Tips for Playing Faster Passages

Hi, friends.

In this video I share a couple ideas that will help us tackle faster passages that we may not yet be ready to play quickly.

We can, as I have said before, play the tune or passage more slowly. If we do this, a good practice is to gradually increase the speed at which we play. Play the tune at a pace you are comfortable. Increase the speed a little, and continue playing at this speed until you are comfortable. Follow this process until you can play faster.

Another option is to drop some of the notes. In a run, for example, play only the first note of the run rather than the entire run. Over time you should be able to add portions of the run into your playing, until you are able to play the entire run.

A variation of this approach is to play a piece of the run, play the primary note of the second part, and follow this pattern. Breaking fast portions of a tune into smaller segments that we can tackle will help us increase our speed over time.

Select the video to the right to access the lesson.