I'm rubbish and I can't get any better

Roland

Dr_Necessiter said:

… the pick has a tendency to rotate slightly inwards towards the palm of my hand ... 

I had this problem, and solved it by drilling holes in my picks to improve grip.

GuyBoden

What ever playing level you are at currently, Music is all about using your ears, the instrument is just a mechanical tool to convey what you are hearing in your mind.

My advice, Use Your Ears.

maw4neu

" I'm rubbish and I can't get any better " says me, every single day :-)

greejn

Cheer yourself up by watching Ronnie Wood completely fall to bits playing with Van Morrison (And it stoned me) Just all the wrong notes and a total wreck of a solo!

greejn

Reminds me of Can Blue men Sing the Whites by the Bonzos! It's on Youtube.

HAL9000

greejn said:

Cheer yourself up by watching Ronnie Wood completely fall to bits playing with Van Morrison (And it stoned me) Just all the wrong notes and a total wreck of a solo!

To be fair, Ronnie Wood’s playing always sounds like it’s going to fall apart at any moment. Somehow he usually keeps things together. I’ve not watched his playing with Van Morrison (yet) but I can pretty much guess how it goes.

guitarjack66

racefaceec90 said:

gearaddict said:

I'm 55. Been playing since I was 14 or 15. Been in a band for about 20 years - just a very crappy pub covers band, nothing special. Over the last couple of years I have been becoming increasing frustrated at my inability to play certain things. Some things I can kind of play but not consistently and certainly not well enough to play in front of people.

I've tried a few teachers over the last couple of years but they haven't really addressed the things that bother me. I feel like there's something wrong with my picking hand especially. To move between arpeggio type picking and faster tremolo-style picking I have to alter the position of my hand - I can't keep the same hand position throughout. And I can't palm mute the low strings and pick at any kind of speed without dropping my elbow right down so that my forearm is almost parallel with the strings. Which is a weird position when standing. I really feel like there is something about the physiology of my arm that just doesn't work for guitar. It's so frustrating.

Teachers just say the same things - slow it down, play it at a speed where it's easy and build up the speed slowly. But the speed doesn't come. Recently there have been songs I'd like to play that I've had to give up on - like Mr Brightside for example. I can play the riff but only once or twice, then I'm making mistakes - and it never feels relaxed. I've been working on that one for months. To the point where I'm actually sick of the song now!

People say I should just play what I can play and focus on the quality of what I can do...but I just find that depressing and it makes me lose the will to play.

Anyone identify with this stuff? Maybe find a way through it?

Cheers. 

i can relate 100% with you (i have been trying to play guitar for 30 odd years and still rubbish myself) i would love to be able to play faster but never been able to speed my fingers up. i wish i had some good advice to offer but good luck :-)  

If you have been playing for over 30 years then I simply dont believe you are rubbish. And playing in a covers band for 20 years requires skill so I dont believe that self assessment either. I believe you two players are either frustrated,over critical or both. I've only been playing around 6 years and though no great shakes I am much better than I was 6 years ago.

Gomers

greejn said:

Cheer yourself up by watching Ronnie Wood completely fall to bits playing with Van Morrison (And it stoned me) Just all the wrong notes and a total wreck of a solo!

Are you referring to VM's 80th birthday gig (RW playing a sunburst Strat) ?  If you are, I couldn't really tell if it was appalling or not, a bit ragged perhaps.  Than again with my raging tinitus and heavily biased rhythm playing, what do I know 

jackio

OK. I've been good enough at guitar for a while. I am now considerably better. Still got lots to learn. Here's what I've done over the past year which has improved my playing:

1) Wanting to get better, not massive OMG I gotta do this vibe, just kind to myself 'let's get better at guitar'
2) Had lessons, maybe 6, face to face with a good teacher. Must go back but what a great person to say "Its not your R hand, you don't know enough with your L yet". Will go back once I'm stuck. But really kickstarted my learning.

3) Learned a solo in lesson. One. Technique, theory, over and over. Still play it a year later, rather better now.
4) Learned and practiced the 5 major pentatonics til I can play them all well and morph through them. Everything else flows now, major, minors but without having to stare at threory, just better from playing music.

5) Wanted to get better
6) Played guitar every day, even just sitting on the couch with TV on, even for 10 mins (though ofter longer as my partner loves watching psychological dramas with the sound of an unplugged electric guitar in a different key playing a completely different tune, and who wouldn't?)

7) Practiced with headphones and modeller...great fun
8) Smiled when I suddenly 'got' something and ate a treat (though not the cat's)

9) Tried different picks
10) Tried different ways of holding (practicing fast alternate picking, read something suggesting I hold the pick nearer index finger 1st (or 3rd??) knuckle for more stability...winner for now)

11) Noticed (by being more in tune and focused cos I want to get better) my shoulders and arm tension, and my breathing. "I'm playing fast so I need to hold my breath....fool"
12) Got told I sounded amazing this morning by my daughter, who is utterly lovely and has no issue telling me to stop singing along with S Club...

I didn't think I could. But I have. Loving it. Looking for a 24 fret shredder with Floyd now ha ha. Mid 50s human with metal in my R wrist (and in my soul)

darthed1981

TheBigDipper said:

munckee said:

spev11 said:

tone1 said:

I’m a bit shite too…..let’s have a sub-forum of crappy enthusiasts……

I'm in 

Yep, guitars are for buying and admiring and occasionally making rubbish noises on, disappointingly a lot of people seem to get it wrong. 

This. There's a lot to be said for the joys of ownership. We've all got guitars that we can't play as well as the instrument deserves to be played. But that doesn't mean we should be miserable about owning them, does it? Nah! 

Quite.

Knowing ones own limitations isn't so bad either.  If someone asked me to get up on stage and bang out a couple of Oasis choons I'd bite their hand off - when it gets too much more complex than that -  I'd still happily bang out some chords or do a bit of root note bass...

i.e. by the standards of many people, including me, I'm a bit shit.  Not caring is a superpower though.

Just by learning the basics and getting to a standard where you are ok with getting on a stage to play something... you have done better than 99% of people who pick up the instrument - so - there's that.

gordyhope

> Teachers just say the same things - slow it down, play it at a speed where it's easy and build up the speed slowly.

There is value in that, but slow practice on its own for me didn't develop fast, confident playing.

What seems to help me is breaking things into very small sections and pushing those fragments up to full speed (or slightly beyond) to feel how the mechanics actually work. Once each part feels stable, put them together.

When a movement falls apart, develop or find an exercise that's relevant to the problem. Slow it just enough to figure out the underlying problem rather than repeating it endlessly at a crawl.

I have dealt with poor synchronisation (particular ring and little finger) on a single string, weak and mistimed upstrokes, awkward outside-string hops, and clumsy inside-picking. You might have some of those or a different set of problems. Probably everyone has their own particular obstacles.

For me, getting faster required continual work on those details and generally learning to use far smaller, more economical motions than I ever used at slow speeds. I needed to experience the fast version before I understood what my fast technique might be.

HTH.

tone1

I’m seriously considering selling up….