…or could they benefit from looking at it a different way beyond “This is how we’ve always done it…”
The idea isn’t that conventional methods are completely ineffective - it’s that they aren’t as effective as they could be. Just because you can ‘churn out’ players doesn’t mean you can’t get them there more efficiently while knowing “Why?” these things are (or aren’t) efficient.
Honestly, I have to question if the method is really “proven” at all.
I know many people (myself included) who went through years of classical piano instruction, most under accredited teachers. Many who completed the full course of grades. Some went on to get performance diplomas or teaching diplomas.
I knew one person who was a genuine virtuoso as a teenager. He went to a conservatory and became a concert pianist. However, I don’t feel that his success can be directly accredited to his classical training. He told me once that he started playing piano by figuring out simple pop songs by ear, and he practiced as much jazz as classical. Keith Jarrett and Michel Petrucciani were his favourite pianists. I genuinely believe he would still have been outstanding even without his classical training.
Exceptions aside, I don’t think the median outcomes are particularly impressive.
The players who go on to conservatories are the few outliers, not the typical cases. It’s entirely possible that many more could reach that level with a different pedagogy.
This isn’t directed at @kgk specifically, but I think there’s a lot of guitarists who hold the classical piano and violin traditions as the ideal, and that these traditions cannot be wrong.
Drumming and percussion pedagogies have existed almost totally separate, for just as long. They also get excellent results and much of what they do is directly contrary to the approaches of classical piano and violin. Let’s consider what they can teach us too.
EDIT: I want to make it totally clear that I am in no way suggesting that there are no benefits to slow practice.
I am very strongly against the idea that slow, “perfect” practice and incremental increases in tempo are necessary, sufficient or optimal for developing speed.
It is important to note that context is relevant and in many cases, what one would oversimplify as “playing slow” is, in reality, playing slow, fast, which seems to be a well-regarded concept among some of the top circles of music education.
As a mere music hobbyist, I interpret the statement like this: the only way to develop a fast motion is by doing it fast, and the sense of playing slow that gives you space to think and adapt comes from the time separation between notes rather than a slow speed in the motion itself.
I can only speak about my experience but I’ve found that approach to ”slow but not slow” practice quite beneficial.
I’ll admit it, I’m guilty! But I was reflecting, perhaps there are two different problems here:
For problem 2, the idea behind slow practice seems self-evident: One has to know exactly what it sounds like, how one wants to play it, etc., and then methodically build it up. So slow practice makes a lot of sense.
I’d say that most of the interest here is in problem 1. Note that the piano student faces both problems: They have to play (say) Three Blind Mice at the necessary speed and quality level, hence they certainly need the slow practice. I’m not that familiar with how piano teachers address problem 1, and I’ll ask about this, but it must be very clearly reflected in their teaching materials. I’m curious to know how long it takes them to get somebody to play scales at 200 bpm, that seems to be “fast enough” for most music.
I’d be very interested to hear the response you get.
I didn’t complete the full course of piano grades here in Ireland. I only completed four of eight before losing interest in the piano, but my fiance completed the full courses for both piano and violin and has her performance diploma in violin.
I totally agree that distinguishing between the two problems here is critically important. I’ll ask her about the violinists’ approach to problem 1. I have a suspicion that what typically happens is that students who don’t intuitively “get it” just get frustrated and self-filter or flunk out of the grading process.
Also, I think it’s super important to clarify what we mean by speed. We tend to conflate notes per second with movement frequency, but they’re absolutely not the same thing.
Pianists and violinists score highly on the notes per second count. Much faster than the average guitarist (though significantly slower than the fastest guitarists). I haven’t seen anything to suggest that pianists or violinists are demonstrating particularly high movement frequencies.
On the other hand, drummers absolutely demonstrate very high movement frequencies. It’s actually a pretty shocking. Every drummer is fast. Fast drumming is totally normalised. We’ve all heard it our entire lives.
