Do you get frustrated learning songs, and more specifically, songs you know you should be able to play? If so, you're probably in the majority.
There's a useful shift in mindset that can help you approach learning songs and riffs differently. You get to enjoy the process of learning the riff as well as the satisfaction of playing it up to speed, and you'll probably get there quicker and better too.
"I can play X, so I should be able to play Y" ▶ 0:38
Say you've started learning a new riff. It's not super easy, but it's somewhere in your playable range. Maybe it's by a band you already play a few songs by, so you think, "I've done a few of these, let's try this one." Then you get into it and it's a nightmare. You keep making mistakes, and you're wondering why this one's so hard when the others were so much easier.
The mindset that's hurting you here is: I can play X, so I should be able to play Y.
But with X, you may have played that riff a hundred times. You may have spent several hours learning it. The muscle memory is there and it's ready to go. If you've only picked up Y in the last half hour, or the last day or so, it's very easy to jump in and try to play it note for note like the riffs you already know.
I had a student who did this quite a lot. I could tell he'd get frustrated, and it was obvious he was thinking, "I should be able to play this." And the answer is yes, you should be able to play it. After you've learned it.
The test: turn the tab away ▶ 1:43
Here's how to check. Turn the tab away and play the riff without looking at it.
It sounds like an obvious tip, but if you can't play it without looking at the tab, you haven't learned it. And if you turn the tab away and find you're having to pause and think about what the next note is, you haven't learned it yet either.
At that point we're not even testing your playing speed. So getting frustrated that you can't play it at speed is a bit ridiculous, because you haven't got there yet. You're getting frustrated at a stage of the process you haven't reached.
When to start building speed ▶ 2:13
If you're confident you know every note in the riff, and you can play it through without stuttering, that's the time to start building speed.
That doesn't mean up to speed. It just means consistently, without pauses, and without having to stop and think. Until you can do that, you don't know it yet, so don't be so harsh on yourself for not being able to play it.
I can't play things I don't know either. If you put a tab in front of me I might pick it up quicker than some people, because I've done this a long time and you do get quicker at picking things up on the spot. That's a skill you can work on, but for most people it's not one you need to build.
Learn it slowly, one note at a time ▶ 2:46
So if you're learning the part, learn the part, and learn it slowly. You might have to go so slowly that you're talking yourself through every note: "Right, 5th fret, G string, first finger." Press it down, then do the next one. Do that enough times and it will lock in.
We're testing your memory, not your playing ability.
So if you get upset, remember this has nothing to do with how good a player you are, and everything to do with how well you've memorised the part. Being able to separate your playing identity from your memory is really important.
And developing your memory is a skill in itself. If you're too busy getting frustrated and trying to shred through the riff straight away, your memory isn't going to build up either. So you might as well be working on something.
Separate the learning phase from the playing phase ▶ 3:23
Here's a challenge. Find a riff, chord progression, song or solo of a similar difficulty to whatever you're working on now, and take this approach:
- Don't speed it up until you can play it without looking at the tab.
- Don't speed it up until you can play it unbroken, without having to think about what the next note is.
You might find you haven't done this for a very long time. So many guitarists just run at everything and never think to stop, play it slowly and separate learning from playing.
Once you split them, you can treat each skill for what it is: memory on one side, playing on the other. And you can stop being so hard on yourself for not playing it up to speed, because you can see it would be quite unreasonable to expect that right now.
Take this into the next song you learn. Memorise it first, tab turned away, then bring in the metronome and build the speed. Have a go and see if it helps.
