How Common are Mistakes While Practicing and Playing Guitar?

“How common are mistakes while practicing and playing guitar?” Slipups will happen when you perform – get used to it. However, the following information will help keep things in perspective:

1. Everyone screws up when performing – even rock stars. Sir Paul McCartney, of Beatle fame, said he used to be petrified of messing up. However, he found that the audience didn’t have a problem with it. In his words, “I used to be terrified… of making a mistake. Now I realize the audiences don’t mind. In fact — they quite like it” (Evening Standard).
2. When cleaning out my attic I found a letter that my grandmother had written to one of her violin students. She said, “I know you’re afraid of making mistakes at the recital, but I want to tell you something. If someone tells you that they don’t make mistakes when they perform, they’re either 1) lying or 2) they don’t perform very often.” Errors happen when you perform. If you have an error-free performance, enjoy it, because they don’t happen too often.
3. We have wax cylinder recordings of the piano masters from the late 19^th century (Piano Mastery). In these recordings, the artists have errors that’d be unacceptable by today’s standards. Conversely, using techniques such as overdubbing, modern audio recordings have idealized performances. This means that they give us an unrealistic idea of how live performances should sound. A live performance won’t sound like a studio recording.

Messing up while performing happens a lot. However, if you don’t draw attention to a gaffe (no groaning or making bad faces), the audience most likely won’t notice anyway. Really, if you stop worrying about errors, you’ll be less likely to make them in the first place.