Slowing Down

I don’t use it myself, but I know a number of people who seem happy with an app called “Amazing Slow Downer”. Maybe worth checking it out - I think there will be demo videos on YT?

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Yeah I looked at that one but it was expensive. So far still trying to do it the old way by ear

If what you are listening to is a youtube video, did you know that youtube has a built in slowdowner (but availabilty varies between systems)? If you see a ‘cog’ (for settings) at the bottom of the video, see if it has a playbackspeed option?
If not & you are on your phone see it’s browser offers a ‘Desktop’ view of the page - you might find there is a playbackspeed option in the settings for that.

Sorry if that sounds complicated. I don’t have any Apple kit so I can’t just describe exactly what you’ll see.

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I didn’t actually know that, I’ve checked and there is a YouTube version I’ll see if I can get that to work thanks

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Excellent. :slight_smile:
Another thing I find that setting good for is speeding up ‘talk’ videos. Often when people are just talking about or explaining stuff there is so much ‘umming’ & ‘arring’ going on that I find it possible to still understand what they are saying just as well at 1.5 or even 1.75 speed. If I feel I’ve not unerstood a bit, I can easily stop, reduce to normal speed, then step back a few seconds to re-listen.

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This is the actual track I’m learning off, it does slow it down a bit but if you really slow it down you lose all the tone. That being said I used it yesterday and I found it clearer to understand, there’s still one but I can’t do fast, so I’m concentrating on that but and trying to get it up to speed, but wow! When you do it like this, you really begin to appreciate the skill of the player, I was at just one little riff of the first solo after the first verse for over an hour, I managed to get the riffs but it’s really slow. Can’t get it up to speed yet, it sounds simple that’s the beauty, it’s simple but really hard to play at speed. Once I’d got it slow. I left it and practiced Chromonica for a good hour, I’m really starting to fall in love with the chromatic now.

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Glad to hear that you are finding it useful @Andy2 :slight_smile:

Andy

I catch myself moving a foot when leaning down in my chair while playing. I just started it and it seems to help with rhythm. I am not sure why this started as its something I did not made a point to do. Still play a bit fast but its slowing down and sure makes playing easier.

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I always play standing up, just can’t sit down to music, I like to move to the rhythm sometimes I tap my foot, sometimes I stamp my foot ( especially if the Bloke who lives below us is out) but I really do like to get wrapped up in it

@cloves-fibs0f It’s now several months since I agreed with your wise advice to focus on quality rather than quantity and yet I continue to do the opposite. I’ve probably added another 6 -8 tunes to my repertoire. I can’t help it. The things is though, I’m getting better at learning tunes by ear. I can sometimes think of a song and just play it, or at least a good part of it without having a clue what notes or tabs I’m playing. It’s a joy to me that I can do that. It’s difficult for me to assess how well my quality is progressing. I never feel like I’m playing better than I did a week ago, but I always feel like I’m playing better than I did 6 months ago.

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Maybe you can post something on here, I don’t know how you do it I think you have to have a social media platform of some sort? ( I just don’t do social media as I find it very antisocial and full of people telling me how to think. So not for me) But I’m sure plenty of people would love to hear you play and they would give you some pointers. If they think you need them

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Thanks @Andy2 I have posted a tune on the forum previously but didn’t get many replies, although the ones that I did receive were very kind. My comment here was more about my learning process. I don’t feel like I’m improving from week to week, yet I am progressively able to do more and more things with the harmonica. So, I suppose I must be learning all the while but not noticing in the short term.

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A musician and my best friend said to me " you are always better than you think" I’ve been playing for a long time but there a still bits and pieces that I find difficult essentially that’s why I joined here.

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As long as you are having fun @PapaCurly - that’s all that matters brother

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@PapaCurly I’ve heard it said that we overestimate what we can do in a day, and underestimate what we can do in a year.

Similarly, sometimes we get frustrated that we haven’t progressed more in the last week or 2, but it’s so important to think back where we ewere last year, or 2 years ago - then it’s, like WHOAH!! OK, everything’s gonna be fine!! KEEP ON TRUCKIN’!!!

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