You know the feeling: you are learning a new song and you get to a passage that’s just too fast for you to get it down. Or you want to learn a great lead break or lick from your favourite guitarist but it’s going too fast for you to pick out all the notes.
If only you could slow it down so you could hear every note and get the timing and phrasing right.
Don’t despair! These days there is a technical solution which can help with just about anything – and it’s technology to the rescue for us here as well.
There is software readily available which will slow down a song or part of a song – without changing the original pitch. So there are two effects:
1. slow the music down to a rate where you can hear – and play along to – all the notes; and
2. keep the music in its original pitch (not sounding like Darth Vader or the Chipmunks!) – this is very important
One such software program is called Audacity. I learned about this software when I was doing my guitar training at Berklee College of Music.
You can download Audacity here. Amazingly – it’s free!
Once you’ve installed the program it’s very simple to use. Just import an mp3 file of the music you want to learn (File – Import – Audio). Then select Effect – Change Tempo and choose how much you want to slow the music down by. Select Play and your piece will play at the reduced speed (and at the original pitch)!
Learning to play tunes all the way through is a great way to progress rapidly on the guitar. Don’t let a fast passage slow you down – slow down the passage with a tool like Audacity and really get that piece under your fingers.
