How to develop lightning speed, precision and power
The pursuit of speed on any instrument is a common desire amongst musicians. There is a great deal of material written on what to practice, which exercises to choose etc. But very little written on exactly how to achieve high levels of speed and technical prowess without injuring oneself or giving up early on due to plateauing (not being able to go faster than a given speed).
There are essentially two areas that need to be addressed in the pursuit of power, endurance and speed.
Intensity and Speed
Firstly, intensity. The biggest problem with how people practice is that they do not practice at the same level of intensity at which they wish to perform. Intensity in this instance is a combination of volume and speed. In order to reach maximum intensity without injury a very gradual approach must be taken. The number one reason people fail at this part is lack of patience. They start too fast and put the speed up way too quickly and as a result they stall very quickly. This leads to rapid de-moralisation and ultimately quitting. In order to allow your muscles the time necessary to adapt to the new stresses being placed on them it is necessary to start at a very slow speed. If you are a novice, 40 b.p.m. is plenty. If you are an advanced player, 110 is a good place to start. A good rule of thumb is to find your maximum speed for a given exercise and halve it. This will initially seem too easy, but these exercises become very intense very quickly.
In addition, you must increase the tempo very gradually over time. Increasing more than 2 b.p.m. per practice session will again lead to early stalling and de-moralisation. Patience is the key. For some exercises, 1b.p.m. per session will become necessary. As the exercises become more intense the time between tempo increases becomes wider. Initially, you put the speed up once per session. Then once per week, once per month and once every three months. This may seem slow initially, but if you practice 3 times per week for twelve weeks this will yield in increase of 72 b.p.m over a twelve week period. There will be minimal risk of injury and the speed will be controlled.
The pursuit of speed on any instrument is a common desire amongst musicians. There is a great deal of material written on what to practice, which exercises to choose etc. But very little written on exactly how to achieve high levels of speed and technical prowess without injuring oneself or giving up early on due to plateauing (not being able to go faster than a given speed).
There are essentially two areas that need to be addressed in the pursuit of power, endurance and speed.
Intensity and Speed
Firstly, intensity. The biggest problem with how people practice is that they do not practice at the same level of intensity at which they wish to perform. Intensity in this instance is a combination of volume and speed. In order to reach maximum intensity without injury a very gradual approach must be taken. The number one reason people fail at this part is lack of patience. They start too fast and put the speed up way too quickly and as a result they stall very quickly. This leads to rapid de-moralisation and ultimately quitting. In order to allow your muscles the time necessary to adapt to the new stresses being placed on them it is necessary to start at a very slow speed. If you are a novice, 40 b.p.m. is plenty. If you are an advanced player, 110 is a good place to start. A good rule of thumb is to find your maximum speed for a given exercise and halve it. This will initially seem too easy, but these exercises become very intense very quickly.
In addition, you must increase the tempo very gradually over time. Increasing more than 2 b.p.m. per practice session will again lead to early stalling and de-moralisation. Patience is the key. For some exercises, 1b.p.m. per session will become necessary. As the exercises become more intense the time between tempo increases becomes wider. Initially, you put the speed up once per session. Then once per week, once per month and once every three months. This may seem slow initially, but if you practice 3 times per week for twelve weeks this will yield in increase of 72 b.p.m over a twelve week period. There will be minimal risk of injury and the speed will be controlled.