Here’s an interesting facet of slow practice: after you have a piece very well learned – say at 75-80% performance tempo – go back and do slow practice at around 25-40% tempo, from memory only. There’s this tempo at which, any faster and you’re fine…but slow it down a bit more and it feels completely foreign! It’s a powerful tool to challenge our rote muscle memory, and tests whether we really KNOW the piece or not. Make sure to keep all the lifts, rotations and gestures in proportion.
