I hate it when I play sloppy notes. We all play them and we all hate them. The question is what should we do about them? What can we do about them? The obvious answer to the second question is practice (actually three answers: practice, practice, practice). We all make fewer mistakes when our muscle memory takes us right to the place we need to be on our instrument and there is no substitute for woodshopping a tune until it’s in our brains as second nature. The refining process can go on forever because you never really know a tune inside and out no matter how many times you practice it. There’s always some element of a tune that you can improve upon. Just listen to your favorite bluegrass band and you’ll find that the tune you play best could use a lot more practice.
Sloppy Notes
But what SHOULD we do about sloppy notes? The answer to that question depends entirely on the situation. If you’re in a hot jam struggling for your very survival and having a great time the answer is keep playing! The groove of the jammers will pull you back to where you need to be and in the end your mistake will be what is known in the trade as a “passing note”. Sometimes the passing note is even appreciated and admired. They think you plated it on purpose!
I wish that happened to me more often. Usually my sloppy note is a sour wounded duck which is obviously not what was intended. But you still have to press on. Many mistakes are not even heard by anyone but the author and all can be overcome. Listen to enough live recordings and you will hear occasional awful notes from even your most admired musicians. Yet the live performance was issued anyway because what people remember when they hear it is that the overall recording is a great piece of music history.
Clean notes are always better than sloppy ones. A missed note here and there should prompt every musician to remember their most recent faux pas and go home and fix them with more practice. But you should never stress about a bad note while you are playing with others. Play through it smoothly so that you and others don’t become self conscious and cause a train wreck. A musical train wreck is a total breakdown of the band cohesion including rhythm. And sloppy rhythm is the worst sin of all.
We all should care more about sloppy notes. I’ve played with good musicians who almost refuse to play unless they can get every note perfect. It makes for good music for sure. But in a jam situation where you’re improvising nobody expects perfection. That said, people who have practiced similar tunes over and over will have less difficulty adjusting to the situation.
Sloppy notes are not good but they can be forgiven. As my friend Dan Levinson says “There are no mistakes in playing music, only notes you didn’t intend to play. If you find a note you don’t like,well, don’t play that one next time.”
