"Take that bit you are trying to learn.... Set your metronome to an ungodly low speed. Slow enough to make your bones ache. Then learn to play to that tempo. When you get that down, move the metronome up a notch - a small notch. Wash, rinse, repeat."
I am taking bass guitar lessons. My instructor takes the "choose a song and we will wrap the first few lessons around it" approach. So I chose 'Money' by Pink Floyd. It sounded nice and easy. What could go wrong?
My fingers didn't know how to move like that.
Then I remembered: "Slower is faster."
40 beats / minute. It took a few minutes, but........
Cool - got it.
40 goes to 46 goes to ... 50 - 56 - 60
This took about 20 minutes.
Somewhere around 60 I decided to see what the real tempo was.
120
fuck
So, in an act of bravado, I cranked that metronome to 120 and let her loose.
I hit more than I missed. It was good enough you can actually tell what I was playing. And - this is the kicker - there was space in this for me to see where I needed to tweak things and get a better sound.
..and it got better as I went on....
Slower is faster, people. Slower really is faster.
