It doesn’t matter whether you are a dancer or dance instructor, musician or music teacher; there are amazing benefits when you slow down music you are trying to learn.
When learning a dance routine or a piece of music it makes a lot of sense to start slow, until you are perfect (or close to it), and then build up speed until you can confidently perform it at the desired speed. It can even be beneficial to go a little faster than required – then, when you actually perform at the correct speed of the original track, you will find it a breeze.
By starting your practice slow you “program” the song or dance routine into your brain and by the repetition of the action you will easily build brain “muscle memory”.
It is far better to ingrain correct action, rather than entrench a bunch of mistakes, in your brain right from the beginning.
Here are 4 Reasons to Slow Down Music for practice.
1 – Makes Learning Easier.
1 – Makes Learning Easier.Let’s say you have a dance routine or musical piece that you are trying to learn but the track is a little too fast to either get your feet or fingers around. It may be difficult or it just may be plain fast. By slowing down the music you can easily learn the routine and then once confident you can gradually get it up to “speed”.
2 – Makes Learning More Fun.
How frustrating is it when you just can’t seem to get the routine down pat? No matter how hard you try it can easily put you off practicing. But if you slow down the music by even a small amount it can be the difference between fun and frustration, success and failure, winning or losing, being a star or being a schmuck, getting ahead or being left behind.
3 – Fix Specific Sections Of The Routine.
There is often just a section of a routine that you can have problems with. The best thing is to isolate that section, slow down the music and go over and over it. Build “Muscle memory” correctly.
4 – Don’t Work Harder Than You Have To.
You have a choice in anything you do, do it the hard way or the easy way. In the very short term it may take up a little more of your time to learn the routine or music at a slower pace but in the long run you won’t have to waste your precious time – and brain power – fixing and re learning your errors at a later date.
Simply Put, slowing down a song or track will make you a far better dancer, musician or teacher and I am sure you can see how helpful it can be to slow down music and fix mistakes at the beginning of your (or your students) learning path, and then little by little building up tempo.
I spent hours and hours of frustration trying to find out how to easily slow down music. Eventually I stumbled upon a simple solution. Simple when you know how – that is.
You’ll be surprised how easy it can be once you know how. I can now slow down a song and save it to my computer for later use in 26 seconds – and so can you.
