Your worst playing habit is.....

[islandguitar]

Too much time focusing on 2-3 of my tunes and not spreading the practice time out through other guitars and tunings. I'm just coming off one of these spans of time and now trying to go back and pick up some important songs I've neglected for too long.....many months. I play in 3 or 4 different tunings, so it's been too easy to lock into one and lose some of the others. Generally I aim for "performance/recoding ready" with these tunes.
Also, thinking I'm "good to go" to play well late at night! The years have changed that and I'm doing more in the day time hours.

[davidbeinct]

Originally Posted by lowrider

When I palm mute, I don't mute the trebles. To solve that, I don't play the trebles.

I'm just getting over solving a lazy left thumb. A while ago I notice that I had no traction when fretting. Then I noticed that my thumb was just hanging over the fretboard. I think it started from muting the E string with my thumb and then I just got in the habit of leaving it there.

I think I've got it mostly solved and I've got traction on the neck again.

I am sure it depends on your style but I only palm mute the bass strings so that the trebles will ring out in contrast.
My biggest problem is speeding up as I play. I’m working on a Toby Walker arrangement of Death Don’t have no Mercy right now. By the time I get to the second solo I am going way too fast to play it clean.

[tbirdman]

Poor guitar posture. I see a lot of players with the same problem. The guitars body is tipped towards to the player instead of being parallel to them.

[reeve21]

Worst habit is speeding up in difficult stretches. Counting and tapping only help so much, sometimes I need to pull out the metronome, too.

Lot's of others, but that is at the top of the list.

[Cecil6243]

Originally Posted by rmp

one for me is not taking some time to warm up things up if I'm doing something a bit complex or demanding.

Just into the deep end I go, only to realize my hands or brain may not even be ready yet.

What?! I should be warming up?

[Cecil6243]

I need to make myself use a metronome. I keep putting it off.

[Riverwolf]

Originally Posted by Pdubs76

Playing on the couch with the guitar practically laying flat in my lap and having to twist my wrist awkwardly to make chord shapes.

Originally Posted by tbirdman

Poor guitar posture. I see a lot of players with the same problem. The guitars body is tipped towards to the player instead of being parallel to them.

Posture for sure.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Riverwolf

Posture for sure.

That's another one. It's a constant battle with my classicals too.

[Jeremy]

Holding the pick wrong, anchoring my pinky, and mostly sticking to the same types of things. I didn't actually bother to learn scales until after 28 years of playing when I finally got tired enough of not being able to improvise solos to put the effort into trying. Even then I pretty much have learned only one minor and one major pentatonic pattern and haven't done much else.

[zuzu]

Not practicing technique. Have always been barely motivated in that direction on any instrument I play, usually only working on something if I discover a need to gain a certain technique to put a specific musical idea to use. Guitar is the worst for me. Almost every time I pick it up (several times a day at least) I do something creative with it, purposefully picking it up with a blank mind about what I'm going to do with it and seeing what I discover. I think that's why the thing is so addicting, the discovery factor of it is evidently endless.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by tbirdman

The guitars body is tipped towards to the player instead of being parallel to them.

Why is that bad?

[Jamolay]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

Why is that bad?

I agree, not necessarily bad. Many classical players tilt it. In fact, typical instructed classical position has the top of the upper bout touching the chest with a small lean.

But, in my own limited experience, that makes things like rhythm strumming more difficult. Since that is not a big part of classical play, it probably doesn’t matter.

[Mr. Jelly]

Then there's this one. Getting distracted in the middle of a song. As in looking out the window and watching a bird or wondering what someone is doing in the middle of a gig.

[Arapaho G]

Impatience. Trying to get speed when learning a song before it's ready to speed up. This will just get mistakes baked into what I'm trying to learn.