1 Topic by Olly

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Topic: Bad Habits

When I was learning the guitar I developed two bad habits which took me a long time to break.

One was the fact I never used my pinky (little finger) to fret any notes. This meant that whilst my other fingers were building in strength the pinky was getting weaker.

This turned out to be a major problem when I started learning Satriani numbers as you *have* to use all four fingers.

The other was that I did not always use alternate picking so I had to relearn this.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

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  • Registered: 14-12-07
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Re: Bad Habits

i never strted off with a picm, i used my fingers...biggest mistake,,tho if u playin claassical guitar u use fingers
then alternate picking is yes a must, but i use both of the alternate and wrong pickin together, helps to build speeed,, but a beginner must always go with alternate first

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  • Registered: 16-12-07
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Re: Bad Habits

my bad habbits?
it's stranged... i like soloing very much till i don't focus on chording.
i can play some quite fast solos, flamenco and classical but when comes to changing few chords rapidly as deep purple's songs... i can't give the clean sound...
default/lol

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  • Registered: 08-12-07
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Re: Bad Habits

i did have the same bad habits i don't use my pinky often and try to imitate those solo using the strong fingers but when i did see some sweeps and solos of john P, and vai, yeah the satch of course i did have hard time. took a while to re learn things.

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  • Registered: 08-03-08
  • Posts: 33

Re: Bad Habits

yes we often forget to put much emphasis on our little fingers. which is by the way the hardest to train among all the fingers. cause they are relaly weak in the first place. and we shoudl really put more time to practice them though we don't really often get to use them as much as the other fingers though.

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  • Registered: 02-04-08
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Re: Bad Habits

My first bad habbit was picking only in the same direction... I mean... it was so hard to learn basics things like alternate picking...
The second bad habbit was dont use my third finger in my left hand... sometimes when I want to use a arppegio become difficult...
The third bad habbit and I have yet...  :? ... is not use the forth finger in my right hand... when I want to play acoustic guitar I cant use my forth finger yet...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMEKFPWn1GI

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  • From: Ealing
  • Registered: 09-12-08
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Re: Bad Habits

You should also try economy picking, it is far faster than alternate picking and relatively easy to do.

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  • From: Liverpool, UK
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Re: Bad Habits

Interesting should should mention not using your pinky to fret - neither do I. I was watching an Eric Clapton music video not long ago and I noticed that he didn't use his pinky to fret either. Maybe that was just while the camera was on him  default/big_smile

Other habits - I learned power chords when I was eleven and my hands were very small. Instead of using fingers 1 3 and 4, I could only use 1 and 4, ie the index and pinky, in order to stretch far enough! I still play power chords that way!

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  • From: cumbria
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Re: Bad Habits

yea i think many self taught players abandon pinky development...i do feel its a massive thing you need to learn for lead guitar...i ten to do major scales up n down the fretboard to give my pinky some action

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10 Reply by Olly

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Re: Bad Habits

A lot of players do not use their pinky much - Slash is another example but the important thing with these players is the fact they *can* use their pinky if they want and when needed.

This is only achieved by practicing using your pinky which myself, and I would guess a lot of other guitarists don't do until they realise sometimes it is needed

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  • Registered: 16-09-10
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Re: Bad Habits

My bad habit is not practising at all. I just pick up a guitar from my rack and noodle about ha! I love it, but consuquently im not very good and ive been playing for a while!

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12 Reply by Olly

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Re: Bad Habits

That is a pretty bad habit! But I think one of the most common!

Once you get OK at the guitar it is easy to stop working on technique and just pick up and play. I don't think this does any harm if you are at a level you are happy with, I think also you will still improve - albeit slowly!

If you want to improve then breaking it down and practicing is the only way IMO!

