A lot of people struggle to achieve the speed they want. It seems like no matter how hard you practice, how hard you push, and how hard you bear down, the speed never comes. The solution is counter-intuitive. The key to achieving speed is through slow practice.

Start by playing the exercise at an extremely slow tempo with a metronome or click. Pay attention to your body: is there tension anywhere – fingers, hands, shoulders, neck? Pay attention to the sticks: height of rebound, placement of the sticks on the head.

Once you can play the piece slowly without any tension, with good stick rebound and position, then slowly speed up the tempo, one setting at a time on the metronome. Don’t just work on speeding it up – work also on slowing it down. As you practice this gradually, you’ll find that being able to play something extremely slow will give you freedom to play extremely fast. Try it!