sloppy fingering

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sloppy fingering

Posted by ShawnS on November 30, 2021 at 9:21 am

A quick question. I want to make sure I do not start off on the wrong foot.
I can do the 12 bar blues pretty good, but it is not accurate (I’ll miss a string, pluck poorly, etc).
I want to make sure I do this smoothly and accurately, and not carry over any bad habits
in the future.
How do I do this 100% accurately? – just slow down to, say 30bpm? or is their some other
tricks I should know.
Thank you greatly.

Shawn Smith

Fly replied 4 years, 3 months ago 7 Members · 9 Replies
9 Replies

Bill_Brown

Member
November 30, 2021 at 9:55 am

Hi @Sungreen , welcome to TAC👍 My suggestion is to slow it way down, and don’t even worry about bpm’s at this point. You have to crawl before you can walk, and when you start walking, you’ll have to expect some stumbling along the way – so get 100% accuracy out of your mind also😱. Speed and accuracy will come with repetition!

Start by allowing your mind to learn and muscle memory to get used to the fretting/picking patterns in ONE position only. Once you feel confident that the fretting hand is working in conjunction with your mind, then start to introduce the picking pattern to the picking hand – again, allowing the mind and muscle memory to develop. Once you’re confident that both hands and your mind are working together, then go to another position and repeat the process for that position.

Good luck on your journey😎
- ShawnS
  
  Member
  November 30, 2021 at 4:59 pm
  
  Thank you Bill – greatly helpful.
Loraine

Member
November 30, 2021 at 10:59 am

@Sungreen I don’t think I could say anything different than @Bill_Brown , whose answer was very thorough. Slow it down,work on accuracy, and then slowly increase speed as you improve.

I do want to say that TAC is about progress, not perfection. Don’t spend too much time on the lesson. You want to keep moving forward with the lessons. This doesn’t mean you can’t continue to practice this. Mark it as a Favorite and revisit it as wanted.

Good luck and have lots of fun on your guitar journey!
- ShawnS
  
  Member
  November 30, 2021 at 5:00 pm
  
  Thank you for the encouragement Loraine!
N-lightMike

Member
November 30, 2021 at 11:17 am

Hi @Sungreen , I like what @Bill_Brown and @Loraine have said. @punder in another thread boiled Tony’s method down to Don’t Think. Just play and have fun every day.

But as far as your question, yes, accuracy is more important than speed. To develop the correct technique it is suggested and has proven effective to slow things waaay down.

Yes, 30 bpm is not unreasonable. I have slowed things down to 15 bpm before to get my fingers to follow a pattern that has me befuddled.

MG 😀
- ShawnS
  
  Member
  November 30, 2021 at 5:01 pm
  
  Thanks Mike – get the thinking out of the way!
  - punder
    
    Member
    November 30, 2021 at 7:41 pm
    
    My wife says I handle everything that way! 😆
  - the-old-coach
    
    Member
    November 30, 2021 at 8:06 pm
    
    THAT is too funny!
Fly

Member
December 1, 2021 at 2:26 am

🤭

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