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Hi Luca,
I was wondering if a good way of testing a possible solution would be to imagine how that solution would look like? Like if I’m trying “anticipate the thumb” would it work well to imagine the physical feeling of anticipating it, or would it be better to just think “anticipate the thumb” and then focus on staying relaxed?
I think either could work – maybe you could try both and see which works better? Because I think the important thing is to get a sense of what your body is actually doing differently when you anticipate the thumb, and I could see either of these getting you there.
What are your thoughts on the two? If I’m sure that the problem is that the thumb is moving too slow would you recommend I practice that motion in slow motion or at tempo?
Any idea what is holding the thumb back from moving quicker? Or is it really the speed of the thumb itself, or the timing – like is the thumb too late to get started moving, or is the thumb placed in such a way that it has to move a greater distance than necessary, etc.? Here too I think either slow or fast practice (or both) can help in trying to figure out what the solution might be.
Another related approach is the “work place method” at the end of the post here. The idea being, to make sure that you’re playing with inflection and expression even when playing slowly, so that your muscles are doing what they’ll need to do when you eventually play at tempo. Similarly, violinist Catherine Cho has suggested the inverse/expressiveness rule of thumb, where your expressiveness is inversely proportional to the reduction in tempo. So if you play at half speed, you play twice as expressively. Or if you play at 1/3rd speed, you play with 3x expression.