Three worst mistakes guitar players make

[Thrillhouse]

1. Spending more time thinking about how to get better tone instead of writing better songs.
2. Playing the same old stuff over and over because it's comfortable.
3. Forgetting that spending 15 minutes learning something new may pay off in my playing for years.

[jlkitch]

1. Not learning to play earlier
2. Not buying a better guitar to start with
3. Taking years to learn that I'm a performer, not a musician

It's been a long and winding road; but, I've never regretted picking up the guitar. There have been times that my guitar:
1. Filled in lonely times
2. Helped to cheer up those that needed to be lightened
3. Lead me to know that I'm not perfect
4. Found lifelong friends
5. Gave me something to do when all was falling down around me
etc.,etc., etc.

[lovetheclassics]

Originally Posted by dmcowles@comcas

1. Joining online guitar boards
2. Logging on to said boards
3. Posting on same.

Best answer

[Alexander Coe]

A lot of good ones:

1) Not starting a formal education when I was younger
2) Not buying an expensive guitar when I had the money

and the whopper:
3) Caring about understanding music, but not caring about taking the steps to understand it, but caring more about understanding it than about learning the skills that will allow me to play it when I figure it out!

[skyver]

1. Buying new instruments instead of practicing
2. Noodling instead of practicing
3. Going out with the singer in your band

[Boone]

Originally Posted by jlkitch

1. Not learning to play earlier
2. Not buying a better guitar to start with
3. Taking years to learn that I'm a performer, not a musician

It's been a long and winding road; but, I've never regretted picking up the guitar. There have been times that my guitar:
1. Filled in lonely times
2. Helped to cheer up those that needed to be lightened
3. Lead me to know that I'm not perfect
4. Found lifelong friends
5. Gave me something to do when all was falling down around me
etc.,etc., etc.

Hey Jim - there's gotta be a song in here somewhere!

My list:
1. Not getting a good solid start with the "starter guitar" my parents bought me for Xmas when I was about 10
2. Finally getting a couple of good guitars when I'm 25, but selling them 2 years later when I thought I had to have the money for something else
3. Waiting till I was 55 to pick up a guitar again.

Originally Posted by HHP

1. Striving to be a guitar player instead of a musician
2. Liking the guitar more than the music
3. Making guitar playing who you are instead of something you do.

Sobriety speaks.

[Buck62]

1: Buying another new guitar
2: Re-thinking my purchase a few months later
3: Selling that guitar to buy another one

....and so on, and so on, and so on...



.

[Peter Jones]

1. Trying to learn a piece at full speed right from the start
2. Making mistakes because of it
3. Repeating those mistakes

To sum up - not having the patience to work through a piece methodically

[fitz]

1. Not using a metronome

2. Forgetting to slow down when learning

3. Remembering to slowly but surely master the challenging fingerings before moving on to the rest of the song.

[usb_chord]

1. Not paying attention to good posture when playing

2. Not listening enough

3. Not thinking of practice time as work-time as opposed to time spent entertaining yourself.

[XHardRocker]

Originally Posted by dmcowles@comcas

1. Joining online guitar boards
2. Logging on to said boards
3. Posting on same.

I often wonder why so many so called guitar players spend so much time writing about the guitar. Unless you are Geddy Lee and can type with your feet while you play the guitar, time spent dink-ing around on a message board could be time spent playing. And if you do play a lot and you just need a break from playing, and your idea of down-time from the guitar is posting on message boards then please, get a dog or rekindle some romance with your wife, or go work out at the gym or something.

This is a great thread btw because there is a lot of great advice and insight about playing guitar. I am surprised someone hasn't suggested that the thread be moved to the Play section (it should not because it wouldn't get read & responded to as much as if it were in this main discussion section).

Anyway, I was able to break out of a kind of mini plateau this weekend just from a few of the great tips given here. Glad so many of you choose to dink.

XHR

[grampa]

This has been a very entertaining and enlighteening thread. So many admitted "mistakes" by guitarists. I have been living with the delusional assumption for 49 years that guitarists don't make mistakes. Every decision we make regardless of the result is not a "mistake" but a "learning experience" that only makes us more superior to the rest of the world.

[Benybrady]

Originally Posted by Buck62

1: Buying another new guitar
2: Re-thinking my purchase a few months later
3: Selling that guitar to buy another one

....and so on, and so on, and so on...



.

Good answers.
1. Buying an expensive guitar with the hopes of making me better.
2. Buying a guitar based on 1song that I heard.
3. Starting so late in the game.

[Andromeda]

Originally Posted by Benybrady

3. Starting so late in the game.

That would be more of a regret than a mistake. A mistake would be not to start learning to play just because a person thought it was so late in the game.