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Location: Snåsa, Norway | I've got a real problem when I try to play along with other people or with recorded music, I get lost when I make a mistake and have real trouble falling in again. I believe that the way I've always been practicing, starting at the beginning of a song and learning it bar by bar, is not very good for training the ability to keep on playing after a mistake. I always go back when I play wrong and do it over, and I always move towards unknown territory. Being a slow learner, this means a lot of repetition before I come through the piece, so most of my playing time I actually practice on stopping and going back whenever I play wrong, and often I don't even know where I'm going next. I wonder if it would help to start on new pieces from the end, and learn bar by bar towards the beginning? That way you'll know what's next after a mistake and probably automatically train on going on, if only for a few beats before you go back and try again. I'll sure give it a try, but wonder if anyone else have thought the same way. (I believe I've read something about it somewhere.)
Playing with backing track, and with other people will of course be the best way to learn, but if this helps, I'll probably feel more comfortable when the music just goes on when I play wrong! |
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Posts: 1634
Location: Warren,Pa. | Find yourself a situation playing regularly with people who are leading and you are following. When you make a mistake, they won't stop for you and you'll be forced to figure it out on the fly. I don't know if your style of playing lends itself to doing that.
I play 12 string and provide a strong rhythm...of course that's all strumming. The first time I played with a group of people, I was asked to play for a certain date not too far in advance. We practiced one time and I had to play bar chords all over the neck with lots of quick changes. I had sort of done that in my living room, but this was PREASSURE. I muddled through the gig, and from then on I was forced to a whole new level of playing that never would have happened playing by myself.
John <>{ |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | Break the song into several pieces and learn the pieces separately, then put them all together. |
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Posts: 1126
Location: Omaha, NE | What CWK2 said. Start with one bar. Then add another. Then another.
As soon as you can play the whole thing end to end (no matter how poorly) get out your metronome. Set it as slow as you have to, but play the whole thing. Don't go back and "fix" missed notes. Just keep playing straight through.
From there, its just a matter of practice to get your speed up. |
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Posts: 153
Location: New Jersey, USA | Good points expressed here...
Playing with others is a different skill than playing in isolation. It's kind of like the train doesn't stop and you have to run alongside it if you fall off... unlike being alone, where you just stop the train.
It depends what kind of songs you're playing, but if it's strummy folk/rock type music, bar by bar is not normally how I'd approach it. Music like that has sections. You learn the intro, verse, chorus, bridge, etc. as sequences. Worse comes to worse, you drop out and come back in on the chorus. That kind of thing. Learn the song in chunks.
Forcing yourself to maintain correct rhythm is essential. You can be lazy about that by yourself, but it will bite you when you join a group. If you don't have good natural rhythm, try a metronome or drum machine - some source of tireless tempo. |
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Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | I have the same problem. Last night our neice had a song on her computer and I picked up the guitar to see if it was in the same key as the way I play it. I couldn't seem to break in anywhere. Once the song was over, I could start at various places, but I couldn't seem to do it when I was trying to fit in with the song as it was playing. |
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Location: NJ | It very well could be that your guitar was tuned to "concert pitch" and the one on the computer was'nt (or vice-versa). |
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Location: Snåsa, Norway | I read a tip in a jazz lesson somewhere, you should once a day play along with the song in full tempo, no matter how poorly you play, just to get the rythm and feel of the song. That was the only rythm practice needed in that authors opinion. Omaha: good point in playing straight through, not correcting mistakes, but I still believe in isolating trouble spots and repeating them until I get it, much more efficient practice that way, still no need going back on mistakes, just looping the same part (beats, bars or whatever). |
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Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | Thanks, Cliff, but the problem was purely my inability to play with others. We were in tune, but I just couldn't seem to jump into the middle of the song. I've had the same problem on the rare occasions that I've played in a group. I've spent so much time playing alone and going back whenever I make a mistake that I get out of synch when I play along with someone else. It takes a different focus that I'm not used to.
