Speed.

Speed is an old companion for anyone who has studied an instrument. I use the neutral word “companion” because it can be a enemy or an friend. It usually starts as the former and ends up being the latter. Or, at least, that’s the way the progression should go. I would admit , though, that speed is also a trap, something ones falls into and cannot get out of easily. They are plenty of time when I fly through a difficult exercise and I don’t want to. Such is life.

I think the reason we speed up is because it is a manifestation of many different emotions. It can be the signs of being nervous, which is very common. It can be the sign of too much pride (when you do a solo and you really want to show the audience what you’re capable of), which, in a way is a stem of nervousness. It can also be the sign of negligence if you zip through your notes like a teenager mumbles through his word. It could be simply because you are in a hurry and all of the sudden the song from Titanic is going at the pace of I’m walking on sunshine. It could be because your body isn’t trained to run at that clip and will actually make you go faster (strange but true! This weird phenomenon happens everyday in my studio.). It could be because you’re executing a piece that you’ve always heard play at a million miles per hour and you do the same. It could be because you’re trying to understand the flow of the tune and it needs a certain velocity. It could be because you haven’t tried your piece with a metronome. It could be because you’ve got a train to catch. The list goes on and on but I need to finish this paragraph.

I can honestly say that of all the reasons I’ve just mentioned, I’ve experience every single one of them. Sometimes dreadfully, sometimes with delight. I’ll even add a reason all of my own: I speed up because… I can!

I present speed here mostly as an enemy and that’s not fair. It isn’t. Rushing through in music is so common, I would dare to say such a platitude as this: it is human. Even in classical music, the sacred monument of all things grand and played just right, even there, they rush. I can’t find a Tchaikovsky concerto for piano number one played at a slow enough pace so that I can understand what the piano player is doing. And there are thousand of interpretations of this very concerto out there.

Here is the conclusion I propose: yes, we speed up, it seems unavoidable. But can we all agree that we shouldn’t if it impact the music negatively.