Learning to Crawl Through "After You've Gone"

When I was a kid (and a teenager… and honestly even into my twenties), my greatest temptation at the piano was speed.

If there was a run, I wanted it faster. If there were sparkling sixteenth notes, I wanted them to blur. I loved pieces like Mozart’s Sonata in A Minor (K. 310) and Schubert's Op. 90, No. 2 because they gave me an excuse to race. I could play fast, or at least I thought I could. And I was more than happy to demonstrate that fact.

The problem was that fast and good are not the same thing.

Back then, my teachers would say things like, “If you can’t play it at 60, you can’t play it at 120.” I nodded. Then I went home and promptly practiced at 120.

What I didn’t understand at the time was that playing fast before something is secure doesn’t save time. It adds time. Or, more accurately, it wastes it. I would “learn” a piece, but it was never really solid—never fully mapped in my head or dependable in my hands. If you’d asked me where the harmony was going, or why that note was there, I know I couldn’t have told you. I was skating across the surface, playing without understanding, without foundation.

Now I know better. (Mostly.)

Research backs this up, by the way. I've learned that slow practice is one of the most commonly used and most effective strategies for mastering difficult passages. Slowing down helps with rhythmic accuracy, coordination, and long-term retention. It’s not glamorous, but it works. Just ask Vladimir Horowitz, who was known for isolating small passages and working on them with slow, painstaking deliberation.

Dr. Molly Gebrian writes about this from a brain perspective. When we slow down, we give our brains time to notice what’s actually happening—how our fingers move, how the harmony shifts, the points of tension and release. That focused attention builds stronger, clearer neural pathways. If you practice sloppily and quickly, you're essentially wiring sloppiness. If you practice deliberately and accurately, you are wiring accuracy.

Here is a little clip of me playing the last few measures of “After You’ve Gone.” Very slowly. Ridiculously slowly. And still probably too fast because I pause a few times.

But still, no metronome yet. That will come. Right now I’m mapping. I’m thinking about the harmonic analysis I’ve already done, watching and feeling the finger shapes, lining up the syncopations. I’m trying to make sure my hands understand where they are going and why.

The ending of this arrangement contains the most technically demanding material, so I decided to start my hands-together work there, and I'll work backwards through the piece, measure by measure. I started with the final run, which is still tricky. But every slow pass through it makes it feel less chaotic and more predictable.

My February goal is to be able to play hands-together for the whole piece. Not polished or up to tempo. Just hands-together and somewhat coherent.

If by February 28 this slow crawl has turned into something that sounds like an actual song, I’ll happily share that on the PWJ page (and here). If not, everyone may get another slow-motion installment. Either way, the work underneath it will be real, and the music will be solid.

I can't wait. (There I go, wanting to rush things again!)