Slowly But Surely, Part 1

Video 1 Mozart K333-1

The video included in this post is of me practicing the first movement of the Mozart Piano Sonata No. 13, K.333. Why so slowly you might ask?  To find out, let’s discuss one of the great masters, Sergei Rachmaninoff.

In his book, Speaking of Pianists, author and pianist Abram Chasins gives us a wonderful glimpse into Rachmaninoff’s techniques for practicing.  Chasins writes he arrived at Rachmaninoff’s studio very early for a lesson in the 1930s and heard someone practicing a Chopin étude so slowly that he thought surely it was a student, and not a very good one.  He calculated that the “student” must have been taking twenty seconds to play each bar, at a pace that made the work almost unrecognizable.  This went on for more than an hour.

 When he was finally admitted to the studio he discovered however that the person playing was Rachmaninoff himself!

 Rachmaninoff believed that this kind of slow practicing was valuable for four reasons:

1.   Learning without error
He believed that by practicing slowly you practiced correctly and did not learn wrong notes.

 2.   Greater musical awareness
Learning slowly makes is easier to concentrate on elements like fingering, phrasing, and dynamics.

 3.   Increased muscle memory
By taking time to practice a piece, the muscles have an opportunity to build automatic responses, while also aiding muscle memory.

 4.   Isolating problem passages
Working slowly on a piece one can also highlight any potential difficulties, and work them out before they become problematic.

To see this system at work for me, please compare the video in this post, to my actual performance of this movement in my blog post of August 18, 2025.

Be sure to let me know what you think of Rachmaninoff’s ideas and the process of practicing slowly in the Comment.  Thanks so much!

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