this year marks my first full year of practice. i started the year with 6 months of practicing a half hour a day or less, and finished the year practicing 1 to 3 hours a day consistently, totating about 650 hours of practice this year. while i'm happy with the progress i made, there were some things i can definitely do better.

1. squeezing barre chords... i've been doing it all year. i have worked hard at reducing the force i use with my fretting hand, but barre chords i still squeeze from the thumb. this not only causes a lot of pain, but tires the hand and makes it difficult to be fluid releasing from the chord. i spent all day yesterday practicing lagrima with my thumb completely detatched from the neck to try to break this habit. i hope to have it corrected by end of year. i still have to remind myself to pull with the biceps instead of squeezing with the thumb. it will take a few days to get the right amount of tension, but i can already feel a significant improvement in both reduced pain and improved playing fluidity.

2. right hand not floating... whether fingerstyle or flat picking, i can trace the majority of my right hand misses and accidental hits (of the wrong string) to a change in angle, either of the pick or my fingers, due to my right hand not floating properly. for me, the issue presented only on the high e, and sometimes b, strings. i spent a month focusing on right hand position and have fixed the majority of the problems. i still forget to float it sometimes, but when i do i quickly realize my mistake and correct it.

3. pick noise and pick angle... i've been cognizent lately about my picking angle. i had some issues with pick noise on the high strings of the electric, particulary around frets 12 - 14. this was also largely due to the right hand not floating, which changed my picking angle, but also had a little to do with my pick attack angle.

4. pausing a song or technique... i started and stopped two songs too many times over the year. this costs in productivity of practice... i need to focus on finishing a song before moving the next to the forefront. the same goes for techniques in progress.

5. ringing strings w/o palm muting... i wasn't muting the low strings. after moving to a closed fist picking technique with jazz iii picks, i finally felt comfortable laying my right palm on the strings. i was able to cleanly mute during swept arpeggios and wes occationally capable of muting for tone even when far from bridge. of course this technique will make strumming a little more difficult as there is no "shock absorber" action between the pick and the hand and the hand angle needs to be precise to keep from catching knuckles on the strings on down strokes.

6. muting strings unintentionally... a couple of fingerstyle songs i caught myself readying my thumb too early... the low angle caused the thumb to plant on a ringing string early and mute it. changing the angle of my hand slightly keeps the tumb off the other strings. in some places i rotate the thumb from horizontal to vertical which also works, but only if the resulting tone increase matches the piece.

7. push a song too quickly... there are a couple of root causes here. one is the natural tendency we all have to speed up before we are ready. i plan to combat this by working on embelishments early on instead of near the end. that way, they are practiced while slow, and focusing on them allows me to mentally work on the song longer at a slow pace without feeling bored and wanting to speed up. it also means they will be very clean when sped up. the second factor here is self induced... i set a deadline, like mom's birthday, and then push towards that date. i need to stop assigning artificial deadlines.

8. research... this wasn't a mistake, but going forward, i need to learn new techniques but spend less time researching... i need to outsource some of this next year to nate so i can be more efficient. i think they're called lessons.

what mistakes did you correct this year? have any of the same issues?