Erik, for those of us that don't have other guitarists available, playing to a CD is the next best thing. Keep going and try to break back in whenever you can. I've learned songs every possible way, but there are always harder parts that I have to repeat over and over. I don't know that I've ever learned a song straight through, unless is was something with a simple 3 or 4 chord strum. |
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Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | three tips: Plus, you might not be as bad as you think ----
Learn one measure at a time, pretty much what Omaha and mauvais said.
Playing with the record will help you learn to be in sync with others.
Learn songs that you have to sing along to. Your hands use one part of your brain, and your mouth uses another system. Teaching your hands to play along with your mouth will help when you play with others. I know that sounds odd, but I think you know what I mean. So sing when you play!
It all just takes time and practice.
Tape when you practice your repatoire. You might find that you're not so bad. I think Matt Smith pointed this out, that when we play we are actually playing notes that will ring a moment in the future, not in the present. So you might suprise yourself. |
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Posts: 15680
Location: SoCal | Chet Atkins said that when he practices a tune, he never stops in the middle of it when he makes a mistake. He forced himself to keep playing and work past the mistake to finish the song. When you play in public you can't stop either.
Learn the song, bar by bar, if necessary, then keep practicing the whole song, all the way thru. |
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Posts: 4394
Location: East Tennessee | What Mauvais Beal said. If you are playing in a live situation and miss, have a point in the song where you can jump back in. Like the start of a verse or the chorus. |
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Location: NJ | that's why they call it practice . . . |
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Location: GA USA | What you need is Lanaki shouting out chord changes as you play. Worked for me. |
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Location: NJ | a "shock collar" works wonders as well . . . |
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Location: Tychy, Poland | hmm. maybe try to play scales? i know - they're more useful on electric guitar for solo's, but it helped me a lot if it comes to play in groups.
and you learn on the fly where particular notes, too. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | I'm working on a gospull blues tune and it is basically 3, 16 bar parts. I had to work out each of the three separately and then add the repeats with changes, the intro and ending. It was a bitch! And it was my tune! Anyway I did it in pieces and once I got that now I play it all the way through, no matter what, as per the comments above. Maybe by Dec 5 when I have to play it I'll have it all down. Now I got to come up with words. OY!!! |
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Location: GA USA | You probably already did this many times, Beal, but if I were writing a gospull blues tune, I'd listen to everything at Bottleneck John 's website. |
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Posts: 5575
Location: big island | Originally posted by Captain_Lovehandles:
What you need is Lanaki shouting out chord changes as you play. Worked for me. jas, i seem to recall you taking over the shouting out chords part... ;) |
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Location: GA USA | Could be. We both had on Hawaiian shirts, so I may have gotten us confused. |
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Posts: 217
Location: Snåsa, Norway | Originally posted by Captain_Lovehandles:
You probably already did this many times, Beal, but if I were writing a gospull blues tune, I'd listen to everything at Bottleneck John 's website. |
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Location: big island | Originally posted by Captain_Lovehandles:
Could be. We both had on Hawaiian shirts, so I may have gotten us confused. at least your voice was working!
you sing awesome harmony too. |
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Location: NJ | "get a room" before somebody turns the hose on you two . . . |
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Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | Thanks for the site. This gospull is not really a slide thing, It starts with a D and ends with a D and everything in the middle has letters and big numbers attached to it, you know, those $12.00 college chords. |
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October 2005
Posts: 4081
Location: Utah | My son's violin teacher swears that the best thing is to just play through mistakes after you've worked your way through the song a few times to get familiar. It's ok to practice a particularly difficult passage in isolation, but you have to then put the pieces together, and the way to do that is to just push on through no matter what.
This not only teaches you how to link the individual sections of a particular song, but it teaches the skill of catching up to the rest of the band when you get lost. |
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Learning backwards?
