Whether you are a beginner or an advanced player there is one tip that is hands down the best to help learn a new piece of music. I know I am talking this up, but I truly believe that if you use this one technique, you will learn what you want to learn more accurately and probably quicker than if you don’t.
The technique I am referring to is to practice slowly. I get that probably most of you have heard this before and are probably quite disappointed that I haven’t said anything more ground breaking or more complex. The really simple truth is that learning new music slowly is beneficial for a number of reasons.
For me, the best reason to learn any new music slowly is because you have time to think what you are doing but also you have time to think ahead as to what is coming up so you are prepared for it. Never underestimate the power of having that time to think because it gives you the chance to learn the music in a calm way that you don’t ever feel anxious or overwhelmed anytime you get to a tricky bit.
Learning your new music slowly gives you the opportunity to read your notes correctly. Sometimes in our haste to get something learned, we can be careless and practice in some wrong notes and then it’s actually more work because we need to unlearn some notes as well as learning the correct notes. I believe going slowly is even more important when you are playing multiple chords in a row. You need to make sure that every note is correct and learning a piece of music slowly will help you be accurate.
If your new piece of music has some complexity to the timing, going slowly will give you the opportunity to count it out or tap it out. By practicing your music slowly you have the opportunity to concentrate and drill the correct timing over and over, that when you eventually play it full speed, your timing will be accurate because you will have built up muscle memory in your fingers and hands.
If your new piece of music is particular delicate sounding or varies a lot with loud parts and quiet parts, by practicing slowly, you can make the adjustments to your touch and be able to really focus on this area. I would also like to add here that working on the dynamic shading of loud and soft parts should be done after you know your notes and timing well.
I know that recommending you to learn a new piece of music slowly almost seems counter intuitive but my own experience as a piano player and as a piano teacher, I know that this is the key to learning a new piece of music quickly. Part of that reason is because once you know a piece of music really well at a slow speed, it takes a very short time to gradually increase the speed until it is full speed. This has been true not only for myself but one hundred percent of my piano students.
So if you are tackling some new piece of music and you are finding it a little (or a lot) challenging, then I encourage you to take it slow or really slow so you ca learn it quicker.