AKA Tempo Issues
“The tempo is the suitcase. If the suitcase is too small, everything is completely wrinkled. If the tempo is too fast, everything becomes so scrambled you can’t understand it.”
Daniel Barenboim
Do not confuse the tempo issues here with the beat and rhythm difficulties in Part 3. Fevers and Chills affect purely the speed at which students practice. Students with tempo issues do not have trouble understanding or producing rhythms accurately, and they can have a good sense of the beat. Fever and chill viruses usually spread to all assignments equally, and can wreak havoc on many other areas of students’ playing, such as technique, note accuracy and, indeed, rhythm accuracy.
One of the key things that most students suffering with fever have failed to fully grasp is the difference between practice and performance. These students want or expect their practice to sound like a recording on the first try, and they do not understand practice time as the work that goes in to achieving the performance standard. Similarly, pianists with a chill have overlooked the work they need to put in in the practice room to get a piece up to tempo; they suppose it will fall into place quite naturally rather than being a conscious effort.
In this portion of The Piano Practice Physician’s Handbook I will lay out some of the most widely spread viruses and some simple, homemade remedies for their effective cure. Be on the lookout for early symptoms of these maladies, and your studio will be full of steadily paced, efficient practicers.