Trouble slowing things down

[Romp]

In his article "Fixing Mistakes and Improving Problem Areas" David Carr states "It makes sense that if you can't play it perfectly at a slow speed, you have no hope when you speed it up."

Now, I know what he's getting at and I've learned by playing perfectly at a slow speed, and that's how I teach my students. But, I have found that when I slow something way down (such as a pentatonic shape or a 3NPS scale) that I make far more mistakes than when I'm playing it at performance speed.

I can play all five boxes of the pentatonic at around 120bpm pretty comfortably and with few, if any, clams. But if I slow it down to something like 40bpm, I find myself continually second-guessing the notes and choosing the wrong ones. It's like, if I have enough time to think about it, I overthink it and screw myself up.

Does this sound familiar to anyone, and is there a technique or something I can do to fix it? Or is it just a matter of me not having all the notes of the fretboard memorized? (Everything seems to come back to that when I'm having trouble.:mad: )

[Megus]

Hey Romp , it sounds all too familiar since i'm facing the same problem, but i'm improving as i go slow with things... this is a technical problem that occours on any level of musicianship, and with any instrument...
In my experience, i started practicing piano, and as opposed to my guitar skill, I can't really "make fast runs" on the keys, so i can't afford the mistake of running ahead without making sure i'm set on the slow side.
Slow practice, though usually on the boring side, just feels very rewarding if you keep up with it.

So yeah, you have to keep playing slowly, I do it because im unsatisified with my accuracy of play, so think of it this way: If the root of a tree is stout and deep, it won't yield to a mild wind at the top.

[Romp]

And I completely understand what you're saying. Unfortunately, the axiom "practice makes perfect" isn't entirely true and I've found that it's not that simple. It's more accurate to say "practice makes permanent" and I'm finding that I'm not getting better when I practice slowly. I continue to make the same mistakes repeatedly and I fear that my hands are getting used to making the mistakes since I can't stop them from happening, no matter how slow I go.

[ashc]

I often have the same problems. Playing arpeggios really slow is twice as difficult as at a moderate pace.. like you said almost time to go and change to the wrong string or something. But, mostly I have this problem with repetoire, 100 times worse than with scales, chords, arps, exercises etc. it's really hard not to try going at performance speed with songs.

I don't have the answer, but I think one thing is that it's hard to play slow on familiar ground - same old scale shapes and so on. So it can help to try something completely new thats a bit out of reach and work up to that being real steady along the way.

[Schooligo]

practice doesn't make perfect(the reality of life is that since we are human we will make mistakes ;) )
it's better to say "practice makes better!"

and proper practice really makes better,

and one strategy of proper practice is to practice a piece of music, etude, etc at a slow enough tempo that you can play it "perfectly" consistently,

focus on playing a musical song, etude, etc at a speed that you can play it "perfectly" then gradually increase the tempo.

focus on the synchronization of both hands, focus on your tone, focus on the rhythm, focus on string squeeks that you don't want, focus enough so you are not distracted and really concentrating on what you are trying to accomplish, etc.

it is not easy because to do that requires a great amount of concentration and focus,

but if you want to be musician who has good tone(among other things) this is one of the things you have to do.