What’s your biggest weakness?

[TSJMajesty]

Man I don’t want to be leading here
I was 23 in 1984 .

Got me beat. by a little bit. I'm Andy's age. And yeah the 80's were great!

 

[joezlo]

How old are you? Me too but I was 20 in 1984 so it was my decade.

Age is but a number.
Music is timeless.
Not being there doesn't mean you can't enjoy it if you weren't.

 

[BahamaDada]

So many, but the biggest one is probably I can't vibrato on the high E string. It's just physically not possible for me. Any other string I can wiggle wide and strong. High E? Doesn't even feel nice.

 

[Sascha Franck]

So many, but the biggest one is probably I can't vibrato on the high E string. It's just physically not possible for me. Any other string I can wiggle wide and strong. High E? Doesn't even feel nice.

Very obviously a thing dictated by the guitar. Not impossible but different than on the 4 "inner" strings. Usually, when performing vibrato, you move around the axis of the string in both directions. That's just not possible on the E strings, so a vibrato on E1 is always an "up-back" movement rather than "up-back-down-back". Quite a difference. But I think it's still manageably when you keep going.

 

[Byrdman]

So many, but the biggest one is probably I can't vibrato on the high E string. It's just physically not possible for me. Any other string I can wiggle wide and strong. High E? Doesn't even feel nice.

me too, I always slip off the bottom and ruin the mojo

 

[Sascha Franck]

Maybe it helps to look at E1 vibrato as a sort of attempt to bend (it actually pretty much is just that, a repetitive mini-bend).

 

[Byrdman]

Maybe it helps to look at E1 vibrato as a sort of attempt to bend (it actually pretty much is just that, a repetitive mini-bend).

I agree for sure, but just like all my bends & vibrato, I bend more than I really need to. It's just another thing I'm working on...

 

[Sascha Franck]

I agree for sure, but just like all my bends & vibrato, I bend more than I really need to.

Personally, I not only noticed I went for vibrato too often, but it's also simply been too wide for my taste. To adress this, I went for 11s on all guitars, even on 25.5″ scaled necks /w floating vibrato system. Stayed with 11s for over a decade and only recently went back after noticing that I wouldn't over-vibrate anymore when checking some guitars in shops. Back to 10s now on 25.5″ guitars but keeping 11s on all Gibson scaled ones.
I still try to concentrate a lot on vibratos and bendings, checking out different speeds and widths.

 

[Byrdman]

Personally, I not only noticed I went for vibrato too often, but it's also simply been too wide for my taste. To adress this, I went for 11s on all guitars, even on 25.5″ scaled necks /w floating vibrato system. Stayed with 11s for over a decade and only recently went back after noticing that I wouldn't over-vibrate anymore when checking some guitars in shops. Back to 10s now on 25.5″ guitars but keeping 11s on all Gibson scaled ones.
I still try to concentrate a lot on vibratos and bendings, checking out different speeds and widths.

I have thought of that as well. I currently play with 9's due to arthritis in my thumb joint. My thumb on the back of the neck is the only finger that bothers me, so I try to fret as light as possible but most of the time I'm pressing too hard even with super light strings.

 

[ballhawk]

My biggest weakness at this point is arthritis is wreaking havoc with my hands. It sucks. My brain is writing checks that my hands can't cash.

Just found this thread but...You beat me to it. In my thinking and understanding I'm better than ever. If only I had my younger hands

Man I don’t want to be leading here
I was 23 in 1984 .

Hell, I was playing covers then. I was 31.

Called inxs, the tubes, men at work, "That new stuff"

I still call anything from the 80's on "New Music". Where's that cloud I can yell at?

 

[Achilles]

Man I don’t want to be leading here
I was 23 in 1984 .

I got you by one year - born mid 1960.

 

[Axe]

If you remember the 80s, you weren't really there

And after all these yrs, I still absolutely suck at sweeping

 

[ballhawk]

If you remember the 80s, you weren't really there

And if your brain can still do the math on how many years ago the 60's were you weren't around then.

