consistency

I have not been playing very long, only about three months. I am playing PARANOID by Black Sabbath right now, but I find I am messing up on this song every once in awhile.
I have played it good many times before, but I want to get to the point where I never mess up. Did anybody else have this problem when they were playing? Did it go away?

[This message has been edited by robrules (edited 08-03-2000).]

As far as consistency goes...That will come with playing. The more you play, the better you'll get. My first guitar teacher once told me that "in order to be consistent, you've gotta beat something into your head until you can practically do it sleeping...If I teach you a riff and then I call you 5 years from now and ask you to play it the exact same way I taught it to you and you can do that, then you're consistent." The only way to do that is by practicing the song over and over.
It may sound like a lot of hard work...But, it's not really hard work at all. It'll come with practice and experience.

Jeff's exactly right on this one. No one ever get's to the point that they'll never mess up though, not even Vai can play every song of his perfect every time he plays it. So just keep practicing, you'll get it in no time.

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BadHorsie, holdin' it down like Gravity!

Thanks to BadHorsie for posting what I immediately thought too - but just as important as not messing up, is when you do mess up, get back into the music as quickly and cleanly as possible. Making mistakes is inevitable; recovering from them seamlessly is (to me) a "guitar trick" in itself.

well said you guys, no matter how much you practice in my eyes you are still prone to mess up. but you can't try to get that misplayed note back just continue. To me when you think too much about not messing up rest assured you will but if you just play normally you can play it more flawlessly.

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And that's the bottomline............

yeah try not to miss praticing cause even a couple days off can throw you off!