Simple Speed Training



For the last couple of weeks I’ve been working on a challenging piece of music. I’m trying to increase my metronome tempo and keep my playing tight.

I’m making a particular mistake with my timing and want to make sure I really nail it, so I came up with the following training protocol:

  • 3 repetitions at tempo
  • 3 in a row at -12bpm
  • 3 repetitions at tempo
  • 3 in a row at -9bpm
  • 3 repetitions at tempo
  • 3 in a row at -6bpm
  • 3 repetitions at tempo
  • 3 in a row at -3bpm

where “tempo” is the speed where your playing starts to fall apart.

How this works

When trying to increase our speed at something, we need to do two things:

  • Train ourselves to practice correctly, to train the muscle memory
  • Push our ability to handle higher tempos

This protocol achieves both of those things.

When doing 3 repetitions at tempo, we have three attempts to play it, then we move to the next step. We are not trying to get three perfect repetitions.

When working at -10bpm, -7bpm etc, we are practising at those tempos until we get three perfect repetitions. This may take a few minutes. If you are taking 100s of repetitions to get three perfect attempts, you’ve not been honest with yourself about the tempo you’re working at!

Additionally, by changing tempos like this, you are forcing yourself to stay focussed - it makes the practice more interesting and focussed than trying the same tempo 1000 times.

Worked example

Here’s an example from my practice this week:

  • 3 repetitions at 103bpm
  • 3 in a row at 91bpm
  • 3 repetitions at 103bpm
  • 3 in a row at 94bpm
  • 3 repetitions at 103bpm
  • 3 in a row at 97bpm
  • 3 repetitions at 103bpm
  • 3 in a row at 100bpm
  • 3 repetitions at 103bpm

When doing this, I find it helpful to write my tempos out on paper and cross them off as I work through them.

You can see an example of that here:

An example of using a metronome ladder
The tempos I used for a metronome ladder practice session. You can see I increased the ladder speed and then decreased. Do not be afraid to go back down - we are always after accuracy

At the end of the ladder, you’ll find one of two situations is true:

  • You can now play cleanly at tempo
  • You cannot play cleanly at tempo

If you can now play the section cleanly, well done! Increase your tempo by 3-6bpm and repeat the ladder.

If you cannot play the section cleanly, repeat the ladder.

Wrapping up

This is a nice way to improve consistency and accuracy when pushing yourself to higher tempos. I’ve found this to be useful for working with smaller sections of music - a few bars.