How to achieve consistency in musical performance?

General Music Discussion
#59

For me, personally, it’s mostly a feeling of excessive tension in the picking hand wrist, slight difference in the attack and sound of down/up strokes, and just sluggish movement of the wrist.

I’ve stopped practising for a few days, and I’m just messing around with variations of dart-thrower and other more flextension-y wrist motions.

I’m getting relatively certain the main reason for my own inconsistency is unconsciously switching between different wrist motions while playing, with slightly different “force drivers”, I guess, the point where I feel the motion originating, and the point I feel as a pivot.

On the motion tests, I consistently get the highest speed and smoothest feeling from the “scribbling with a pen at 45-degrees” flexion/extension, but on an actual guitar body I default to a more side-to-side deviation, mostly in the radial part of the motion curve.

#60

Okay. You mentioned you played quietly at night due to not disturbing the family. Is this something that is more noticeable when you are using the load box you bought? Do you ever play without the load box? Do you always hold the pick the same way? And attempt to move your picking hand the same. Does it feel like you are missing strings or it’s tough to pick through them?

By synch I mean left and right hand synchronization.

Sorry I’m asking all these questions, I’m trying to get the best picture I can.

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#61

Sorry, my post was poorly written - I’m questioning if the ‘alien’ guitar feeling is a symptom of synch problems.

I’m currently playing with the loadbox, (sometimes with headphones, but mostly with a small mp3 sound bar) or unplugged. I don’t feel that its more noticable either way - when its all going wrong I can just feel it when playing.

Not a problem, thanks for your help.

Edit:

Tend to hold it the same way as far as I know. Picking is uneven and slower and yes, a little harder to glide through and cumbersome all round

#62

Have you ever recorded yourself and experienced red light syndrome?
I think that tensed up feeling is the same as when you come to a section you are overly focusing on.

I’ve only experienced a total breakdown of my entire technique or ability to play guitar well on very bad days, or days where I’m just drained and burnt out. I think it’s a nervous system issue. And also why over practice can be a bad thing.
Many times in the gym and guitar, or anything, taking a decent time off is really helpfull, if you enjoy playing guitar, you will eventually feel a desire to pick it up again after a time, and for me at least, the playing is better than ever.

#63

Yeah, a little, but never really thought of it as anxiety for some reason (but it totally makes sense).

My time with guitar does vary a little and I do have a decent break at times. Big gaps don’t seem to hurt my playing as much as one might expect, but it doesn’t seem to help either…

#64

I would say that looking at your playing here You are playing really consistently and well. Did this feel forced?

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#65

It was kinda on the edge of what I could play, but I felt pretty relaxed. That was around take 3 out of 5, after about 2 hrs playing (mainly that but mixed up some other stuff) and had been my focus for about a week or so.

#66

It seems very fluid to me. But as I mentioned before, I’m not experiencing what you are, I’m just watching you play.

I think this is the experience we all have in guitar and life. We suffer our first person experience, contrasting it with the people we see around us, who just seem to flow along. But if we were them, We’d have the exact same feeling as we do as ourselves.

Do you think this might be the case or am I way off base?

#67

Yeah it was fluid - if I could play it like that 90% of the time I’d be totally happy. It stayed that way for a time. I kept it in my practice, but started to work on other parts of the song too. Then it just failed to the point where I can’t play it. So thats an example of where something doesn’t stick.

I just can’t retain progress that well. I often only see progress after intense focus one thing at a time, but that isn’t in keeping with the idea of interleaved practice and soon as I start to ease up, it all goes to shit! Lol.

Yeah sure, its the human condition…

#68

I’m gonna sit on this thread over the next few days as there are a lot of great points and videos to go through in the cold light of day and objectively look at what are so e of the practical and mental things I can do to give me the best shot…

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#69

I find the same thing if I’m playing other peoples songs. Because it’s not my natural movements I can lose them fast.

I think you’re a great player looking at your vid.

2 Likes
#70

Cheers buddy and thanks for your posts

2 Likes
#71

@PickingApprentice can you show us an example of it not working for you? The video linked shows it working, and that’s not as helpful. It would be a good to get a feel for what you mean.

#72

Yeah, will do when I get a chance (currently stuck decorating :sleepy: and if I don’t get these wardrobes up in the next few days, my wive will divorce me!).

In the mean time I have been having a think through this thread and writing down areas that I should improve how I tackle them. I’m working from the assumption that I’m not cognisant of the mental/mindset issues I may be inflicting on myself, so thats something I wanna keep in mind. I think I have got some ideas on attacking the technical issues, but I’m gonna have to have a think about how to dedicate some quality time to the musical aspects

Technical issues (physical and mental) that likely cause lack of consistency and ability to maintain

  1. Tremolo speed

  2. Tremolo fluidity

  3. I’m over anticipating upstrokes to thinner string? (Need to make upstrokes subconscious)

  4. Starting on upstrokes

  5. Find it hard to go straight into picking fast (once I’m going I find it easier)

  6. Fretting hand speed an endurance

Musicality issues

  1. Minimal repertoire of songs (need to pick some easier songs to learn and improve musical memory)

  2. Lack of own material and/or recordings (record more, dummy!)

  3. Lack of applied theory and fretboard knowledge (do this more as above, especially when breaking up practice sessions, especially when your technique sucks)

#73

I’ve just had this analogy in my head, i wanna share it. Like in sport there is this stage of preparing for some championship. You work really hard to get in the best shape you can. And in you daily life you might not be in that good of a shape, but still have most of the skills that you need in order to perform. Like for example Mike Tyson, who recently got back into boxing. I think that through these years he didn’t perform he still was a big strong guy and knew how to land punches very well, so even that he wasn’t in his best shape, he still could beef most of the people on this planet. How did he get in this state? Well you can say that it’s due to his amazing genetics, and that’s probaly a big part of the story, but yet another part is that he was training really hard and fighting.
So maybe the way to get some stability is to just put in A TON of work that will have some permanent effects on your playing.

#74

This is typically how it’s done.

#75

It’s a tricky one: if you do a lot of the wrong thing, you end up just consolidating a wrong thing. Obviously it would be great to do a lot of the correct thing… but if you can do a lot of a correct thing why are you even practicing it? :slight_smile:

I don’t have a solution but many questions :smiley:

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#76

If you are still at the phase where you have to think about every step you are going to make, then this is probably part of what’s holding you back.

When I was going through a similar phase in playing (some days it clicked, some days it didn’t) I really focused on keeping some of the smaller things consistent day to day, like where I was holding the pick, hand position on the guitar, angles I was holding my hand and pick, and even the type of pick I was using. I took a bunch of pictures too and did this every day until I just didn’t have to think about it any more.

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#77

I think this sounds great because we’re getting closer to a “controlled” experiment. The more variables you can eliminate, the better chance you have of zeroing in on what’s not working.

#78

That was the idea. Eliminate all possible variables and free up the brain space for the stuff you need that focus for. If you get those small things in order and to a place where they are no longer variables in your day to day playing, you can then focus on the memorization and other things that really require attention.