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Here’s why and what you can do about it…

Earlier this year, someone asked me a question that really made me have to think about how best to answer it: 

“What do I do when it seems my technique is getting worse as I practice every day?”

The truth is, this is actually a pretty common problem and there are a lot of potential reasons for why it happens.

1. Inconsistent Practice

It’s easy to fall into bad practice habits and sometimes that’s the only reason why you’re feeling stuck or that you’ve lost some ability.  It’s very important to keep up some degree of a consistent daily practice routine that is calculated and well rounded.

Just simply picking up the guitar and playing what you feel like is not enough.  It’s key to have an understanding of what you’re trying to learn and why.  From there, it’s pretty simple to make a practice plan to ensure you achieve those goals.  

However, if you ignore your foundation in the pursuit of learning new things, you will find yourself getting stuck.  That’s why it’s so important to include practice of what you already know whenever you’re working on something new.  

2. Trouble Areas

A lot of times, the answer is simply that you’ve been surprised by finding an area of weakness in your playing that you weren’t aware of.  Perhaps you never had a reason to see it before and so it seems like you’ve “lost” something when, in reality, you simply never shined a light on that problem.

It’s always a good thing when that happens because it gives you the opportunity to improve those trouble areas.  

My recommendation is to simply incorporate some metronome work with that specific trouble area as part of a daily practice routine.  Once you start to see real progress, try to incorporate that trouble area into a solo or something fun to play and master.

When I used to play in bands, I would always incorporate my “trouble areas” into the solos of the songs of the band.  That way, I was forced to master them and practice them constantly. 

3. Good Days and Bad Days

Other factors can create the effect that you’re moving backwards as well.  Have you ever had a day where you could play everything you knew more effortlessly than ever before?  Then, the next day, it wasn’t so easy?  Or maybe one day you went to play and your fingers felt stiff or you just couldn’t pull of techniques that you normally can play very easily?  

There are definitely good days and bad days of playing.  That’s why I always recommend getting your techniques down to where you can play them easily on a bad day, especially if you’ll be performing them.  This will happen over time with proper practice anyway.  But these “good days” and “bad days” can be the result of how rested you are, your emotional state, your confidence level and level of stress or distraction.  All of those things will fluctuate to some degree every day.  

If you find yourself having unexpected issues with your playing, it may be helpful to examine that to see if there might be a clear reason why you’re having trouble.  Sometimes the act of practicing and having trouble can cause a great deal of stress on it’s own.  In that case, I strongly advise that you set the guitar down until you’re feeling better.  

I say never practice when you’re stressed out and especially never practice when the practice is stressing you out.  

If you get to a point where you’re associating stress with practice (and this has happened to me several times), it’s a good idea to take a little break from practicing – maybe for several days.  If that happens often, you’re probably practicing things at a level that’s too advanced for you at the time.  You can run the risk of burning yourself out if you do that.  So it’s advisable to reevaluate your practice routine at that point.

4. Jumping Ahead

If you do find that you’ve jumped ahead to a technique that you’re not quite ready for, the best thing you can do is step back from it for awhile.  That could be a few days, a few weeks or even a month. 

In the meantime, spend your time working on material that you’ve already gotten down.  Focus on solidifying more fundamental techniques and this will help build up your foundation for the more advanced technique you were having trouble with.  In this case, it’s amazing the difference it makes.

5. Imperfections Revealed

Another thing to look at is whether or not you’re actually getting more sloppy or just beginning to notice more imperfections in your playing. 

If, for example, you’ve only recently started taking my advice about working very slowly with a metronome, you may only now be seeing how sloppy your technique was.  When you play it full speed, with distortion, a lot of the sloppiness is masked and hard to notice.  If that’s the case, it still sounded sloppy, it just wasn’t as obvious to you.  That is one of the reasons why it’s so important to work slowly with the metronome when perfecting any technique.

6. Setting Limits on “Perfection”

One thing you will definitely find as you work closer and closer to perfection is that you become more discerning and notice more problems in your playing.  Because there are a virtually infinite number of possible problems in your playing, this can go on forever and can become a real hindrance. 

You do have to draw a line somewhere.  

When I’m recording a song, I often get so focused on perfection that I start to hear “sloppiness” and “mistakes” that would normally be totally invisible to me.  I’ve learned to step back for a day after getting a seemingly good take and wait to listen to it until the following day.  Inevitably, with fresh ears, I’m unable to hear the “sloppiness” anymore.  

7. Don’t get Discouraged


Whatever the reason, you most likely are not actually moving backwards.  You can become rusty or have some bad days, but everything you’ve learned will come back to you in full force after awhile. 

