I'm frustrated.

[duluthdan]

Write your own material. I do. That way if you forget a line, or a guitar lick, no one ever knows.

[chas52]

been playing for decades.
make mistakes alot.
c'est la vie.
keep trying.
you'll get there.

"There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places."

—Miles Davis
"There are no wrong notes; some are just more right than others."

—Thelonius Monk
"It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note – it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong."

—Miles Davis
"There’s no such thing as a wrong note."

–Art Tatum
“Do not fear mistakes. There are none.”

—Miles Davis
"There are no wrong notes on the piano, just better choices."

—Thelonious Monk
“There are no wrong notes, only wrong resolutions”

—Bill Evans
"I played the wrong, wrong notes."

—Thelonious Monk

[djh1765]

Comments like you folks have made is just what I needed and do appreciate each and every one.

You don't have to worry because as long as I can pick the guitar up I will keep playing. Just wish I had had the time all those years of supporting a family. Now I have Great Grandkids.

I truely love playing and will keep at it for sure.

Thanks again to everyone.
djh

[mot]

You've had lots of good advice so far. I have three points to add.

1) Isolate the problem and work only on it as much as practicable. So if you are having trouble with strumming, stop trying to fret also. Just mute the strings and work only to make the strumming correct for the song you are working on. The same applies to any other aspect too.

2) If you are singing and accompanying yourself with your guitar work, don't worry about the strumming too much. Don't even worry about the fretting. As long as you don't lag the beat your audience will likely not even notice even if you are playing the wrong chord with the wrong strum pattern. They'll be listening to your voice instead.

3) Rest often when you are practicing. If you get frustrated, walk away and do something unrelated for a while. It sometimes takes my brain a day or two and some sleep before I see any improvement.

Best of luck. I am not any good on any particular instrument, but I have played or sung for audiences for over 40 years. As long as I stay on beat I can usually fake it well enough to get by.

[fazool]

Playing a few years and self taught? Sounds like you are doing just fine. The fact that you hold high standards for yourself with a "mistake free" song is a high bar.

Don't be so hard on yourself.

I like the advice of learn a small part of the song and only play that part. Maybe its a chorus or a verse or a riff. Just absolutely master that. then another. Then another. You can enjoy the songs - just rest while the other parts are playing - join in for your parts.

Then add two of these together. Play the Verse and the chorus. Etc.

Build a song like building blocks.

Also, as counter-intuitive as it is - do not over practice. Your brain, quite literally, needs rest time to grow new neural pathways.

Sounds, to me, like you're doing great.

And taking up guitar and your love of old country songs in your retirement is simply awesome.

[ameetnsharma]

For me, the most important secret to playing I found is.... relaxation. I have found that psychological tension... or physical tension... kills the ability to play... and takes up too much energy to play a song all the way through...

The conscious mind handles very little of what we do... it plays a part in analyzing , breaking things down etc... But when it comes to real-time performance... the conscious mind is too slow. Anxiety makes the conscious mind more active... the subconscious mind less active... strangely enough, sometimes the more you worry about making mistakes, the more likely you are to make one... If you kind of, "let yourself go"... and just have the faintest awareness of mistakes, without letting it turn to anxiety... then you will slowly improve.

The conscious mind focuses on one thing at a time... but playing the guitar is kind of like driving a car... let's say you were overly anxious about checking your rear view mirror before a lane change.... then what happens, you look too long at the rear and you lose sight of the car right in front of you... Driving requires a kind of multi-tasking that the conscious mind alone can't handle. When you're driving, your subconscious mind is doing 90% of the work... the conscious mind needs to be there and take control in certain circumstances... but subconscious mind... muscle memory is king.

What anxiety does is... it makes the conscious mind overactive... and makes the subconscious mind less effective... so it gets harder for the playing to become "natural" and "effortless" as it should ideally become... If you're over anxious, you may barely get through one or two songs without mistakes... but it will be a struggle, and won't work long-term.

When you're learning a song... analyzing your playing, it's good to focus on mistakes etc... But during performance, you have to let that go... you kind of zone out.

Here's a video that kind of describes what I'm getting at:

[Von Beerhofen]

I suggest to regularly play on your own, without additional music. Any errors will be more audible then and you can halt right there to play that part a few times over before continuing.
In other words, you focus your attention and energy by concentrating on the weak spots and spend less time on what you already know.

