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I'm working on "Dust in the Wind", which is coming together pretty well, expect for G to Dm7 change (partial chord at the 1st fret - my favourite).

While my partial chords are improving....glacially slowly...I'm beginning to think that I always muck the change up when I'm playing the song because I expect to.


How do you get beyond that mind set?

I'm expecting you to say
- "practice the section you're having problems with until the problem goes away", which I'm in the process of doing.
- imagine yourself doing it properly - and go with that feeling - or something along those lines

But, is there anything else that I should be doing - that you've found works when you're feeling stuck?

ta

Michele

HI Michele,

I find myself in that situation doing pretty much what you say, but maybe really breaking it down to small bites and then taking one bite at a time very slowly and repeat and repeat till the muscle memory kicks in. I also do a search of how others achieve/play the same part, as there may be an alternate way

Michele- I'm certain you've thought of this but play the song super slow. Always strive for accuracy over speed. Then gradually build up speed. Don't build up speed until you play the song, or passage, perfectly.

I was working on Dust in the Wind tonight. I've played it for years but hadn't played it in a couple of months and I didn't like the rhythm of my fingerpicking. And I was cheating with my fingers by not playing the high E with my ring finger (another old, lazy habit!) So I slowed it down to almost one note at a time. I played the whole song at about 10 beats per minute several times over.

Once I was perfect, I allowed myself to speed up, like a treat to myself. If I messed up (is that what "stuff up" means in English? LOL!) I went back to super slow. After a half dozen attempts I was playing the song much better.

What this does psychologically it seems to me, is to create the expectation with myself that I will play it properly all the way through.

Another trick some players use is play the first measure or two. When it's perfect, add a measure. Then another. This forces you to really focus on playing it well and removes the other, negative expectation because you only have a few beats to play correctly and you can do that standing on your head!

You've heard all the cliches about if you expect to fail you will. So create opportunities to give yourself a victory. Several small victories are much better than one big one! Then reward yourself with more of the song. It's a head game I know but it does work!

Good luck! Cheers! :cheer:

The other option is to decide that it doesn't matter if you make a mess of it. You are learning and you expect to make some mistakes so already you have decided that the world will not end when you do. So relax. Study after study proves that we screw up more when we are not relaxed. You just have to do it so much that it becomes 'routine' and you're not worried about it.

Boiled down to a simple line?
Relax Sistah. It aint going nowheres. LOL B)

Relax, don't take it so seriously, break it down, slow it down. All good! Got it.

ta

Michele

You are on the right track now Michele. You will do just fine. Be patient with yourself.



Bill

I'd like to report that I had a break-through on the weekend with this G-Dm7 change. After doing all of the things that you guys advised me to do and one of Neil's golden fingerpicking rules, it is finally working for me. Not every time mind, but it is working at least half of time if not more. The one bit that seemed to cinch it was to break the formation of the partial chord down - bar first, flex, then curved 2nd finger hammer - FINALLY! Woo hoo!! I just had to share it with you - my partner just looked at me funny when I did my little 'woo hoo' dance. Still after struggling with this one little chord change for soooo long I felt so good that it really didn't matter.

Well done Michele , its a great feeling to get that break through. I know that dance lol!

Good on ya mate keep on strumming!

Chas

Thanks Chas!

Hi Michele,

I wish I read this in time to be more help. It's all about motor skills. Here's what happens.

First you figure out what you want your left and right hand to do. You make a list. Make the bar. Pluck the base note while you fret the rest of the chord. Pick the next note. Now hammer while picking and get ready to move to the next chord change. And it can be a complicated list.

That list soon gets stored in your long term memory. Maybe in just a day or two. But here's the thing with long term memory. Access is really slow, and especially inaccurate under stress or distraction. Think about it. Make a mental grocery list. Don't write it down. How often do you come home with everything, especially if you're in a hurry, or if you happen to unexpectedly meet your boss in the store, and you didn't finish the list of stuff he/she told you to do BEFORE you went home? Admit it... You're gong to bring home the Youhoo and Coco Puffs but forget the sliced cheese! LOL

What you want is to move that list into your second nature, reflex action, muscle memory (lets call it muscle memory) AND then burn the list. And your muscle memory is a completely separate part of your brain. It's FAST, accurate, and nearly automatic. And what chemically signals your brain to store the list in your muscle memory is repetition. You need to play it over and over and over... And it's when you sleep that your brain tries to adapt and become able to do this easier next time you do this. And your brain can be ever so stubborn. You have to REALLY convince it that you ARE going to be doing this again, and often.

And here's the kicker. Once your brain has started to lock the list into muscle memory, you now have to quit using your long term memory's list as a cheat sheet! Here's where the shrinkology comes in. So when ever I see my fingers starting to anticipate and get there on their own, that's when I need to start trying to sing, or turn on the tube (Burn Notice is great for this), or distract my self a little with something. Because my conscious mind likes to just try to read the cheat sheet QUICKLY. And I am pathetically dim witted at that! But my muscle memory is "faster than the speed of stupid" LOL So if I distract my self just a little, then it becomes habit to use my newly formed muscle memory instead. And that not only builds confidence, it becomes habit to use the new muscle memory and the, even more, repetition sets the muscle memory in concrete. And thus is born a new motor skill. And motor skills are fast, accurate, and nearly automatic. And they use much less of my limited attention span, leaving more attention to be paid to making fine adjustments and play it with "four part harmony and feelin' " LOL Does that help?