Sometimes a break is all that’s required and sometimes it’s not a bad idea to build up your confidence by working through techniques you’ve already mastered.  

Whatever the case, try not to ever let yourself get discouraged.  If you keep yourself focused on your goals, find an effective practice routine and put the time in, you will get there. 

Dan Mumm

If you’re looking for a new challenge or you’re ready to take your playing to the next level, take a look at my online store.  Check out the link below to see which course or collection is right for you:

Dan Mumm’s Digital Shred Store
https://store.danmumm.com/

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8 Finger Tapping:

A technique and a magic trick

The very appeal of 8 finger tapping is it’s appearance of being an almost superhuman feat of dexterity and control.  But appearances can be deceiving.  In fact, much like how a magician can amaze an audience by fooling them, 8 finger tapping is designed to create an illusion of an impossible level of skill. 

The illusion itself has proven to be good enough to keep its own secret.  Most guitarists never even attempt to learn 8 finger tapping because they are intimidated by what appears to be something that only “specially gifted” or “obsessive players” can achieve.  

Guitarists who master the technique are more than happy to keep the secret whether intentionally or unconsciously.  It’s no secret that ego is a prime motivator for achieving high levels of skill in any area and guitar is a perfect example of that fact.  There is a sense of significance that is downright addictive when being seen as “one of the very few” who can amaze an audience so perfectly with something that “only they can do.”  

But it’s all smoke and mirrors.  The truth is, 8 finger tapping is no more difficult than learning to play the piano at a basic level of competence.  And if the player learning it has already reached a level of proficiency on the guitar, they already know most of what they need to know – they just don’t know it.

Now, none of this is to say that 8 finger tapping is an invalid or worthless technique.  It’s quite the contrary.  Not only does 8 finger tapping work as a brilliant show stopping performance technique but it also allows things to be played on the guitar that would otherwise be impossible.  It opens up doors for creativity and composition and can practically transform the guitar into another instrument altogether.  It is invaluable.  

It’s just that it’s a LOT easier than it looks.  That is, assuming you know an effective way to approach it.

If you’ve ever attempted learning an 8 finger tapping pattern and quit after getting frustrated, there’s a very good reason of why.  You were skipping a key step that you didn’t know about and assumed that the technique itself was too difficult.  

The secret is in how you train your “tapping hand” and how you transfer what you already know from one hand to the other.  The rest is no different than learning any new pattern.  

You can play things with ease by fretting with your fretting hand because you’ve developed those fingers over time with practice.  But more than that, you’ve developed an understanding of the fretboard that becomes intuitive over time.  The reality is, you do not need to develop that understanding all over again to achieve 8 finger tapping.  You just need to “transfer” what you know.  

First and foremost, simple scale patterns can be played with only your tapping hand.  Just a little bit of time spent every day.  This will build up the muscles in those fingers and develop muscle memory.  It’s true that it will be very awkward at first, but that goes away much more rapidly than you’d expect.  

You’ve no doubt used scales as warm-ups throughout your time developing your current skills.  It’s the same process, only now with your tapping hand and approaching the fretboard from a different angle.  

Once your tapping hand becomes comfortable running these warm-ups, you can simply begin learning basic multi-finger tapped patterns and start working your way up. 

A very motivated guitarist could master the technique in a matter of months.  Sometimes in a surprisingly shorter period of time, depending on their level on the guitar and how much time they are willing to spend.  

You can master 8 finger tapping and it doesn’t have to become your job for the next few months.  Simply incorporating some basic warm-ups and exercises into your current practice routine is enough to get you there.

This approach is integral in my course, The Infinite Tapping Method.  This revolutionary course is designed to give you all the tools necessary to master all types of finger tapping, taking you from the basics all the way up to advanced 8 finger patterns.  All the while, giving you the warm-ups, exercises and instruction on how to build up your tapping hand gradually over the course of the lessons.  

It doesn’t include or require any leaps in skill.  It’s meticulously designed to help you work your way up gradually and organically so you build the muscle memory, dexterity and intuitive understanding that is enjoyed by the masters of these techniques.  

If you follow the course as intended, it can and will make a tapping master out of you.  But more than that, it will give you the understanding and ability to craft an infinite array of new tapping patterns in real time, as you need them. 

The skills and understanding you will gain from this course will also carry over into all areas of your playing and help you towards your goal of total mastery over the guitar.

Take a moment now to check out The Infinite Tapping Method.  With nearly 3 hours of video material and 121 optimized exercises (with no filler), The Infinite Tapping Method will truly be your last stop for total tapping mastery.