Frustration - cleanliness

[tango_grass]

Argh, sorry for this rant. But I'm in a slump, I admit it. I think my playing is as unclean as its ever been. and slowly getting worse over the past few months.

Anybody have any tips or ideas to break out of this?
I'd love to hear some routines on how you clean up your pickin.

Thanks so much. :)

[John Flynn]

I hope this is not over-simplistic, but when I get "unclean" I clean up by slowing down, with a metronome. It has been said here many times before, but only practice the speed you can do it perfectly. Also, I've found that there are good days and bad. Some days when I practice I may be able to start out at say, 120 BPM on a tune and work my way up to 180. Other days I have to back off to 100 to start on the very same tune and only get up to 160. But I don't let that bother me. In practice, it's not the speed, its the perfection. When go to a jam, I may have to do that same tune at 180 or 200 and it won't be perfect, but it will be a lot closer to perfect because of the time I spent at the slower speeds.

[tango_grass]

thanks John. Good tips. I'll work on some of that.

Also, I should say, this is in all facets of my playing. Improv, Tune playing, workouts.
Not of it is safe! ;)

[Dragonflyeye]

That's some tolerably clean bouzouki playing on MySpace, Chris. And a cool looking instrument, to boot!

I'm new to this (a year), but have been focusing on "cleanliness" since the beginning. Not intentionally focused on slowness, but I've got that one down!

I think John's idea is good. I always start out painfully slow. And remember - it IS January.:))