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Hi Ernesto,
Lots of good questions. Percussionist Rob Knopper has an approach that might be interesting to experiment with. Essentially, he learns things at tempo from the very beginning – but minimizes mistakes or “incorrect” repetitions by adding only one note to the phrase at a time. So much like how you found success in “chunking” phrases, he’ll take a tricky passage, and start by getting the last note into a comfortable groove with a metronome set at the desired goal tempo. And when that sounds exactly like he wants (maybe 8-12+ consecutive repetitions, on each “downbeat” of the metronome), he’ll add the second to last note. When those two have settled in, and he can play those notes consistently the way he wants, he’ll add the note before that, and so on, until he has built up the phrase all the way to the beginning.
It’s time-consuming, and you do have to be sure to focus on making sure you’re playing with physical ease and maximum efficiency so as not to cause any overuse-type injuries (on the flip side, this will expose any physical inefficiencies or excess tension that might be getting in the way), but does tend to lead to pretty stable skills, and in the long run may be more helpful than learning a tricky passage like this at slow tempo with habits that don’t work at tempo, and then having to unlearn these habits when the tempo reaches a point at which they no longer work.
Does this make sense?
Noa
