Are You making these Mistakes?

As a teacher, there are certain mistakes that I see people make again and again in their guitar playing. Now, these guitar players aren’t idiots, or even particularly bad players; they might be just like you or me. The worst part is: these people don’t even realise what they’re doing wrong until I point it out to them! Which means that you could be making exactly the same mistakes every day and not even realise it!

This is obviously a cause for concern, because- as I’m about to explain- there are certain principles that are fundamental to having good guitar technique (which means being able to play faster, for longer, and avoid injury). If you disregard these simple concepts, you are at risk of seriously stunting your guitar playing development!

So, in order to help you out, I’ve compiled this checklist of the 15 most common guitar playing mistakes. Hopefully none of these apply to you, but if they do then there are plenty of resources on this site to help out (I’ll try to link to them where appropriate).

1. Don’t Practice Everyday

   This is definitely one that will have a massive influence on how fast you improve! Daily practise not only strengthens the correct muscles (the “guitar muscles”) that you’ll need to play better and/or faster, but it also means that you wont forget that new chord/scale/lick you learnt the other day.

   Practise daily- a little bit everyday- definitely an underrated piece of advice!

2. Incorrect Playing Position

   The general rule of thumb here is to avoid slouching, yet still keep yourself comfortable (when sitting). When you’re standing up, you want to make sure that the guitar isn’t too low on your body (or too high, actually, but being too low is more common).

   I mean, how can you expect to play your best when either the guitar is at a funny angle (causing your to strain), or you can’t even reach it? If you want a more detailed explanation of correct posture, watch this posture video.

3. Playing too fast or complicated, too soon

   If you’re the sort of player who really likes to push yourself and show of to people (not naming any names…Shredders out there…) then you might well be guilty of this one. The most difficult part is actually being able to tell if you’re playing something that is just too advanced (…so far…).

   I have to let you know the truth on this one: pushing yourself is a good thing- a very good thing- but trying to play something that is far too advanced for you is definitely not! At best you’ll end up increasing the tension and strain on your body trying to reach that speed, or stretch for that chord, and at worst you might get frustrated that you can’t master the (much too difficult) song and give up playing guitar altogether!

   You have been warned!

4. Not using a Metronome

   I know there is some controversy on this one, but I recommend that you do always use a metronome- at least to practise with. Yes, playing along to backing tracks is good practise, and yes, when you play a gig or performance you might not always want a strict, mechanical feel in the timing…but what about if you have timing issues in the first place?

   Perfect timing isn’t something we’re born with (unless you’re a robot…), it’s another skill that can be worked on, and playing to a metronome (when practising) will help you develop and improve upon this vital skill.

5. Don’t push Yourself

   I know, I know, I was just saying earlier about not pushing yourself too far, but the only thing worse than that has to be not pushing yourself at all! Try and focus at least some of your practise time on learning new things. I mean, if all you ever play is stuff that you already know, how do you expect to improve?

   Granted, you might not want to be the most technical player in the world, and that’s fine, but surely you should be constantly improving and learning? I mean, do you really want to be “that guy” who learnt the riff to “Smoke on the Water” and then stopped there? That’s not playing guitar, that’s called: learning a “party trick”.

   Remember: you can improve musically as well as (or instead of) technically if you so wish.

So that was numbers 1 – 5, next week we’ll have 6 – 10, and then the week after we’ll finish up with 11 – 15. Until then, I’ll see you next time.
Rob.

September 13, 2011 at 11:00 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises | 1 comment

One Response to “Are You making these Mistakes?”