--- title: Highlighting Your Weaknesses In Your Playing - And Fixing Them description: One thing all great musicians do is to constantly aim to get better. You have to build muscles and coordination in your fingers and hands on a stringed instrument. Learn how to focus on weaknesses as a banjo player so you can get better. image: https://blog.deeringbanjos.com/hubfs/fullsizeoutput_2565.jpeg --- [![Deering Banjos - The Great American Banjo Company](https://blog.deeringbanjos.com/hubfs/Logos/Deering%20Logo.png "Deering Banjos - The Great American Banjo Company")](https://www.deeringbanjos.com/) - [Hooks & Nuts](https://blog.deeringbanjos.com) - [Banjos](https://www.deeringbanjos.com/collections/banjos) - [Find A Dealer](https://www.deeringbanjos.com/apps/store-locator/) - [Support](https://help.deeringbanjos.com/knowledge) - [Accessories](https://www.deeringbanjos.com/collections/accessories) [Playing Tips](https://blog.deeringbanjos.com/topic/banjo-playing-tips) # Highlighting Your Weaknesses In Your Playing - And Fixing Them by [David Bandrowski](https://blog.deeringbanjos.com/author/david-bandrowski) on December 14, 2018 ##### Share One thing all great musicians do is to constantly aim to get better. The same is true with most things in life, but the correlation is most easily true when compared to athletes. This is because of the physical nature of athletics. Playing an instrument is similar. You have to build muscles and coordination in your fingers and hands on a stringed instrument. Golfers are always working on and perfecting their swing. Baseball players and tennis players the same thing. Swimmers on their stroke. Etc. When first starting out on a stringed instrument, most likely your fingers wouldn’t do what your brain told them to do. You had to build up strength and coordination. If you were playing 3 finger style banjo, you might slowly work on one roll until it felt natural. As you progress you might start to focus on precise timing and tone of your rolls. I’ve been playing 5 string banjo for over 30 years, and at a fairly advanced level. But recently I was noticing that when I [played my rolls](https://blog.deeringbanjos.com/the-four-essential-5-string-banjo-rolls) at certain tempo, my rolls would just get a bit choppy.  I worked on the rolls with a metronome. I went back and played them slowly, focusing on getting very precise timing and tone. They got a little better, but still not where I wanted them. As I was practicing some single string bebop lines, I noticed something. My middle finger of my right hand wasn’t playing each note with the same tone as the others. I then tried playing slowly some scales just with my middle finger of my right hand and found it very difficult to do cleanly with a good tone. Also, my finger got tired very quickly. When I tried the same scales with just my thumb or just my index finger I had no problem. Hence, I knew I had to work on my middle finger. [![Read "Pinky and Ring - The Typical Weak Links"](https://hubspot-no-cache-na2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/cta/default/1901150/147d07bf-5c5f-407f-8994-695247e00e62.png)](https://hubspot-cta-redirect-na2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/cta/redirect/1901150/147d07bf-5c5f-407f-8994-695247e00e62) The same goes true when learning a new song. Many players will play the song from the beginning and somewhere in the middle, they hit a spot that gives them trouble. They then start at the beginning of the song and hit that trouble spot again. They do this over and over and get frustrated. Instead, when they find that trouble spot, they should start right there and focus on the hard part of the song. Eventually it will become easy. Again, focus on your weaknesses and fix them. If you only continue to do what you’re good at - anywhere in life - you will not grow. Focus on what gives you trouble and work on it. Your playing will vastly improve and your frustration of not growing as a musician will go away. [![Read More Playing Tips Here](https://hubspot-no-cache-na2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/cta/default/1901150/adbc7325-fa23-45bd-892d-a621e5796357.png)](https://hubspot-cta-redirect-na2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/cta/redirect/1901150/adbc7325-fa23-45bd-892d-a621e5796357)   ## COMMENTS [![Kristin Scott Benson chooses the Deering Golden Series banjos](https://hubspot-no-cache-na2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/cta/default/1901150/e1746c92-ee50-47bc-9b8c-8cc1edf426a2.png)](https://hubspot-cta-redirect-na2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/cta/redirect/1901150/e1746c92-ee50-47bc-9b8c-8cc1edf426a2) [![New call-to-action](https://hubspot-no-cache-na2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/cta/default/1901150/1753c9a8-491f-4b2b-b9ef-50457c195d9b.png)](https://hubspot-cta-redirect-na2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/cta/redirect/1901150/1753c9a8-491f-4b2b-b9ef-50457c195d9b) ## Search Blog Post ## YOU MAY ALSO LIKE Oct 8.2024 [Playing Tips](https://blog.deeringbanjos.com/topic/banjo-playing-tips) ## [The Importance Of A Warm Up Routine](https://blog.deeringbanjos.com/warm-up-exercises) It doesn't matter what style of banjo playing you do, creating a warmup routine for yourself each time you pick up your banjo will help you progress and... 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[December 2024 (1)](https://blog.deeringbanjos.com/archive/2024/12) - [March 2025 (1)](https://blog.deeringbanjos.com/archive/2025/03) see all [![Deering Banjos - the Great American Banjo Company](https://blog.deeringbanjos.com/hubfs/Logos/Deering%20Logo.png "Deering Banjos - the Great American Banjo Company")](https://www.deeringbanjos.com/) 3733 Kenora Dr. Spring Valley, CA 91977 - [619-464-8252](tel:+619-464-8252) - [info@deeringbanjos.com](mailto:info@deeringbanjos.com) - [HOME](https://www.deeringbanjos.com/) - [BANJOS](https://www.deeringbanjos.com/collections/banjos) - [FIND A DEALER](https://www.deeringbanjos.com/apps/store-locator/) - [ARTISTS](https://www.deeringbanjos.com/blogs/deering-artists) - [CONTACT US](https://www.deeringbanjos.com/pages/contact-us) ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "David Bandrowski", "url" : "https://blog.deeringbanjos.com/author/david-bandrowski" }, "dateModified" : "2018-12-14T20:49:53.658Z", "datePublished" : "2018-12-14T20:49:53.000Z", "headline" : "Highlighting Your Weaknesses In Your Playing - And Fixing Them", "image" : [ "https://blog.deeringbanjos.com/hubfs/fullsizeoutput_2565.jpeg" ], "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://blog.deeringbanjos.com/highlighting-your-weaknesses-in-your-playing-and-fixing-them", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://blog.deeringbanjos.com/hubfs/Logos/deering-logo-green-406325-800x163.png" }, "name" : "Deering Banjos" } } ```