Practice Tips
Slow down songs on YouTube
Slow down songs on Youtube to jam along with your favourite artists
Why Slow Down Songs on YouTube
One of the best ways of learning guitar is to listen to your favourite guitarists – and then figure out and copy what they are doing. What I find is that by the time I have ‘copied’ something from a guitar hero of mine, it usually has a little bit of my sound and personality in it.
When I hear them doing something great, I’m a curious person and I want to find out if I can do something similar myself.
A very effective way of doing this is to find a YouTube video of the song in question and slow that video playback down. This tutorial will show you how to do exactly that.
Slow down songs on YouTube Step-by-Step
In the bottom section of the video, you will see a Settings section (denoted by the cog icon)
Then you’ll see an option for Playback Speed…
Clicking this will show you a menu for different playback speeds
Clicking this will show you a menu for different playback speeds
Slow down songs on YouTube to Custom Speed
Sometimes you want a more granular level of playback speed setting. Watching the video at 75% speed might be just a little too fast for what you are trying to achieve, so you want to set it to 60% or 65%.
You can do this by clicking Custom in the top right of the screen above.
Now you can drag the cursor to get the feedback speed of your choice
How to practice effectively using YouTube Playback Speeds
- Select appropriately
The most important aspect of using this to help your guitar practice is to choose wisely. Finding the most virtuoso performance of all time – and learning it as a beginner just by slowing it down – is not the best use of your time.
Rather, find something that you can play but not as well as you would like. Perhaps there is a piece that you can’t play but you know the difficulty level is within your reach (if you practice). Either way, choose something realistic to accompany
2. Slow down playback speed
Once you have selected a youtube clip that makes sense, reduce playback speed to 75% or maybe 50%. The goal is to be able to play the desired piece slowly at first but really getting it perfect every time at that slow pace.
3. Increase playback speed to 1.0 or 100%
Once you can play the piece at a slow tempo, then try to slowly increase the playback speed step-by-step until you can play it at regular speed.
Now you can drag the cursor to get the feedback speed of your choice
How to practice effectively using YouTube Playback Speeds
Slowing down a YouTube video is a great way to learn music on guitar that you really care about. It is possible to play like your favourite guitarist – but be realistic about where you start and progress step by step.
Good Luck!
I have another tutorial for how to slow down songs in Spotify – also worth checking out!
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