3 Reasons Why Your Slide Guitar Playing Never Gets Better

You’ve probably heard the story of how Edison failed 6,498 times before he created the light bulb.  I don’t know how true it is but I definitely know he didn’t succeed on his first try. 

Why am I telling you this?  I’ll come back to it in a minute. I know you probably just want to know the 3 reasons why you’re not getting better, then you’ll just start doing them and everything will be perfect.

I hate to burst your bubble but it just doesn’t work like that.

Zig Ziglar said “Aim at nothing and you will hit it every time”.

One of my favorite quotes and speakers of all time.  This is also true of slide guitar playing. What are you aiming for?  Have you written it down?  Are you working towards it?

If you can’t answer these questions, then you’re guilty of reason

#1. You don’t set goals.

It is statistically proven that people who set goals are more successful than people who don’t.  So let me ask you, “Why aren’t you setting goals with your playing?”

#2 You don’t track your progress.  

You need to record yourself playing and listen back to figure out what you need to work on.  If you don’t think you need to do this, you are very mistaken.

I was in the studio today recording a track for someone and after the first take I listened back and thought, man that SUCKS! I clearly was not trying hard enough.  Anyway, when you record yourself,  you’ll hear how bad your vibrato is, or how off your pitch is.

This is a good thing.  If you know where you are weak, then you can take action to practice that area in your playing that needs work.  This is pure gold if you know this!

#3 You are not taking the time to just sit down and play from the heart

Sometimes it really helps just to sit down and play without thinking about if you’re doing it right, or if you’re playing the right scale, or if your tone is what it should be. I don’t care what anyone says, if you don’t sit down every once and a while and play purely to create a magical moment and transcend your hands to the instrument, then you don’t get music. Period.

I am guilty of this as well.

When I recorded that track earlier today, I thought to myself, “forget about trying to  impress, play the vibe, get the feel, and try Hittin’ the Note” as Duane would say. After getting into the right frame of mind I totally got into the track and sounded relaxed, calm, and sure of the notes I was playing.

Back to good ol’ Edison.  Apparently he failed tons of times and eventually he got it right.  You need to do this with your slide guitar playing as well.  If you’re not failing at something, then you’ll never get any better, because you’re not trying to go beyond what you already know.

Have you failed today?

If you’re serious about learning slide guitar I’ve developed a course on how to do this.  No it’s not a magic formula to instant Duane Allman, but if you practice what’s in these slide guitar lessons, you’ll learn how to play. So start recording yourself and see what you hear.  You may find out some things you didn’t realize.