Breaking bad habbits

[Ben Thorpe]

I have been playing for 5 months, and I find myself still making stupid mistakes, like missing strings, strumming the wrong string or hitting the wrong fret. Are these habbits that ever get completely broken, or does everybody (including our Lord and saviour Synyster Gates) do this from time to time? Thanks!

 

[Filip Tomiša]

That’s completely normal in the beginning. Just keep practicing and eventually you will get your muscle memory and hitting the correct string or fret won’t be that hard anymore.

 

[Ben Thorpe]

Cheers!

 

[Ed Seith]

You will *always* make mistakes, in almost every performance. What changes is that you make different mistakes, learn how to mask them better (I *meant* to do that!) and, in the case of live performance, chalk it up to running around like a fucking lunatic and putting on a SHOW, knowing that your audience won’t catch the little mistakes in the context of the whole sensory overload.
Relax.

 

[Markus Nick]

Of course everyone make mistakes. Always, like Ed said. With time you will make less mistakes. But the cruel thing is, when you make a break you unlearn your muscle memory again. Thats what happens to me all the time Stand your ground! Its the “play 10 minutes a day instead 2 hours a week” thing.

 

[Syn Gates]

Haha I love the question! YES this happens all the time and I get to watch them over and over on Youtube hah! I practice a lot and am lucky to have spent so much time on stage and even tho experience helps immensely, theres still a few BAD mistakes every night but that’s how you know you care about what you are doing. All you can do is to try and “practice perfectly” and what I mean by that is that you need to practice in context. For a very few limited examples, basic practice should be well rounded including chords, scales, and application, to backing tracks or a metronome very very slowly at first or else you’ll develop bad habits which are harder to break than developing good habits. If you are having trouble with live performance, try to recreate the atmosphere as best you can such as playing standing up, through the amp you use, and at stage volume(if your parents and neighbors can handle it) to name a few. Hope this helps!

 

[Christopher Lonski]

Agreed. Im planning on recording a technique lesson soon that talks about something similar. People will always tell you that if you want good technique, to just play things slow and work your tempo up. But we’re shredders and just like Ricky Bobby, we wanna go fast! So I think words and the way we phrase things has a MASSIVE impact on the way our brains interpret whats being said. Like even though we KNOW that slowing down and taking your time with a technical thing is the best way to get better, there is a negative connotation with playing slow, like we get a feeling that we arent good guitarists or something if we do this. So I always tell people, instead of playing things slow to get better, play things perfectly. Play as slow as you have to to make sure every note comes out clearly and has the proper dynamic. Every bend is in tune. All that stuff. That should be the main way you practice. I think there is also something to be gained by “just going for it” and playing with conviction and not worrying about the outcome so much, espcially in a live setting. A big thing to remember is that speed is a byproduct of clean playing. Play perfectly and the speed will come in its own time.

 

[Syn Gates]

Love that Christopher I look forward to the lesson thanks for the help!

 

[Ben Thorpe]

Thanks Syn, Marcus, Ed and Chris! Means a lot!

 

[Greg Howard]

To Syn, or anyone else, how do you keep going after a mistake? I’m just starting, about 2 months in, but whenever I am practicing scales and I miss a string or hit the wrong fret, everything comes to a screeching halt. I’m assuming that just more playing time will correct it, but I have watched videos with people saying to skip around notes in a scale so it doesnt sound like your playing a scale, but I’m having a hard time with that as like i mentioned whenever I mess up, my hands and fingers just want to stop.

 

[Andrew Milner]

When something like that happens, what I try to do is go back to the previous notes which I played correctly and then sort of “restart” my playing from there. It will be a bit difficult at first, but in time it becomes easier. Don’t beat yourself up if you miss a fret, it happens to me and presumably many others as well.

 

[Ed Seith]

@greg – practice is different than a gig. In a gig situation (or even if you’re “paying” and not “practicing”), you forget it happened within .1 second and move on.
In practice, you stop, go back, and fix it so you don’t get stuck in bad habits. My $.02.