Slow Practice

I recently came across a quote from pianist Palavia Mahidhare that stopped me in my tracks: “Fast practicing gives slow results, and slow practicing gives fast results.” She practices 80 percent of her repertoire slowly, and I couldn’t agree more. When you practice slowly, you’re being intentional with every note, every finger movement, every musical phrase. You’re programming your muscle memory accurately from the start. When you finally do play at tempo, your fingers know exactly where they’re going because you’ve trained them carefully and deliberately.