Slow is More

[Jody Kruskal]

On Youtube, Master Anglo player Big Old Grizzly has this to say about Rusty Gully Slow...

 

"Always good fun to really put the foot on the brakes and just enjoy the music. I love doing this at sessions, taking a lively jig and hauling it back to a slow waltz. Fun looking at the faces all vaguely recognising the tune and seeing who will be the first to cotton on and start playing along. Same thing works for a lot of polkas, but can involve more player inginuity. Keep it up Jody ... this world needs slowing down."

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

It's always difficult to know what or why a tune is given at a particular tempo; I suppose it cones down to the original thought in the mind of the composer, and preference. But, yes many times a tune that may be conceived of  as fast can sound just as good played slowly..and indeed visa versa🌝.

I believe that Beethoven once scribbled a tune down in his many notebooks, to be played fast, and later changed tempo to slower in the finished work, realising its value as a slower piece of music🌝

Edited April 17 by SIMON GABRIELOW

[David Barnert]

5 minutes ago, SIMON GABRIELOW said:

It's always difficult to know what or why a tune is given at a particular tempo; I suppose it cones down to the original thought in the mind of the composer, and preference. But, yes many times a tune that may be conceived of  as fast can sound just as good played slowly..and indeed visa versa🌝.

I believe that Beethoven once scribbled a tune down in his many notebooks, to be played fast, and later changed tempo to slower in the finished work, realising its value as a slower piece of music🌝

 

Beethoven was working in the early days of the mechanical metronome, which was invented by a friend of his, Johann Maelzel. Unfortunately, back then it was difficult to calibrate them correctly, and many musicologists agree that it is likely that Beethoven’s metronome was not accurate, hence his tempo markings are to be taken “with a grain of salt.”

[Clive Thorne]

On 4/11/2025 at 8:10 PM, Jody Kruskal said:

BTW, I'm playing a Jefferies 38 button G/D Anglo concertina

An extremely large Jefferies 38 button G/D Anglo concertina judging by the video!!

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

Often playing slow musical pieces is just as challenging as fast stuff.  You have to maintain the interest throughout when the gaps between, or pauses inbetween,  the notes is more noticeable.

[Ed Nardell]

Music teachers say many things - sometimes contradictory advice - but one bit of consistent advice I've heard over the years is to practice slowly.  So, another advantage of slow playing when learning a song or an instrument is time for the neural synapses to form into musical memory.  Playing slowly means fewer mistakes and fewer false connections that need to be unlearned.  AI attributes this concept as such: 

The quote, "you cannot practice too slowly," is often attributed to Itzhak Perlman, though he also said "If you practice something slowly, you forget it slowly. If you practice something fast, you forget it fast.". Another quote emphasizing slow practice is from Camille Saint-Saens, who said, "One must practice slowly, then more slowly, and finally slowly.". These quotes highlight the importance of deliberate, slow practice for developing strong musical skills and memory

 

This is a different point than the appreciation of form and harmonies that other allude to, but for me, an equally important part of slow playing is the irony of faster learning. 

Ed

[Jody Kruskal]

I say yes! 

 

A few years ago when I began this Slow Is More project I wrote a manifesto of sorts. My initial post included the first two paragraphs, here's the whole thing:

 

Slow is More

When playing for contra dancers, the tunes have to go at a right proper clip. Speedy, but not too fast and certainly not too slow. Just right. The Goldilocks Tempo. At a dance, I am always playing Anglo concertina with a good fiddler and some solid rhythm section, with a combination of bass, piano and guitar.

 

However, when there are no dancers around... I can play these same traditional tunes by myself, as fast or as slow as I like. For this project, I’ve decided that SLOW IS MORE. I’m going to slow the tempo way down and even stretch the extremes of tasty slowness... all in a solo concertina recording.

 

I recently had the opportunity to teach a hundred of my favorite fiddle tunes, by ear, to a friend. We played almost every night during the plague. Me on concertina and her on autoharp on an amazing application called JamKazam, then later Jamulous. Distance playing together over the internet actually works.

 

Teaching by ear that way requires very slow playing. The tune gets learned on the fly through repetition. I grew to like those relaxed teaching tempos and started noticing that some tunes responded to the slow treatment better than others. Here, I’ve collected the best of the bunch. Tunes robust enough to stand proud in their naked slowness.

 

With the right tune, slow playing reveals the music clearly in bold relief and allows us to distinctly hear the dynamic interplay between melody, harmony and rhythm with an exquisite focus on the minute and granular details of expression and articulation.

 

In short; slow play is good for teaching and learning, but getting slowed also sounds super good all on its own, capable of transforming standard dance tunes into majestic anthems.

 

Without the dancers these exquisite dance tunes are set free. Playing them slow, allows the ear to better savor the complex interplay between the musical elements of these specially selected, slow-friendly and ancient dance tunes.

 

All played here on the solo Anglo concertina as part of my ongoing SLOW IS MORE tempo research project.

[Jody Kruskal]

Here is another tune that sounds great slowed way down... Grand Picnic!

 

 

[David Barnert]

I always wondered where the name of your band came from.

[Jody Kruskal]

Abe's Retreat SLOW