Guitarists the world over are struggling to pick a few bars of 16ths at 200bpm. Any competent drummer can play single stroke 16th note rolls at 200bpm. They have two hands, one stroke per hand. We have one hand, two strokes per hand. It seems like we should be roughly comparable, but the average drummer is much faster than the average guitarist.
When it comes to training movement frequency in music, I’m following drummers.
Of course, high movement frequency isn’t the full story. High movement frequency in stringhopping is still slow in a note per seconds sense, essentially achieving only one note per movement cycle instead of two.
There are other ways (with both hands) of achieving more notes in the time without increasing movement frequencies. Some of it is just combinatorial (picking and fretting sequences) and some of it is based on movement “hacks”, almost like instrument specific musical sleight of hand.
Drums are a little bit different because they take incoming kinetic energy and bounce it back in the opposite direction; a guitar isn’t like that.
In a single stroke roll the movement is primarily driven by the drummer’s muscles. Drummers can perform the movement without sticks on non-rebounding surfaces.
The rebound isn’t sufficient to return the hand to it’s original position (as some energy has been transferred into the drum head). The return to the surface after rebound is totally through muscular exertion, it’s not done through gravity. We as guitarists are able to use the collisions with the string to assist us in our deceleration phases.
There are certainly techniques that make use of the rebound (such as the Moeller technique) but the basic single stroke stroke roll (especially empty handed) is a close analogue of single escape picking technique. Certainly closer than anything which appears in piano or violin playing, for example.
Of course there are differences between individual instruments concerning acceleration and deceleration phases, recuperation of mechanical energy, reactive shock, etc.
Drum and percussion pedagogies don’t answer every question that guitarists have. However, at the basic level, every instrument requires that we move in rhythm. Nobody knows more about that process than drummers.
Interesting thread. I most definitely agree with Tom; we have had many discussions on the topic and from that as well as my own experience with music and music practice I have to say that there are some things that need to be changed in regards to “how we get there”.
I play drums, terrible keyboards and a semi mean violin at times as well as trying to develop a voice on guitar…
For #1, “I cannot play anything at the required tempo”. Nothing? Can you play random gobbledygook that is harmonically and melodically INCORRECT, but rhythmically on the ball? My biggest hangup is that it’s tough for me to accept this, and difficult for me to allow it to be superfast first, and then refined over time at that superfast tempo. You know? The brain just can’t seem to accept rhythmic accuracy as a win when the rest of it is a jumbled mess. Even worse is that we have something that SUCCEEDS at that slow tempo, and because it succeeded we continue to try to recreate that success at a “slightly” faster tempo, but it never gets faster because it’s a completely different set of “untrained” muscle chains.
Some stuff works as a “start slow” and gradually build tempo. As a coordination developer? Sure. Rhythmic refinement? Absolutely. Complicated chord changes? Yes. Memorizing an awkward fingering? Sure. But I have learned that if the motion you use has a potential speed that you can devise almost immediately via the “table top tests” type thing.
Piano is a really, really different set of movements from guitar playing; plectrum in particular. Most people can get to a keyboard and play a Cmajor scale (white keys) super fast on day one with no experience; it’s pressing buttons and all of us have played a video game or two or typed in this day and age…
As far as #2 goes, well you have to first get to a state where you can remember what it is you play. Tempo is irrelevant, but it’s best if you can give yourself time to try and recall the steps. The brain is doing the playing, the body is just the tool that executes it.
Violin is different as well; bowing NEVER gets trapped under the string. In guitar, the pick can. That’s just one of many differences.
Just my .002
And… I think that I have learned (finally) that if a motion can only go “so” fast then likely it may be difficult to eke out more bpms by doing battle with the metronome via slow practice and gradual tempo increase. That has been my experience so far!
I think that you are right and this is why the techniques taught to traditional music students are known to work.
Perhaps popular guitar is an upside-down world full of self-discovery that is fraught with risk, and this does not seem to be the case with most other instruments.
