I've been futzing around for about six months with the Perlman beginner book, and I just got up to the section on slides.
One thing I'm noticing is that my left hand seems, well, weak. When I hammer-on, the second note just seems to vanish as often as not; sliding, the second half of the slide just seems to disappear.
The other source of frustration is that I play so darned *slow*. I hit songs where I have no idea what they're even supposed to sound like, and then when I look them up on YouTube or whatnot, they're played at such speeds that now I kind of know what they're supposed to sound like, but I can't hope to play at even 20% of the speed I'm hearing them at.
I'm trying to put 20 minutes in, six days a week -- not a lot of time, I know, but it's one of the only ways I can sneak any time in at all.
1. Do you recommend that I try playing faster to try and get a feeling for speed, or keep plodding along?
1a. Should I even try to advance in the book before I can play the current songs I'm up to (John Henry, Jesse James, It Takes A Worried Man) "at speed"?
2. Is there something other than playing I can do to help my left hand along? One of those ridiculous spring-squeeze things that jocks always seemed to run around with in bad '80s movies, maybe?
I *am* learning -- and this is the first time in my life (and I'm in my mid 30s) when I've actually persevered with a project long after I decide I suck -- I usually just move on to new things -- but this has at least struck something in me where I'm persevering, and even the little progress I've made has been illuminating as I've moved from "I could never do this" to "I can sort of do this, a bit, kinda."
But this weak-hand thing has persisted for what feels like a long time, and I don't know if I should be trying to learn all the tools now, and work on speed later, or if I should try to play a song "right" and perfectly before pressing onward.