 

[mbenigni]

Age 4… Tweezers… Two prongs - quick short

Age... young enough to be in a high chair... that had been situated next an unusually high AC outlet... and within arm's reach of my mom's keys. Shortly after, the wall was charred black and I was no longer in the high chair.

 

[mbenigni]

Consistency, ffs. Running into it (or the lack thereof) all the time and it's driving me mad.
Just now: Started to record something yesterday evening (bit of guitar noodling for an online cooperation), went more or less fine but I thought I should do the final recordings today as I felt exhausted and what not. But today, even after an hour of warmup (*way* longer than what I usually go for), I'm not even near the results of yesterday. And it's also not as if what I was planning to play would be specifically technically challenging or anything. Everything just seems to be wrong, timing, tone, articulation - *blargh*!
The only way of adressing this would possibly be to always leave a lot of headroom, but then, as said, the very thing I'm on right now isn't even requiring much technical skills, I'd usually play something meaningful without any warmup and such.
Sucks.

Oh yeah, this one is huge. I have nights where I think I'm the greatest guitarist in the world, and nights where I have no idea why I even own a guitar. And these come and go more or less at random. (I can somewhat mitigate the bad nights by practicing non-stop, but in no way does this practice guarantee an "on" night.) The good nights are almost as despairing as the bad ones at this point, because I get this panicky, ticking clock, "What do I do with this??" feeling. Press record? Start a band? But 99x out of 100, the moment has passed, and it's off to bed.

Now that I've been a bedroom player for more than a few years, this has reached a new extreme where I'm almost guaranteed to play horribly if anyone else is even in the room. Worst case scenario is I have a great night and feel compelled to invite a muso friend over for a little "showcase". And then play like I've never seen a guitar before. (Did I say worst case? I meant par for the course.)

I've always said that what separates an amateur (speaking for myself, not you) from a professional is not what each can achieve at their best, but what their respective performances are like at their worst. A professional can put on an entertaining show on their very worst night - injuries, illnesses, distractions, whatever - and in many cases no one's the wiser. Whereas I will sometimes trainwreck spectacularly without explanation.

 

[mbenigni]

Consistency, ffs. Running into it (or the lack thereof) all the time and it's driving me mad.
Just now: Started to record something yesterday evening (bit of guitar noodling for an online cooperation), went more or less fine but I thought I should do the final recordings today as I felt exhausted and what not. But today, even after an hour of warmup (*way* longer than what I usually go for), I'm not even near the results of yesterday. And it's also not as if what I was planning to play would be specifically technically challenging or anything. Everything just seems to be wrong, timing, tone, articulation - *blargh*!
The only way of adressing this would possibly be to always leave a lot of headroom, but then, as said, the very thing I'm on right now isn't even requiring much technical skills, I'd usually play something meaningful without any warmup and such.
Sucks.

Just adding to my previous reply to this: "Record button syndrome" gets me every time. Just like being in front of an audience, pressing Record, or even intending to, puts you in a completely different headspace than when you're merely practicing. My only advice here - advice I've been giving myself for decades but never taking - is to leave your DAW recording all the time. Maybe in hopes of catching a "special moment"; maybe not. What's more important is that when you start aiming for that final take, it won't feel so different.

 

[fretworn]

Just adding to my previous reply to this: "Record button syndrome" gets me every time. Just like being in front of an audience, pressing Record, or even intending to, puts you in a completely different headspace than when you're merely practicing. My only advice here - advice I've been giving myself for decades but never taking - is to leave your DAW recording all the time. Maybe in hopes of catching a "special moment"; maybe not. What's more important is that when you start aiming for that final take, it won't feel so different.

Loop recording feature helps this quite a bit. IME

 

[la szum]

Just adding to my previous reply to this: "Record button syndrome" gets me every time. Just like being in front of an audience, pressing Record, or even intending to, puts you in a completely different headspace than when you're merely practicing. My only advice here - advice I've been giving myself for decades but never taking - is to leave your DAW recording all the time. Maybe in hopes of catching a "special moment"; maybe not. What's more important is that when you start aiming for that final take, it won't feel so different.

