Tempo Adjustments

SEP 18, 2012:  A lot of the small tempo adjustments you do in performance are intuitive.  You may never quite do them the same way twice.  But sometimes you get a tricky run or sequence of notes that you can't play at the same tempo. Maybe you could get it up to tempo after months and hours of work.  But supposing you want to perform it next week.

Here's a suggestion:  why not slow down--just slightly---the whole section that comes before it.  If not the entire section, then a few bars before.  I'm not big on completely changing a composer's score.  But there are some ways to slow down the place right before the problem area so that you can deal with the tricky passage and still make it sound integrated with the rest of the section and the entire work.

You may have to work an hour or two on the run or sequence or whatever it is (trill, embellishment, pattern), but once you get past those two hours or less and have adjusted it all properly, not only will it still be in keeping with the composer's intentions; you may have figured out a new approach to the piece that is still faithful to it in that you got the notes and rhythms (and markings) correct while at the same time fitting it into your current technique.