I’m not sure that I follow… the left hand of the stringed instruments seems relatively similar (lute, banjo, guitar, violin, etc.). The right hands for many of these instruments can be played with fingers and/or a plectrum. Somehow, I view the bow as being different than a pick (because the bow is brilliantly designed to drive a string instead of delivering a percussive hit), perhaps it’s the analog to a Fernandez Sustainer. I agree a piano is pretty far out there, although I wonder… can they tap on a guitar neck like monsters? I’ll have to see if I can find a willing pianist, that would be a riot!
But in general, I embrace your thinking about finding analogies and other instruments to borrow from. Indeed, I think that I would benefit from drum lessons… perhaps this is a sign.
There are videos of Jordan Rudess playing guitar going back several years now. Total respect to him and he’s a monster keyboard player, but I haven’t seen evidence of his finger skill translating all that well to the axe.
I actually think it carries over the other way moreso. Whatever is the primary instrument that has conflicting mechanics makes the secondary instrument harder.
I dabble in keys a bit (mostly because nonstandard midi controllers for synths are ridiculously unaffordable).
I have a hard time of controlling the velocity of keys stuff because the muscle memory from guitar is so honed in for digging in where as the piano and synths are more subtle and sensitive (especially stuff like Rhodes and other electric pianos). I love ragtime but I can’t do those left hand bass patterns at all because my left hand wants to subconsciously move the fingers together as I move higher up the piano. So octaves become major 7ths. And that’s without getting into the insane difficulty of hand coordination of playing completely different things in both hands.
Learning other instruments is fun and frustrating cause it quickly reveals what carries over and what doesn’t.
Some very interesting points in this thread.
Something I have been thinking about recently is economy picking, especially two way or directional based economy picking. One of its biggest challenges, for me at least, is gaining rhythmic accuracy and also using heavy accents can be quite difficult if you are accenting a “swept note”.
With that in mind, would there be more of a benefit from starting slow, or slower than you would with single escape alternate picking, to try gain control of those sweeps and changes of direction in the middle of a lick etc etc.
I was specifically referring to the picking hand in that comment. There are definitely some worthwhile observations from those instrument to be made regarding fretting hand technique, but it needs to be strongly emphasised to students that technique depends on context. The differences between environmental and task based constraints of classical guitar technique versus electric and steel string acoustic guitars are enormous.
Classical fingerstyle is very significantly different from steel string acoustic or electric fingerstyle technique. Plectrum technique for other instruments seem to far less codified. It’s possibly just a limitation of my knowledge, but the only instrument I’ve seen with a clearly prescribed plectrum technique is the oud. The technique for using the risha is quite similar to the gypsy technique. Even then, that’s not a direct translation either.
I would agree.
In my experience teaching, students with piano experience tend to find it easier to connect their fretting hand movements to their internal clocks. There are other aspects of fretting hand facility, and I don’t feel any noticeable advantage is conferred by piano playing.
I think you could be right about that.
I think that is exactly right, you figure out precisely what you want it to sound like and start at low speeds, thinking about how the pieces fit together. But I believe that the motions for slow and fast should be identical.
I won’t say his name, but a top concert pianist that I have met looks at the audience during some of his pieces, and he practices the turn slowly during his slow practice… that is the requirement for really being able to control the sound, I suspect. 
Copying Vinheteiro! 
I don’t agree. The motions will understandably be similar - but walking doesn’t give you better running mechanics. Throwing a ball slowly is different than one thrown faster. Very similar, but it’s all in the nuances that can’t be replicated any other way. That’s the same for any complex motion.
Another thing to consider is muscle engagement. Muscles react differently to slow vs fast movements. Even with the identical motion, the muscles involved react differently slow vs fast…and always will.
I think slow practice means things like this: if you swipe a string, you swipe at every speed and there are no surprises or changes. Indeed, if I film your high speed work and slow it down, it should look as much as possible as your low speed work. Note that the best musicians in the world advocate slow practice as part of their workflow, and disagreement with them bears a high burden of proof in my mind.
Still don’t agree that both should be identical.