improvement

Frustrating realization last night. I am, at best a beginning intermediate player, but I just can't seem to get over the hump of making mistakes, especially on songs no matter how much I practice.. I have practiced "Love in Vain" and I keep making mistakes, but not always the same ones. I can't seem to make it through the song without screwing something up! I think I somehow need a new mind set or maybe just a little talent would help.
Thanks for any input/advice.

Hi Thomas!

How long have you been playing for? Don't beat yourself up! Mistakes are a part of the learning process and certain songs can be tricky. Is it usually the same mistake or does it vary?

Either way, you are still learning and progressing! The fact that you can play a song is great! With practice you will get to where you want to be.

Thanks for your advice and support. I will keep trying.

What exactly are you calling a mistake? You might need to adjust your perception of a mistake.

Like the GT admin said, don't beat yourself up about it. One of the most important skills IMO that you can learn is playing through mistakes. What you think is a mistake your audience may not even notice. And so what if they do...play through it and move on.

Don't make the "mistake" (see what I did there :) of focusing too much on perfection. You don't want to become complacent, but don't let mistakes cause you stress or overshadow the progress that you are making.

I play in a duo and get out about twice a month to play. Honestly, it's the rare song that I don't make a few mistakes. I may miss hitting a note. I may play a bend that was a bit flat. I may be off in my timing. I've even started soloing in the wrong key! (That one I try not to make a habit!) I may hit the wrong chord. If we get through a song perfectly, it's cause for celebration :). However, most of the mistakes are things that nobody in the audience would notice. The reason why most people don't notice is I've learned how to play through the mistakes. When you are in front of people, there is no stopping and starting again so you can get it right...the train keeps rolling!

When we watch lessons here, we see perfection, so we expect to be perfect ourselves. I would bet money that there are plenty of outtakes where Mike O., Anders, Andy, or any of the instructors have gone off the rails playing something for a lesson. Some of that would be interesting to see I think...to show that even these monster players on this site are human and do make the occasional mistake.

Great insight Maggior! I always enjoy reading your tips for our Guitar Tricks family.

Thanks to both of you for the encouragement!

Of course Thomas, keep us posted!

I feel your pain. I have spent a good amount of time in the last two years since I started playing going through the lessons here and elsewhere. I figured it was time to learn some songs. The song lessons on GT are excellent. Even with this, I make mistakes all the time. I have "mastered", and I use this word lightly, Stairway to Heaven, Maybe I'm Amazed, a couple of Stevie Ray songs, Love in Vain, and now I'm working on Here comes the Sun. These are from my early adulthood and they are my favorites. But it is frustrating when you lose your place, miss a chord, screw up a lead, etc. Then I put the guitar down and look at one of the first lessons that I went through in the beginning and I see how easy it is now. I struggled with it at the time. I have made tremendous progress to just attempt to have these songs sound like they should. I realize that if the guitar was easy, there would be a lot of Stevie Rays, Eric Claptons and even Anders! out there. Remember that it's fun to do this stuff. Worry about your family, your job or something else. Then pick up the axe and have fun.....

I would say a different mindset would be focus on your progress. It might help to make recordings of yourself and look back to see how much you have grown. Something that may help with practice too: take a small section of the song and play it slow enough to play it perfect. Once you can play it slowly but perfect, then speed it up little by little. If you are performing, still make time to rehears the whole thing (but focus on performance rather than perfection.) Then after the performance, work on perfecting again.

It takes a lot of patience, but the others are right; speak positively to yourself rather than worrying about mistakes :) Keep it up!