What’s on the Practising Slowly poster
The rule, 3 worked examples, and the mistake everyone makes.
- Practise at the fastest tempo you can play perfectly — then raise it by about 5%.
- clean at X bpm → try X + 5 → if it breaks, return to X
- Clean at 60, fails at 80 = Work at 63, then 66
- It falls apart at speed = Drop 20 bpm, not 5
- Ending a session = Finish at a tempo you can play cleanly
- Common mistake: Playing it fast and hoping accuracy follows → Playing it perfectly an…
Slow practice is not the same passage played slowly. It is the passage played with attention that speed does not allow.
Questions about the Practising Slowly poster
- What’s on the Practising Slowly poster?
- The rule, 3 worked examples, and the mistake everyone makes. Practise at the fastest tempo you can play perfectly — then raise it by about 5%.; clean at X bpm → try X + 5 → if it breaks, return to X; Clean at 60, fails at 80 = Work at 63, then 66; It falls apart at speed = Drop 20 bpm, not 5; Ending a session = Finish at a tempo you can play cleanly; Common mistake: Playing it fast and hoping accuracy follows → Playing it perfectly an…. Slow practice is not the same passage played slowly. It is the passage played with attention that speed does not allow.
- Who is the Practising Slowly poster for?
- Practising Slowly belongs to the Music section rather than to a school year, because music is not something one grade owns. Anyone learning ear & practice can pin it up — a beginner, a student mid-course, or someone revising years later.
- When should you use the Practising Slowly poster?
- Slow enough that a mistake is impossible. If mistakes are possible, it is not slow enough. A wall chart earns its place by being glanceable from where the work is happening, so Practising Slowly belongs on the wall where that music work actually happens, within glancing distance, rather than filed away.
- What other posters go with Practising Slowly?
- Hearing Chords, Interval Ear Training and Memorising Music sit alongside Practising Slowly in the Music section. Printed together they make a wall rather than a single sheet, which is how a reference set actually gets used.Hearing ChordsInterval Ear TrainingMemorising Music
- Is the Practising Slowly poster free to download and print?
- Yes. Practising Slowly downloads as a free PDF with no account, no email and no watermark, like everything else in the Music section. Print as many copies as you like for a home, a classroom, a library or a tutoring group; reselling the file is the only thing the licence rules out.Read the licence
- What size does the Practising Slowly poster print at?
- Practising Slowly is a vector PDF laid out for US Letter, and prints on A4 with Fit to page — the same file, no separate download. Because every mark on it is drawn rather than photographed, it stays sharp enlarged to A3, A2 or A1 at a copy shop. Colour carries emphasis only, so a greyscale print of Practising Slowly loses nothing.Printing guide
Related posters
Charts that sit alongside Practising Slowly on the same wall.
Browse every Music poster, or start from the full catalogue.