Highlighting Notes

AUG 22, 2012:  After learning each section by adding on bars and taking each add-on at about half speed or slower and slowly increasing the speed until you get up to tempo, you should have the sound of the music in your ears. Now, you might want to go back and highlight some of those notes to make sure you have them firmly in your fingers and mind. 

One way to do this is to start with the first complete phrase and take the right hand only---at about half speed and keep increasing the speed with a metronome until it is up to tempo. For example,  play it at 60, then play it again at 63, then 66 then 69 then 72 etc.  Then do the same with the left hand.  Then put the two hands together.  Repeat the process until you get all the way through the section.

Even after this, some details will evade you, so take those details---by this time you surely know where they are---and work on them slowly, taking the hands separately if necessary.  Most pianists are looking at the clock by now and wondering how long it will take to learn the piece at this rate.  I think the answer might be that however long it takes you to learn it, this process could make it happen quicker.  If you learn the piece too quickly, you might be thinking, "okay, so I've learned it.  Now on to the next."  When actually your learning of it was superficial.

After this highlighting process, now you can look at the score away from the piano with confidence since you really know it from a finger/brain standpoint.  And now you can add other details that you might have missed because you were too busy working on the obvious details.