I am going to write one more blog about practicing for now, but I will be revisiting the topic frequently. One year at Mandolin Camp North I attended a class on practicing taught by Tony Watt. Mr. Watt teaches at the Berklee College of Music and is an amazing guitarist and educator. There were about a dozen of us in the class and Tony began the class by pointing at us one at a time and saying, “You practice too fast”. Now he had never met any of us and had never seen us practice. He said he knew we practice too fast because everyone does, himself included. I knew I was in the right place because I also believe the same thing.
I have been telling my students for years to slow down. If you can’t play something correctly slowly, what chance do you have playing it up to speed. You should definitely slow down if you keep making the same mistake over and over. You are just practicing the mistake and getting better at that. It can be challenging practicing slowly at first, but stick with it. Subdividing the beat is very helpful. At slow tempos if your metronome is set for quarter notes, there is a long gap between clicks. Try setting your metronome to click eighth notes or 16th notes. It will be easier to stay with it. Once you have cleaned everything up, then bring up the tempo.
