Trouble playing

Technique Critique
#21

Do you ever just play through entire songs in the daylight? And I mean like a regular song, rather than some kind of shreddy technical prog opus. Just something that’s more “doable”.

It seems to me that this would be more of an opportunity for setting yourself up to succeed. I’ve only seen you demonstrating with aimless noodling shreddy licks…and this is by no means a judgement of the music you’re playing…it’s just that without being inside your head, it doesn’t really sound like anything to me and perhaps the only redeeming quality would be if it were impressively and amazingly in perfect sync…which is currently what you’re struggling with.

So my suggestion is to take some of that pressure off and just play something that you can really “nail” in a wider variety of settings. The idea is that it might help you feel a little better and comfortable about your playing and give you more confidence to overcome your struggles.

I know that I can’t begin to understand what you’re going through with this, but I’ve kind of been observing your story from a distance for a while now and I would love it if any advice I could give would be helpful to you.

Good luck!

3 Likes
#22

This is what I thought immediately when seeing this video.

Man, clean your room.

1 Like
#23

@jax, interesting issue. Do you experience this with anything else besides guitar? Difficulty concentrating/not being distracted? Also, what about anxiety in general?

1 Like
#24

I have anxiety disorder and ADHD but as far as I’m aware I never had this problem till of two years ago

1 Like
#25

I was suspecting ADHD to be honest given the above thread, but didn’t think it was right to ask outright. I have 2 daughters - one diagnosed autistic and the other very likely autistic and ADHD. During the past year it has been both fascinating and terrifying seeing how anxiety, sensory overload, cognitive processing deficits and other issues impact everything in daily life. So maybe you are experiencing some sort of sensory overload with your surroundings and its taking your attention away - given that your room has all of your cool/interesting/meaningful stuff in your room it might be worth trying to practice in a less stimulating environment… a room that holds very little interest. If this guitar issue is a relatively new thing, then maybe you need to make sure you aren’t suffering a bit of burnout at the moment. I agree with others in this thread about making sure that you don’t put yourself under too much pressure.

Obviously, I’m not a professional in ADHD and/or anxiety, so maybe take my thoughts with a pinch of salt, but I think its worth taking the time to make sure that you priorise your health before guitar - your guitar playing will thank you for it. On the positive side, you know you can play more accurately if conditions allow, so there is definitely a way forward.

2 Likes
#26

I will do that thanks.

#27

Please let us know how you get on as I’m genuinely interested. Thoughout the journey with trying to understand my daughter’s issues I have come to realise that I do have a number of ADHD traits myself and I wonder how much these impact on my life and guitar playing…

edit: (both positively and negatively) For example, I can hyperfocus, but my memory for remembering songs/parts can be dire - one of the reasons I think why I have practically no repertoire! :rofl::sob:

#29

Alright s,o I finally got me some glasses going to try it a couple of days however I noticed like a small diffrence than what I said previously its snall.

#30

I have the same problem. I have been not looking at my hands and that seems to be helping a lot. Might work for you.

#31

tried tje glasses for a week no avail so no looking at my hands

#32

So update I have tried all the methods the people here posted and nothing seemed
to work and my hands seem synced at night and again with a blanket.

#33

Have you tried actively working on things to correct the sync? Have you identified the exact problem with the sync? For example, this would he a helpful observation:
“When I play the yngwie 6 note pattern, I notice on the 4th note that my pinky lands after I pick the note”

Whereas this is not a helpful observation:
“My sync is bad”

Can you film some examples of your playing (in the daytime with good lighting) so we can find out where it’s going wrong? Use some patterns that work well at night so it’s something you know you can do with good sync to remove variables (i.e. learning a new lick you aren’t yet familiar with).

We all know this is some sort of mind game at play here. Maybe if we could solve some simple problems it could give you an easy win or 2 and get the confidence back and things could grow from there.

The other approach would be to simply accept the situation and weaponize it. There is already a buckethead, why don’t you be blankethead?

jk :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Film some more stuff so we can try to help. Gotta keep trying to solve the problem from different angles.

1 Like
#34

I’ll post my playing tomorrow in the daytime with a metronome

1 Like
#35

https://youtube.com/shorts/XbRbl9q9KWM?feature=shared

This is at 80bpm using it at tempo and diffrent tempos.

#36

Hey thanks for filming!

The big thing I see is that you’re playing a complex pattern that would involved escapes in both directions. That requires a whole lot of skill and could definitely mess with sync if something in the chain is off.

Last piece of advice that I’ve heard both Troy and also Tom Gilroy advise on sync → playing to a metronome can be a problem. The first step to sync is just with our “internal clock”. If we can’t do that (not saying you can’t, but remember we want to remove variables and pass various “check-list items” to determine the actual problem), then certainly practicing with a metronome will give even worse results. We first just have to confirm, can the right/left hands talk to each other without external distraction? If “yes”, great news. The metronome could be one of the next “check list items”.
What I mean by that is, if you’re playing that stuff at higher speeds and it’s crashing and burning, you might view it as a sync issue when it’s really not. It could be a motion issue or maybe you start swiping and aren’t prepared for that situation. Testing sync is best done on a circular pattern that just stays on one string.

Are there any patterns you’re super comfortable with that just stay on one string? It would be interesting to see those at various speeds, including your fastest speed. Also, if you want to privately compare these to your night time or “blanket test” playing, that would be useful information.

#37

Should I film my hands at night cause i can also do that and use one of the yngwie licks one string to test it out.

#38

Yeah if you can get good footage at night (still one string only please), let’s see what it looks like when you can get good takes. Then we compare the same exact attempts when it doesn’t work and we see if there are technique related things that are off. That will give you something to focus on to fix. I know an attempt that we don’t like can easily be labeled as “oh that’s bad” or “I can tell the sync is not there” but it’s possible you’re actually doing something different between the 2 environments. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but at least we’re trying different things. If whatever you’ve been trying still isn’t working, we’ve got to keep trying new things till we make some progress.

Also, on the filming angle, can we get just a little more of your picking hand in the frame?

#39

I’ll need to find a night vision camera app for my phone.

1 Like
#40

https://youtube.com/shorts/u0bicFp3wC4?feature=shared

#41