Playing Faster 2

4 games to try

In Playing Faster 1 we talked about priorities. Notes or beats? If you want to play faster you will do best to focus on the beat and the beat notes, rather than on simply getting all the notes.

Below are four games to help you play a tune faster. It's best to do these on small, manageable parts of a tune, not the whole thing. Start by working only on a phrase, or if need be, a half-phrase. A phrase is roughly two measures — four beats in marches, reels, jigs; eight beats in strathspeys or in hornpipes played in 4/4. (Phrases often include pickup notes leading into them, and may not include the pickup notes leading into the following phrase. You might find it helpful to make use of my fiddle tune learning website at fiddle-online, which always marks out phrases with colorful boxes, and has self-repeating audio for each phrase.)

Game 1

Since the beat, timing, and tempo are established by the bow, the bow needs to be in charge if you want to play up to speed. Take out the left hand entirely. Play the phrase up to speed only with the bow, making sure you bow consistently, with a good emphasis (usually downbow) on the beats, and play on the correct strings. Just leave out the left hand and play only open strings. Once you can play a phrase or half-phrase up to speed using only the bow, you'll find it surprisingly easy to add in the left hand notes. Don't be fooled, though -- it's not so easy immediately to play with the correct bowing and timing on the correct strings, but that's going to be the heart of the tune, and well worth trying. (Note that if you're going to slur two eighth notes, they will sound like a quarter note if you're only using the bow on an open string.)

Game 2

Play from one beat to the next, starting with one beat note and ending on the next beat note. For example, in a reel with all eighth notes, you start on the first note of a measure, play all four notes of that beat, and finish on the fifth note, which is the second beat note of the measure. If unsure of the beats, try listening to the tune and tapping your foot to find the beats — reels should all be written in 2/2 or cut time, but are sometimes printed in 4/4, which is misleading — they always have 2 beats in a bar, as do jigs. Do this up to tempo. It’s a short enough pattern that even beginners can play up to speed from one beat to the next. Be sure to stop on the beat note, though. The two beat notes are your bookends. No points given for throwing in an extra note or two!

It can help if you notice the pattern for that little group of notes — it might be part of a scale, arpeggio, broken thirds, etc. By playing this short selection of notes quickly, you can think about them as a group, as one thing, instead of a bunch of notes you have to play in the right order. You need to play from beat note to the next faster than you can think about individual notes.

Try it three times — no need to overdo, just make sure your bow reaches the second beat note on time. Then do the same with the next beat — start on the beat note you ended on, and play to the following beat note. Then you can sew these two beats together. Launch each beat with the correct beat note in time, and cut yourself some slack if you miss a nonbeat note. Soon you'll have the whole measure up to tempo, and if you try this with the next measure, you'll have a whole phrase down (often the first phrase of a tune is the same as the third, so you might have learned half a part already!), and you’ll be playing faster and more musically than if you try to think or play or memorize all those individual notes one after another.

Game 3

Forgetting tempo for a moment, learn just the four beat notes of a phrase — the first notes of each beat in that phrase. Then try to play those beat notes in time (which will feel slow), and try filling in your own notes to take you from one beat note to the next. If you are playing a reel, you’ll bow each beat note in a phrase with a downbow.

Try this idea with a jig — the four beat notes in each phrase will be bowed down, up, down, up, because there are 3 eighth notes in each beat, an odd number, so each beat note is bowed in a different direction. Now create a pathway from one beat to the next. For example, if the first beat note is an open A, and the second beat note is 3d finger on the A string, you could get from one to the other by going up a scale: 0,1,2,3. In other situations just repeat a note or play two notes between the beat notes in order to get from one to the other, or just play two random notes to keep the bow going and arrive at the next beat note on time.

Try to play a whole phrase this way, making sure the beat notes are correct, on the correct bow, and in time (whatever tempo you want -- this is not yet about playing fast), but invent nonbeat notes that take you from one beat to the next. If you've heard the tune enough, you'll be surprised to discover that the notes you make up are likely to be the right ones for the tune! But that doesn't matter. Once you can get through a phrase with the right number of notes and the correct beat notes, take a good look or listen to how the tune really goes. You might have already got it or most of it, but if not, you'll appreciate the choices the composer made to make your way from one beat note to the next, and you're not likely to forget it. You'll want to learn the right notes, but by focusing so strongly on knowing the beat notes, the nonbeat notes will be very easy to fill in, and you'll find it much easier than you thought to play this phrase up to speed. As you start sewing phrases together, you’ll be playing the whole tune up to speed too.

Game 4

Play with a recording of the tune but play only the first phrase, let the recording play the next phrase, then come in with the third phrase, let the recording play the fourth, and so on. Try to keep up with at least the beat notes and let the others go if need be (sometimes easier said than done but this is a very good skill for improving your playing). You'll start to fill in the other notes as you get more familiar with the tune, and you'll have time between phrases to collect yourself and be ready for the next one.

Then swap phrases -- listen to the first and play the second; listen to the third and play the fourth. (Don't wait until you have the phrases down pat before swapping, just keep trying.) This will give you a great feel for the structure of the tune. Often the first phrase is the same as the third phrase. The second and fourth phrases often start the same but end differently.

Always aim to get the beat notes right and on time. Because you’re playing with a recording, you won't have time to second-guess yourself on the nonbeat notes; you'll just have to try your best, and above all, you'll have to engage your ears!

Whenever playing with a recording, it’s best to use an earbud or earphone in one ear. This way you can clearly hear the recording you’re trying to play with, and also clearly hear yourself. Otherwise you’ll be practicing playing with someone and ignoring them!

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Any time spent with these learning games will help you keep your bow in charge and on time, even if in small segments, and by doing this, it will be far easier to play faster, and more musically. You don't have to do these games with a whole tune to get a lot out of it. For example, Game 2 can help even if you only try it for the length of one phrase. It's like exercising muscles — once you get them to kick in, they keep trying and helping.

Your goal will be to play up to tempo. Never aim to play as fast as you can — that only teaches you to be nervous and sloppy while playing music! Not a good feeling.

Know and feel what tempo you want to use, and make sure your bow gives you the beat notes in time. And what tempo are you supposed to use? We’ll talk about that next time!