Five Things No One Tells You

After many years of playing, even the most seasoned of professionals develop bad habits, or at least habits that are bad for other people. This could be based on technique, a different way of learning a song or anything in between. However, there are also many different things that you pick up along the way, either out of necessity or otherwise, that offer a substantial improvement in every day operations. 

In this blog post, I will go over five things that no one tells you but can make things go so much smoother. There are some things which should be painfully obvious, such as always keeping a spare pack of strings, batteries or cables to hand, so I will not be including these. 

Let us get stuck into the list!

1 – Wash Your Hands and Wipe Your Strings

Each time you pick up your guitar, make sure that you have just washed your hands properly, using soap is preferable, and drying them thoroughly. This ensures that your hands are not covered with grease from eating food, natural oils and anything else that should not be there. Here are some of the problems you could face from not washing your hands before you play:

• Increased or decreased friction, making your hands move in unexpected ways (sliding too easy etc),

• prolongs string life by limiting contaminants, 

• prevents premature tarnishing of metal parts.

Just like having a good shower can set you up for the rest of the day, I feel that washing my hands before I play removes barriers and makes me feel like there is nothing holding me back – of course, this is entirely personal.

It is natural that strings, metal components and pretty much everything on the guitar is going to wear whether you like it or not. Please do not believe that this simple step will prevent that!

The second part of this is wiping your guitar down, especially the strings. Make sure that you use as clean a cloth that you have at your disposal and take extra care if there is an excess of sweat during the show.

2 – How to Make a Mistake

You are human, therefore you will make a mistake. That is the harsh truth that some people will deny and others would oppose by throwing themselves into something with reckless abandon only to make avoidable mistakes and blaming it on the fact that they are human. 

With that out of the way, you should always throw yourself into a project with everything that you have, and work hard to prepare yourself and the performance to the best of your ability. That way, when you make a mistake, it is genuine and this is normal, healthy in fact. 

The key point here is that when you make a mistake, you should really know how to rectify the situation. Do not stop, find out where you are in the song and where you need to be, then slot back in. You also have to simply own it, pretend like nothing happened and most people will not even realise! 

In order to improve at this, you need to make more mistakes and that comes from getting out there and performing as much as possible. Like with many things, practice makes perfect!

3 – How to Read a Bad Chart

There are many ways to deal with this scenario, and it really depends on the context of the performance, how badly the chart is written and how much you rely on it. If you are given a poorly written chart for a tune, and have plenty of time, then simply write your own one – this is something I had to do recently for some session work. 

If the chart is entirely illegible, then point that fact out. Do not simply roll over and perform poorly because of someone else’s poorly executed work. If that is not an option, like you are onstage and about to play the tune in question, you have to either simplify or just do what you can. Much like making a mistake as written above, this is a skill that needs practicing. 

Many times, I have been given chord sheets copied from various online sources, and then had to interpret voicings, rhythm and dynamics as we go. Often those online sources are full of mistakes, or just outright incorrect. 

This all relates to playing a specific element of the song, but if the road mapping (repeats, DSs and DCs etc) is not up to scratch despite the notes being written perfectly, then the result can be just as bad (I would recommend anyone to periodically revise their segnos and codas.

Finally, there are generally accepted best practices for beaming and tying notes within a bar. If this is not done correctly, then reading a rhythm/melody part can become infinitely more difficult. 

4 – People Listen with Their Eyes

This one can be kept short and sweet. If you look like you are having fun, and it is more likely that people will join you in that. Make sure you look the part, move like you are supposed and do not let your band down. 

A few times I have heard, when it comes to being part of a band for the long term at least, that people would rather take someone that is a great person over another that is a slightly better musician.

5 – There Will Always Be Someone More Skilful Than You

In the wise words of Qui Gon Jinn from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, “There’s always a bigger fish”. There is always going to be another player who is a little bit faster than you are, knows more chord voicings and can use a different fancy technique. Once you come to terms with this, and you can appreciate all the effort that person has put in to get where they are, you will be much happier and more comfortable as a musician.

It is no secret that some of the most famous guitar players are very good at what they do, this is all subjective remember! However, being good at the guitar is just one part of the whole package; as I have said before, it is often about everything but the playing. I have met guitarists who are a world-class talent, truly inspirational yet they barely move out of their hometown and would not even be considered a local celebrity. 

Just understand that everyone is on their own journey, and you should always help someone along if you can!

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, having read these five nuggets of wisdom, you will feel just a little more content as a guitar player and musician. Feel free to share these ideas amongst your friends and peers, because the more people that know about them, the better!

An interesting experiment you can do is ask your friends, teacher and colleagues one piece of advice that they would give to the version of themselves that had just been playing the guitar. For me personally, it would probably be to take sight-reading more seriously – we live and we learn!