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13 Reply by polyal (edited by polyal 17-09-10 10:00:52)

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Re: Bad Habits

not using your pinky is a real bad habit..and technique ... thats the trouble people watch the named git players and because there not using their pinky everbody thinks its alright not to...wrong...sash should use
his pinky when he's supposed to ..not when he feels like it ( bad technique ) ..watch the top notch git players they all use their
4th finger in a well balanced technique

so ..wherever your first first finger is ( fret wise ) thats the position you are playing in ie if your first finger is at fret 4 you,re at the fourth position and the following 3 frets should be played with fingers 2,3, and 4
as a rule of thumb ( how did the thumb get into it )..this was the first thing i was taught way back in history
[youtube]/watch?v=TZURmRPQPjA&feature=related[/youtube]

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14 Reply by Olly

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Re: Bad Habits

polyal wrote:

sash should use
his pinky when he's supposed to ..not when he feels like it ( bad technique )

You are absolutely correct. It is bad technique. But it works for him so I guess really there is no issue! However bad technique will not work for most and will result in bad habits that are really hard to break.

So the correct advice would be to use the one finger per fret rule so if you are on first fret then fourth playing fourth fret would result in you using your pinky.

I didn't use my pinky for years, now it works as well as the rest. It took months to build it up. I couldn't be without it now!

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15 Reply by Olly

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Re: Bad Habits

And Paul Gilbert - what a fantastic player and musician!

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  • polyal
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Re: Bad Habits

try and play that lick @ the 5th position without using your pinky + i dont like to see a player using his 3rd
finger instead of 4th ...it just looks bad ( amateurish )......just my opinion

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  • From: Liverpool, UK
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Re: Bad Habits

I can't use the left pinky. I'm sure I heard somewhere that Eric Clapton can't either.

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18 Reply by polyal (edited by polyal 20-09-10 14:44:15)

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Re: Bad Habits

then eric wont be able to play post 13 @ the 1st position

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  • Registered: 10-12-10
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Re: Bad Habits

i used to suffer of the flying fingers syndrome default/smile).  I thought it was cool to raise my fingers as much as i can when i used my fret hand.  Latter i found out that this mean lower speed, weaker technique and in order to play fast you must keep your fingers as close to the fretboard as you can.

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  • Registered: 30-11-10
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Re: Bad Habits

My bad habit, is I never play standing up.  I need to practice and play standing up.  When I teach, I teach sitting down.  Playing live everything changes orientation-wise with my instrument, and my nimble fingers arent as nimble or precise, and it down grades my playing.  Another bad habit is related to music but my life in general, and that is I tend to push myself too much and work past the point of exhaustion trying to do so much in a day.

I also rarely practice.  I wing it, because I can.  I'm not sure that's a better thing than practicing, but I have so much going on, it's very hard to get much structured practice done.

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21 Reply by Olly

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Re: Bad Habits

Instructor wrote:

I need to practice and play standing up

I'm the same. I always played sitting down. When it came to standing up I lost all my speed and precision.

So it is certainly wise to practice both ways really.

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  • polyal
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Re: Bad Habits

one bad habit that paid of:
in his early days paul gilbert admitted not to playing upstrokes ( because he didnt think it was norm ) so he built
up his speed with pull offs and hammer ons ..once he found out about alternate picking he went
into turbo
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTQxODA0Nzg4.html
[youtube]/watch?v=S4Tc9c5Kh9U&feature=related[/youtube]

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23 Reply by Instructor (edited by Instructor 13-12-10 23:42:18)

  • Registered: 30-11-10
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Re: Bad Habits

Actually Poly as I recall, PG first learned using nothing but upstrokes, so that by the time he learned of alternate picking, he'd already developed an uncanny upstroke, to go with his downstroke.

Edit:  I was right, I found an article where he admits this, but he also said it in an interview, which is where I first heard this.  Also when I met him (nice guy) we talked a bit about it, but it was very brief.

http://www.guitarworld.com/article/dear … ul_gilbert

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  • polyal
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Re: Bad Habits

it makes you wonder what you would be playing like now if you never had any outside
influences..or is it watching/listening to better players that produces motivation..everybody admits
to being influenced by somebody.

playing with controlled ' bad habits ' ie just upstrokes might be a great way of strengthening other
weakness such as hammer ons and pull offs

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  • Registered: 10-12-10
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Re: Bad Habits

In the end everything resumes to being satisfied with the level that you currently have. Music is about playing, it doesn't matter how you play it as long as it sounds good and the crowd like it. default/smile

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