Sometimes people perpetuate issues because of a lack of understanding or a lack of proper instruction. You can imagine their frustration when I bring these issues to their attention and further when they try to fix them only to discover that their fingers want to behave as they’ve been trained.
Technique and Timing are two of the biggest issues. Interestingly, timing is a much more difficult issue to fix than technique. The “simple” fix for technique is “separate, distinct, and sequential”. Once you understand this and execute the fundamentals over and over, it’s pretty difficult to revert back to sloppy technique. I’ve written about this in earlier blog posts.
Timing is something that doesn’t come easily for some people. They consistently miss the mark in terms of precise placement of notes. Comments like “You’re going too fast.” or “Slow down.” only serve to grow frustration and not to correct the problem. The “problem” is that some people only identify with beginning and ending the tune and not with all the “check-points” along the way.
I’m currently working with more than one adult student with timing issues. We’re in the process of retraining mind and body. Let’s refer to today’s image. In exercise #1 we focus on starting on the first beat. Not slightly ahead or slightly behind. The G grace note lands dead-center on the first click of our metronome. Our first step is to set the tempo at about 65 BPM. I know. It’s painfully slow, but this is all about precision and discipline. If you can’t play it properly at 65 BPM you’ll never play it properly at 84 BPM. Over and over I’m having my students play the into E and then nail the G grace note on Low A precisely on the click. And STOP!
Following exercise 1, proceed to exercise #2, where we focus on beats one and two. I have my students play the intro E, the G grace note on the dotted Low A on the first click. Then play the D grace note on the short Low A followed by the E grace note on the low A, which lands precisely on the second click. And STOP! Singing it may sound like “Dum, da-dum”. The two “dums” land on your first and second clicks. Don’t go further until you can place those notes exactly where they belong every time. This is important. I’ll repeat this. DON’T GO FURTHER UNTIL YOU CAN PLACE THOSE NOTES EXACTLY WHERE THEY BELONG EVERY TIME.
Once you have that in good order, proceed to exercise 3. Repeat the process, stopping on the G gracenote on the C. FULL STOP! Land on the C and STOP. Repeat this several times to bake it into mind and body (fingers).
Only after you’re able to play exercise 3 perfectly EVERY TIME should you proceed to exercise 4. Repeat the process, stopping on the G gracenote on the F. Do not open up to the High A. Why? If you do that, you’ll end up shifting your focus and probably playing both notes (F and High A) ahead of the beat. Play the F and STOP.
If you can play the first measure of the tune (exercise 4) with accurate timing, you should be able to do likewise throughout the entire tune. If you find your timing breaks down deeper into the tune, go back and revisit this methodology.
