Practice

[philrab66]

Hi Drew
Quick question if you are available. When practicing for instance if I am learning first 4 bars should I get them to proper tempo before moving on?
Cheers Phil

[Andrew]

Hey Phil,

I would recommend to hone in on timing when you have a complete section or phrase down. You referenced mastering four bars at a time before moving on, that’s perfectly fine. Most songs are written in eight bar phrases, for example: A verse or a chorus. So splitting that in half, is an excellent approach for learning quickly. But I would also recommend to work on the transitions.

So if you master bars 1 through 4, then you master bars 5 through 8, don’t forget to go back and work on bars 4 to 5. I commonly notice people forgetting to work on the transitions. The same would apply when you are playing from one section to another, a verse to a course for example. So you would work on the last bar of the verse to the first bar of the chorus.

Hope that helps!

[philrab66]

Hi Drew
Thanks for your detailed reply. Yes I do work on the timing because I know how important it is but when I try to match your speed on most songs it seems impossible to play up to speed.Should I get it up to speed before I move on to next bars?
Thanks Phil.

[Andrew]

I wouldn’t worry about trying to play it at my speed. The thing to remember is: speed comes in time. I would make your goal this: To be able to play it at a certain tempo, steadily throughout the entire piece. So if that’s 70% or 60% of the speed that I played at, then that’s perfectly fine. When you feel comfortable at a certain percentage, bump up the tempo by increments of 5, until you get it to the speed that you want.

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