Secret of playing fast, it is sometimes said, is playing slow. Accordingly I’ve spent many many hours with a metronome playing tunes very slowly, repeating difficult passages very slowly, and so on. And it does help. But recently I joined an Irish ensemble class at the St. Louis folk school, led by a truly brilliant Irish fiddler who plays very fast–for me anyway. And I’m having the devil of a time playing fast enough to keep up. I’ve never had much reason to play really fast before, not having other people to play with. But if I’m to play in sessions it’s time to play fast.
I don’t think playing slow is the final answer here. Anyhow, it hasn’t equipped me for this.
I’ve been playing flute something like seven years. I suppose the way to speed up is to do it,
perhaps to use a metronome set fast. They may not be much to say at this point, however advice and suggestions are welcome, especially from folks who play flute in fast sessions.
There are people who can play wicked fast and keep the integrity of the tune intact, including pulse, rhythm, and ornamentation. Then there are those individuals who compromise one or more elements of the tune for the sake of speed. I suppose a gradual increase in tempo over a period of time would help you get there. Familiarity with the tune as well helps with speed. The great thing about being able to play both fast and slow is that you have two very different takes on a tune… something about the the way the tune sits at a particular tempo…
Yeah, I’m no fan of speed, but if I’m going to play in good sessions (which is the next step, I reckon, if
I can find some) I’m going to have to play a good deal faster. I guess dancers dance pretty damn quickly
and the music goes accordingly–even without dancers. Real challenge.
You will know when you are ready for such a session. And for some sessions, you may never be ready. For those occasions, I suggest and evening of listening. A very under appreciated activity in my honest opinion.
Arbo
Hi Jim, I am faced with the same challenge. The metronome really helps. Every now and then the session I play with will rip off a tune at 110 or 120, but for me 100-104 is pretty fast and around the limit. I find ornamentation is the first to go and I can do pretty well with the musicality if I leave off most of the ornamentation.
Lewis
I find that my perception of the speed is all relative to my comfort with the particular tune.
That is, a tune I don’t know well, when played in a session, often seems overly fast, and I can’t keep up. The tunes I really “own” are just the opposite. I may start one at what I feel is a moderate pace, only to have others tell me it was too fast.
I’m of the school that plays a tune slowly a few dozen (or hundred) times. The speed then comes naturally.
Does anybody know the metronome setting for jigs, also that for reels,
in a standard session, more or less? Hornpipes?
I think it’s time to crank the 'nome up and play along.
Bear in mind that these standards do not in any wise apply absolutely to session or performance playing, although they’re a good place to start. There are no standard metronome settings for session or performance playing; that playing is for its own sake, for the sheer art of it. Reels may be played slow for effect, or blazingly fast for the same reason. Same goes for any other tune type (although personally I dislike fast hornpipes in most cases; I don’t see the point. You can play them too slow, too). Slides around here tend to be played slower than can be played for dancers at a top end of as much as - according to one source - 150 bpm (!). Not sure I buy that, but I’ve heard some crazy-fast slides out there.
While I would make a start with the above listed settings, ultimately I would urge you to concern yourself less with metric standards, as they don’t really exist when it comes to session playing. It is what it is. Session metric standards vary from locale to locale, and depending on who’s playing. I’ve encountered people holding up “the standard bpms” protest when things didn’t go the way they liked, and frankly, they were politely ignored at best. The session and performance field has a broader valid horizon of possibilities, metrically speaking, than do the parameters of actual dancing situations.
That said, I think it’s always important to play as if you were playing for dancers, whatever actual speed you’re playing at. Steady’s what counts.
This is coming from a classical non-flute background, but seems to still work for me with ITM.
When I am learning a tune or piece, I first try to just hack through it until I have all the notes under my fingers. Then I work with a metronome running slow enough that I can play it all, work on phrasing, breathing etc. Then I push the speed until it falls apart. Isolate the bits that are breaking and work on them slowly, then push them until they break again.
Then try again putting it all together at a workable speed, with the metronome running slow enough that I can play it all, working on phrasing, breathing etc. Then I push the speed until it falls apart… Repeat as necessary.
This is not something that works in one practice session, but over days and weeks. I always try to end with “success”, meaning, I end up trying to play the piece the last time at a tempo where I can put it all together.
In terms of playing “up to speed”, I find that reels are the toughest (the metronome setting for dance reels is VERY fast, isn’t it?). What has helped me recently, and relates to something I was taught in my classical lessons, is to play reels emphasizing the back beats, 2 and 4, instead of the usual 1 and 3, e.g. one-ee-AND-ah two-ee-AND-ah. I got the idea from watching this John Skelton youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr-qOnu1M-4. At 37 seconds in, he’s tapping his foot ON THE BACK BEATS and plays the reels with a lot of back beat swing.
I think this helps to be more solid on reels and thus be able to play them faster because it raises one’s awareness of the notes being played and when they’re being played, instead of unconsciously skipping through the notes in between the major emphasized notes on 1 and 3.
Great clip from John Skelton there. Lovely stuff. However, I can’t understand where you’re coming from. He taps his foot pretty much consistently on the 1st and 3rd beats of each bar, and those are the ones he emphasises in his playing. Where are you hearing it differently?
Meanwhile, on-topic, I would say that the way to learn to play fast is to carry on doing what people have said to do, ie learn to play slow. I think trying to play with a metronome set on a fast setting may well be counter-productive. You tend to find that, where people have tried to do this in order to speed themselves up, what happens is that their timing goes completely and, without them realising it, they end up always trying to catch up with the beat that they’re never quite hitting. In my opinion, that method is very unlikely to help. Sometimes, you can hear whe people have used it, and it’s not nice.
