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  • Noa Kageyama

    Administrator
    July 20, 2021 at 10:40 am

    Hi Augustas,

    Good question – it depends a bit on which practice challenge specifically, but in general, I think of the practice challenges as being something you would use a passage/excerpt that’s reasonably well-learned with. So something that you can play more or less at-tempo already, even if not perfectly.

    You can certainly slow things down and practice the passage in any number of ways during the week, but the idea with the initial one-take recording is to get the most honest version of what that passage sounds like, if today were a performance.

    And yes – slow practice is an essential practice tool, but there are inherent problems with slow practice as well. A few musicians have spoken about the limitations of slow practice in recent years – like percussionist Rob Knopper and trombonist Jason Sulliman. Are you familiar with some of the structured at-tempo learning methods they teach?

    If not, Jason’s video would be a good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9X4h-cY1uw

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