Iāve been talking with my teacher about tempo a lot lately, because I have developed a tendency to rush that I donāt think was as much of an issue a year ago at this time ā¦. And itās not even that I speed up in slower pieces. Ironically, it;s with a fast piece Iām working on. It has a section, about two pages worth, where the LH and RH play basically entire pages of 16th notes, so the piece is already fast, and then that section is even faster. But when I get to that section, I was speeding up even more. Partly this is a problem bc it means Iām more prone to little mistakes and inaccuracies, but mostly my fingers keep up and I can play it well enough. But flying through that section too fast takes away the more compelling aspects of the piece. So weāve been talking about tempo and how to slow down etc..
He said that thereās some connection in terms of how musical tempo can be influenced by heart rate, so when you perform, if youāre nervous and your heart is pounding, you might find yourself playing faster than usual because of that.
So I was thinking about that and I thought it was a little curious because Iām not performing, I donāt feel nervous when Iām practicing alone and I donāt feel nervous playing in front of my teacher. But I realized that maybe my tendency to rush is connected to how busy I am. This semester, in addition to my normal teaching responsibilities and research projects, I have a few additional tasks I wouldnāt normally do, and I have to give several big talks, two each month in Feb, Mar and Apr. (Feb is already over, yay!) So I have to have kind of this āgo! go! go!ā intensity all the time to get everything done.
But by the time I sit down at the piano at the end of the day, Iāve been āgo! go! go!ā All day long, and I think Iāve been letting that intensity carry over to my piano practice sessions. But I didnāt notice it until after my teacher and I had this long talk about tempo, and I think I especially didnāt notice it with pieces that are already up-tempo, bc theyāre supposed to be fast, so that little faster, rushing bit was less obvious to me.
But lately when I sit down to practice, Iāve been sort of actively trying to slow myself down, slow my brain down, and remind myself that thereās no hurry, no deadlines for these piecesā¦ then I get out my metronome and let the slower beat click out for a few measures worth before I start to practice. Then I turn the metronome off and start to play, and it seems to help me not to speed up or rush.
I've also been playing that 16th note section with the metronome on the whole time, and actually playing with the clicks, feeling myself stay in that ājust rightā tempo, also seems to help calm my heart. Now after about a week of doing that, when I play that without the metronome, Iām not rushing and I can feel myself sort of āin the pocketā of the tempo. And wouldnāt you know it, itās cleaner and more accurate as well.
Itās also kind of a nice reminder that no what what the level of difficulty of a piece weāre working on, some of the core elements are basically always the same, particularly the importance of finding the sweet spot in whatever the tempo is, and really feeling that tempo, and enjoying it rather than flying through.