TOPIC: Practicing slowly

I recently was able to talk to a few session guitar players out of Nashville, Tenn. I asked them how they learned there craft so well. They all responded with playing slow, the same as the Fretmentor has been saying. One guy said by playing slowly when learning a new song or technique you are teaching your muscles to do what you want,and breaking the piece you are working on into small measures is the best way to learn the whole song. Jimmy Galloway from Atlanta, Georgia said it best, " you can eat an elephant with a bunch of little bites"

I've been to 5-6 different instructors over years of trying to learn guitar and the one thing (other than PLAY every day) is to PLAY SLOWLY...do it right, the speed will come.
Guess it is natural to all of us to want to go F A S T.

Jimmy Galloway most have one huge freezer....because even with little bites it would take a long time....guess that's also true of building speed....so, small bites and tons of patience...

Slow is good. With a metronome is better.

I agree. Whenever I am having trouble learning a new song, it is usually because I am trying it too fast. Sometimes I need to play so slow I hardly recognize the song, but it has worked so far.

I'm with Lawrence on this one. I've read interviews in Acoustic Guitar magazine, and others, where the musicians always encourage slow playing. I had a friend who didn't know squat about music theory or scales, and he could play Van Halen's "Runnin with the Devil" perfect, only because he got the tab from a guitar magazine, learned the chords, and wore out his cassette player breaking the song down. I asked him how he could emulate EVH's playing, and he said break it down, and slow it down. He even learned EVH's wild lead in Atomic Punk with all that crazy finger tapping.
I think sometimes we are so engrossed about learning to play a tune (or anything) that we forget we have to crawl before we run. And rightfully so, to do otherwise doesn't serve a piece justice.
This is why i appreciate Dave's style of teaching, it's about accuracy and not speed, especially with these bluegrass tunes, which we all know are played at smokin' speeds often above 120 BPM.