Great advice!


I legit record every time I sit down to play. Done that since the 1990s with those handheld micro-cassette
recorders, and have all the crappy tapes. Now I record with a Zoom handheld that uses SD cards. The idea
is that we can fool ourselves when we are playing and listening at the same time. But record ourselves and
then listen on playback? Oh man! As the old saying goes, "The tape never lies!"

I find listening back like this for so long allows me to both hate myself (builds intestinal fortitude! ),
as well as notice both my strengths and weaknesses. Is my intonation wonky? Am I overplaying? Too much
string noise? Inconsistent pressure? Poorly placed accents? Bad timing? Whatever? And then sometimes it is
about capturing a cool part and then building on that.

As cheap as those things are, and as inconspicuous, I see no reason why anyone should be without a
device like that (or our phones!) for peering more deeply into our own playing, and then being honest
with ourselves about where we are at.

 

[ᛗᛜᛜᚺDᛜᎶ Ꮤᛨᚳᚴ]

Great advice!


I legit record every time I sit down to play. Done that since the 1990s with those handheld micro-cassette
recorders, and have all the crappy tapes. Now I record with a Zoom handheld that uses SD cards. The idea
is that we can fool ourselves when we are playing and listening at the same time. But record ourselves and
then listen on playback? Oh man! As the old saying goes, "The tape never lies!"

I find listening back like this for so long allows me to both hate myself (builds intestinal fortitude! ),
as well as notice both my strengths and weaknesses. Is my intonation wonky? Am I overplaying? Too much
string noise? Inconsistent pressure? Poorly placed accents? Bad timing? Whatever? And then sometimes it is
about capturing a cool part and then building on that.

As cheap as those things are, and as inconspicuous, I see no reason why anyone should be without a
device like that (or our phones!) for peering more deeply into our own playing, and then being honest
with ourselves about where we are at.

I am right there with you (except for the "since the 90's part"). I record everything when I sit down to play for the past 2.5 years now. With how cheap storage is, it is a no brainer for me. I only review or do something with a very small percentage of those recordings, but I know I can go back and reference any of it whenever I need to for whatever reason I need to ;~)) I have been thinking though about recording a second stream though because, what I hear in my headphones is so different than what I end up getting in my DAW. Part of this is due to the fact that my headphone output is through my mix board whereas the DAW recorded stuff is the Axe feed as my audio card. This would only be an experiment to try and figure out if the difference exists and/or where in the chain it is happening.

As for my biggest weakness, I would have to say it is commitment! That is not a commitment to recording, but instead a commitment to say "this is done, I am letting it go". There is ALWAYS something more I want to do to a song. There is ALWAYS something that MIGHT be missing. I spent 3 months this summer trying to finalize a single song and it still has not made it out into the wild. I shifted gears and have kind of given up on the whole song production thing in the sense that, I am now recording live the best version I can, EQ and mix in DAW, and call it a day. I am happy with many of the items I have put out there where I did spend a lot of time getting them to the point where I felt it was a good production, but I am sick of it taking up so much of my time and would rather spend that time creating new material rather than obsessing on the perfect presentation of every piece ;~)) Some may say that is me just filling my pipes with sh!t, but they are my pipes, so let the sh!t flow!!!

I have also been working at trying to lighten my grip, but so many songs put me in a mental place that just have me choking the F out of my guitars neck, so it is a long uphill battle for me on that issue, but I will continue to fight in that direction ;~))

 

[cragginshred]

I read most comments and did not see 'Flowing from one idea to the next while soling' I write a lot of the solos for our cover songs which works well most of the time.
1) licks that fit together and
2) Flow without awkward pauses, or maybe not pausing enough or being afraid to milk a bend -Gilmour is a master of this