I completely disagree with this. Stopping playing destroys the feel of the song, which is far worse than a few wrong notes.
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How to improve the most important skill a musician needs?
- Thread starter Matthew_84
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I completely disagree with this. Stopping playing destroys the feel of the song, which is far worse than a few wrong notes.
One thing that helped me is to take a past you know well and start practicing it but starting on a different beat. Don't play the first note, play the second one and continue on. Or skip the first 3 and start playing on the 4th note. Skip ahead on and mp3 and force yourself to join in as quickly as possible. These techniques help you to learn that the "one" is just a reference. But you can start playing on any beat.
This is something I see a lot in students of all ages.
The first thing to realise is mistakes happen, all that changes over time is how quickly and musically you recover from it. The audience, and alarmingly
the band, more often than not don't notice your mistake. What highlights the mistake is your own reaction. Sometimes you are better trying to catch the next note or two while others you are better sitting out and come back in at the top of a bar or a section. That is something you will develop with experience of doing it and open ears.
The second thing to think about is if somebody hands you a test result where you got 98/100 you would be pleased at the result. Why? Because it's a good result! In music though we tend to think dropping those 2 notes means everything else sucked. Guess what? It probably doesn't. We often set ourselves up for more mistakes by stopping playing or panicking on the first mistakes when realistically you would still stand to get 98/100.
As soon as you start flapping and stopping you don't get anything from that other than outright disaster. Which is a result of your reaction to the mistake, not the initial mistake itself. That's some perspective to think about.
The third thing is: allow yourself to make mistakes. An exercise I often do with students when I can see frustrations causing more mistakes is I tell them to play it for me and that they are not only allowed to make mistakes, but I want them to make mistakes for me. What usually happens is I get great playing with almost no errors in it. The student will say they tried to make mistakes but found they actually couldn't force themselves to make one (which is the point of the exercise) and amusingly
I often get an apology from them for not making mistakes in it!
The first thing to realise is mistakes happen, all that changes over time is how quickly and musically you recover from it. The audience, and alarmingly
the band, more often than not don't notice your mistake. What highlights the mistake is your own reaction. Sometimes you are better trying to catch the next note or two while others you are better sitting out and come back in at the top of a bar or a section. That is something you will develop with experience of doing it and open ears.
The second thing to think about is if somebody hands you a test result where you got 98/100 you would be pleased at the result. Why? Because it's a good result! In music though we tend to think dropping those 2 notes means everything else sucked. Guess what? It probably doesn't. We often set ourselves up for more mistakes by stopping playing or panicking on the first mistakes when realistically you would still stand to get 98/100.
As soon as you start flapping and stopping you don't get anything from that other than outright disaster. Which is a result of your reaction to the mistake, not the initial mistake itself. That's some perspective to think about.
The third thing is: allow yourself to make mistakes. An exercise I often do with students when I can see frustrations causing more mistakes is I tell them to play it for me and that they are not only allowed to make mistakes, but I want them to make mistakes for me. What usually happens is I get great playing with almost no errors in it. The student will say they tried to make mistakes but found they actually couldn't force themselves to make one (which is the point of the exercise) and amusingly
I often get an apology from them for not making mistakes in it!
There's definitely an element to this. I should've mentioned it.
I usually make the mistake and try to instantly think of what happened (did I not hit the note accurately, was my fretting finger too weak, did I play the wrong note, etc), and then move on.
I can never just let a mistake go. I at least have to know the reason for it… Maybe I shouldn't be doing this? Or at the bare minimum (when I'm practicing) take a quick mental note of where the mistake occurred, and only try to pinpoint the cause if it happens again in the same spot?
I found a parallel from motorcycle riding.
We're taught to look ahead, to see the next several hundred yards ahead continuously, to minimize surprises, so as not to ride into trouble because of leaving yourself some prep time to leave yourself an out if need be.
So let's say in a given tune, it's usually been a problem spot coming through the second verse into the bridge. Used to, I'm in it and, whoops, there goes a clam. So now part way through that second verse, now I'm setting myself to be in exactly the right spot when I get there, and it passes by without a hitch.
I once had a lesson with a bassist who'd done lots of big budget records. I played a passage in a certain spot, and he immediately suggested to play it again from an alternate position and fingering, saying 'your odds of playing it clean are far higher' in that new spot, and it was far easier to play
I combine those two concepts for better results.
And oh yeah, Never stop playing:. That big hole is always worse than a boo boo.
We're taught to look ahead, to see the next several hundred yards ahead continuously, to minimize surprises, so as not to ride into trouble because of leaving yourself some prep time to leave yourself an out if need be.
So let's say in a given tune, it's usually been a problem spot coming through the second verse into the bridge. Used to, I'm in it and, whoops, there goes a clam. So now part way through that second verse, now I'm setting myself to be in exactly the right spot when I get there, and it passes by without a hitch.
I once had a lesson with a bassist who'd done lots of big budget records. I played a passage in a certain spot, and he immediately suggested to play it again from an alternate position and fingering, saying 'your odds of playing it clean are far higher' in that new spot, and it was far easier to play
I combine those two concepts for better results.
And oh yeah, Never stop playing:. That big hole is always worse than a boo boo.
if i hit a clam..im usually a half step away and can slide into the note , so i doand then repeat it so it sounds intentional..hehe..seriously tho.
