chris
Glad to hear, Chris! The beauty of this technique is that you can really take your time making minute movements. Let us know how you do with it!
Peace,
Dave B (CGC team)
Thanks Dave. Really useful. I think I have kind of been doing this anyway. I’d be working really slowly then find I was stuck on a bit where I curse my fingers and/or the metronome, turn the metronome off and just play that bar or two over and over, then turn the metronome back on. Now I know it is spot practice I can be more intensional and structured about it and do it sooner, without having to go through the frustration phase.
Ha! Glad to hear it’s useful for your own practice, Roger. We all need to curse at our fingers and the metronome every once in a while, but hopefully this will help make that urge less frequent. :)
Peace,
Dave B (CGC team)
Thanks for posting this, Dave. It’s a real nugget.
I tried your Synchronization Exercise (Fabio Zanon) a month after starting CGC and basically needed to do spot practice to get started with finger coordination. And it took a while! I appreciate your addressing the topic and explaining the “why” and how” of it.
-Jeff
Thanks for the nice comment, Jeff, and glad you’re liking this practice technique as well as the sync exercise!
Peace,
Dave B (CGC team)
Thanks, Dave. This is a great way to work out the most difficult parts we encounter. Excellent video lesson!
Glad it’s working for you, Mike! Thanks for the nice comment and great to hear from you!
Peace,
Dave B (CGC team)
Hi Dave,
Thank you sooo much! I’m working on C. Petzonld’s Minuet, and your insight makes the left hand movements flow. It certainly does make a difference in the musicality of the piece.
Lissa
Glad to hear, Lissa! Thanks for the comment and I hope you continue to find spot practice useful for your own practice routines.
Peace,
Dave B (CGC team)
Thank you so much for sharing these tips.
Hi Dave, with the written advice too, is very useful to me, thank you
hi Dave,
Once a while i used spot practice but what is so good about CGC is that you have the info you need available whenever you need to.
i went over this topic again it reminds me to make it a habit in my practice sessions.
thanks,
regards,
Joannes
That’s great to hear, Joannes! Glad you’re finding it useful for your practice.
Peace,
Dave B (CGC team)
Great video! I’ve been using this technique for probably the entire 50 years that I’ve been playing (not classical guitar per se, but it still applies). I’ve been calling it the “cut & paste” method. It’s great to have a master player validate the concept! I’ll surely pass this video on to my students.
Thanks for the nice comment, Bill! That’s a great name for the exercise! All the best to you and your students.
Peace,
Dave B (CGC team)
Great stuff Dave love your way of getting the point over. Would like a link to your vid on sync. Cheers now
Thanks, Mark! Glad you enjoyed it and I appreciate the kind comment. Here’s the Sync Exercise:
https://www.classicalguitarcorner.com/classical-guitar-synchronization-exercise/
Peace,
Dave B (CGC team)
Excellent video. I just passed it on to my lute students. The last bits–including avoiding tension buildup in the palm–were especially useful.
Cheers.
T
Glad to hear! Thanks for the nice comment, Timothy.
Peace,
Dave B (CGC team)
The level of detail and extra tips are outstanding. I’ve never experienced an explanation which such depth. This will become part of my daily toolset. Thank you very very much.
I’m glad you found it helpful, Stanley! Thanks for the very nice comment.
Peace,
Dave B (CGC team)
Thank you soooo much. I’m not learning guitar but am learning to play the harp for the first time at 74 and have been feeling so frustrated. So often I feel as if my brain isn’t connected to my fingers because they just won’t do what I want them to do. In playing the harp articulation, positioning and placing is so important and when dealing with two sets of hands/fingers that need to be doing separate movements across 34 vertical strings, there are times I feel as if I’m literally all thumbs. I understand muscle memory and the wiring of the brain that needs to occur when learning new things and this makes so much sense to me. I was taught to just keep playing through a piece using slow practice until I get better which hasn’t helped on the areas that are giving me trouble. And as a new student to the harp, those trouble spots can be considerable at times. There have been days I was ready to give up. I will begin using spot practice now every time I practice those difficult sections. You have given me hope that I can learn to play the harp.
Hi Brenda,
I’m so glad you found this helpful! Best wishes to you.
Peace,
Dave B (CGC team)