Ludwig

[McShepherd]

With a bachelor's degree in music (vocal concentration; only two terms of beginner guitar lessons), I think the single most important instruction for mistake-less performance I got was from my guitar prof, who preached the discipline of practicing S-L-O-W-L-Y. As in, start a new piece around half-speed, and then do it even more slowly if you still make a mistake.

The benefit of this practice technique is that it actually leads to learning more complicated music in less time, rather than in more.

BUT it's also just not practical much of the time. From my student days onward, I've learned to look forward to public performance, because it almost invariably means finding new mistakes that have never shown up in practice. On the couch, just enjoy what's good, and try to be a patient self-teacher; If you're playing for/with someone else, just breeze on past any slip-ups (like LJ said), because keeping tempo with a bad moment or two will be less impactful for listeners than screeching to a halt if something doesn't go just right.

[softballbryan]

As has been stated already, when you come upon a mistake, that is a big red flag that you need to develop that particular section of music.

My instructor would indicate that you stop and work over and over again slowly the section that is creating the problem.

I have joked and told him that I worked on a section 100 times and his comment is always the same.... Try two hundred times next week and try to eliminate the problem.

He also recommends visualizing the movement through the section with your minds eye as well as practicing with just your left hand and just your right hand as you visualize the music of the problem area. Doing this several times seems to be the tactic that gets me to eliminate mistakes in a tricky section of music.

Stay at it.... You are better today then last month.....

Bryan

[Guitarsan]

Self taught recently at 77?

Find a teacher if you want to make faster progress. You don't need to take 20 lessons, but you don't know what you don't know! They do.

[bohemian]

"I’m self taught which may be the problem"

I am self taught and sound like no one. Proud of it.

Slow down, listen to some you tube videos.

Take a few lessons from some one who is not an exhibitionist.

Go to another level.

Find some buds who play and hang out.

Learn and have fun.

[DanPanther]

djh;
I also make frequent error when playing. The trick is to recover and don't miss a beat, you would be surprised, like they say, it's better to play the wrong note at the right time, than it is to play the right note, at the wrong time.
Keep playing, like me, I know I will never be a stage performer, once I realized that my playing improved, the pressure was off. I actually do perform in front of people now.

Dan

[KasperT]

First off you're one of the coolest cats around. Second off remember that you're one of the coolest cats around, and you play guitar which certifies it if it should ever be in dispute.

Focusing on the positive can be what you might need. While you're taking the best of advice here about shoring up areas that need attention, remember how cool you look with the majority of the piece that you nail!

When I started playing guitar as a youngster I used to throw my guitar across the room every day out of frustration at not getting as good as I wanted when I wanted it (those Stellas made up in strength what they lacked in tone and playability). Progress comes at it's own pace, which we can affect a bit with focus and practice.

Please let those details come when they come and in the meantime enjoy the bulk of what you do which is off the charts cool.

[Wildgift]

I have started at age 55, and learned that playing and improving is often done with long plateaus, then a sudden leap in skill. IMHO, it's because the groundwork has been laid and the neural pathways or whatever connect. So, keep at it and enjoy the ride. If a song is kicking your ***, take a step back. Play it slowly. Keep trying, but mix in some stuff you can do, for a feeling of reward. You'll get there.

[Captain Jim]

Originally Posted by TBman

Stop worrying about "mistakes" and just play. I doubt very much that the guys playing your favorite stuff played the song the same way twice.

And they aren't "mistakes", they are "variations", lol.

Yep. I started playing guitar when I was 11 (over 50 years ago). Started playing in public at 12, with a band. Our keyboard players Dad gave us good advice back then: "You're going to make mistakes now and then. Make it loud, make it proud. Don't make a face, keep playing, and no one else will notice."

Those words have served me well over the years. For more than a decade, I made my living playing. I still make mistakes. Loud and proud. This isn't brain surgery - an "oops" now and then isn't going to change your life... play and enjoy it. Give yourself permission to mess up now and then. If you have one particular thing you get stuck on, practice that. Then, play some songs just for the fun of it.

If music is a chore and/or frustrating... well, you know.



Captain Jim