I think that the on-the-spot analysis trap is probably quite common. Another common problem is not necessarily to analyse but to dwell on a mistake. Both are things to be avoided during performance. It's definitely useful to analyse one's mistakes during practice but in your case especially I would suggest recording your practise sessions. Try playing through mistakes and saving the analysis for playback of what was recorded and see how that works for you.
Ric5
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- Jan 29, 2008
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ya ... you need to break that habit
here's a pro making a mistake and recovering from it ... self deprecating humor can make the audience actually like you more because they make mistakes also
(5625) The Winery Dogs - Fooled Around And Fell In Love (Unleashed in Japan) - YouTube
It's all been said above, but three things to integrate into your practice are:
1: Play with a metronome/backing track as slowly as you need to play dead on time, and gradually work up to tempo. As soon as you have trouble locking in, drop the tempo down a bit and work back up again.
2: Shift your attention while playing to watching for what's coming up, rather than listening to what you're playing in the moment or reviewing what you just played. I found this incredibly hard to do at the beginning, but it got easier.
3: Chuck on a fave backing track & groove. It doesn't matter whether you're playing bum notes up and down the fretboard or pedaling on an open E, do your best to ignore the pitch of what you're playing and listen only to your timing. Once you lock in, stay in the groove as long as you can.
(P.S. Victor Wooten's been mentioned a bunch of times above, and for good reason. At a Q&A I attended years back, he made a point of #3 by first playing all the wrong notes out of time, and then all the wrong notes perfectly in time. It went from cacophony to awesome, simply because his timing was so dope.)
1: Play with a metronome/backing track as slowly as you need to play dead on time, and gradually work up to tempo. As soon as you have trouble locking in, drop the tempo down a bit and work back up again.
2: Shift your attention while playing to watching for what's coming up, rather than listening to what you're playing in the moment or reviewing what you just played. I found this incredibly hard to do at the beginning, but it got easier.
3: Chuck on a fave backing track & groove. It doesn't matter whether you're playing bum notes up and down the fretboard or pedaling on an open E, do your best to ignore the pitch of what you're playing and listen only to your timing. Once you lock in, stay in the groove as long as you can.
(P.S. Victor Wooten's been mentioned a bunch of times above, and for good reason. At a Q&A I attended years back, he made a point of #3 by first playing all the wrong notes out of time, and then all the wrong notes perfectly in time. It went from cacophony to awesome, simply because his timing was so dope.)
NO!!
It seems that you've practiced (for years) stopping immediately to correct a mistaken note. So now you've become really good at stopping. Desperately trying to get all the notes played before you try to lock back in with the band compounds a mistake.
You're in the pickle you're in because you believe that the note is the most important thing to play and that is how you practice. In order to get past this you need to practice something different: the groove, the feel, the flow, or whatever expression you prefer for the rhythmic movement of the song. This needs to become a much higher priority for you than the notes. (Check the Vic Wooten quote in my sig.) You need to train yourself to keep going, to play through the mistake, to leave it behind. Keep the song moving along, feel, rhythm, tempo. If you play a wrong note be sure to play it where the right note belongs and keep going as if you'd played the "right" note.
This is going to be a wholesale change to the way you practice and play. An impossible task but I know it can be done because I did it in my twenties (I'm now 71). It'll take time and effort and self discipline but you can do it.
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Something I've had surprisingly good results with for working through this kind of thing is distraction. Put on the recording your trying to get and play with it and while you play do something else. I put a novel on my music stand and read it. It feels like the playing happens in the background while the front of the brain is occupied.
I still make mistakes but I play past them a lot more easily.
I still make mistakes but I play past them a lot more easily.
Be the song. Automatic. Too many thoughts means too much expenditure of time. Time is music. Stay always with the groove, being, not easy, not always possible. Uncluttering is the secret. Overthinking sucks (away the prospects of recovery)
I'm still learning to read music (at 69) and that is the mistake I make when I can't rememeber what note is the next one I see on the page and I stop dead.
I am guessing that you are new to music or new to whatever skill you are trying to aquire. Like any new skill, beginners stop. Reading, writing, adding, subtracting, riding a bicycle, swimming, walking, running, spelling, it really doesn't matter - it's what beginners do.
once people that have been doing it for a while - at least months to years, they make the mistakes but they don't stop. Being a perfectionist has nothing to do with it, they know they made a mistake, but it will get corrected later, as piling on more mistakes compounds the problem.
so, keep playing and after enough time has gone by, you won't need to stop with mistakes.
once people that have been doing it for a while - at least months to years, they make the mistakes but they don't stop. Being a perfectionist has nothing to do with it, they know they made a mistake, but it will get corrected later, as piling on more mistakes compounds the problem.
so, keep playing and after enough time has gone by, you won't need to stop with mistakes.
I switched to fretless and now every note is the wrong note.
I think a lot of people missed that the OP is talking about his practice routine. Lots of great advice here that applies to performance, though.
For me; what I do in practice translates to what I do in performance ... that is what practice is for.
I can fully appreciate where the OP is coming from. When I started playing bass I was focused on playing the right notes and I wanted to correct mistakes as soon as they happened. It is also where a mentor \ teacher can help as I think it is one of the really bad habits I picked up that is rarely addressed on a beginner video lesson anywhere.
It took me a long time to get out of this habit and it was only when I started playing with others that I really had to force myself to keep going when I mis-fretted or just plain screwed up a note. Time doesn't go backwards; I couldn't correct what had gone. I just had to get on with it and do my best to keep the groove even if my brain was frazzled and I couldn't remember the notes or while I'm trying to get myself back on track.
