Finger Soccer

You have a new song that you really look forward to learning. You have played it through a few times SLOWLY (because I know you listened to my advice from that other post, where I talked about how much more important it is to be steady than to be fast). You love this song, and you are ready to get to work. What do you do next?


I usually allow myself to play my new song through frontwards again, but this time I have to do a number of things while playing. Firstly, I slow down even more, and I count out loud. (Okay, I count under my breath, because I always feel demented when I’m counting aloud. Also, my family is usually at home. But I do make actual sounds with my voice.)

 

A group of kids with numbers.
Dawn Hudson, "Counting Kids" License: CC0 Public Domain


Secondly, I will plan to stop and start a little, and I may repeat a phrase here and there before continuing. I write in a few note names if there is a section with a lot of leger lines or a note that I keep playing wrong. I write in finger numbers in sections where my hands are moving around a lot or where things feel awkward.


Many of these sections will become practice loops or parts of my daily warm-up. This helps me smooth out the rough spots and pull them forward to the level of the easier parts of the piece, kind of like running a little soccer drill on my keyboard. The thought of my fingers learning soccer makes me really happy!


https://www.aguidinglife.co.uk/2014/06/infinite-pleasure-with-finger-or-haribo.htmlThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
License: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0, aguidinglife.co.uk

In searching for images, I found out that finger soccer really exists! Who knew?


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