3/28/25 5 Common Mistakes String Players Make When Playing Non-Classical Styles

1) Vibrato

Take a cue from vocalists. Pop vocals are not sung like opera. Vibrato often does not start at the beginning of a note and often has a very different sound. Instrumentalists in non-classical styles use vibrato very sparingly if at all. Imitate the vocalists or instrumentalists in whatever genre you are playing.

2) Reading the music exactly as it is written

The rhythms and inflections of popular styles are almost never reflected accurately in sheet music or lead sheets. Jazz players know that they are expected to stray from the written page and to know how to turn a skeletal chart into living, breathing music. Classical players are taught the opposite—to play every note exactly as written and to never stray from the page.

3) Sitting or standing still

Any groove-based music, and that includes about 99% of non-classical styles, cannot be played properly without allowing your body to move with the groove. If you don’t move, the listener will not move.

4) Swinging too hard

Many string players know about swung 8th notes—that even though the notes are written as typical 8th notes, they need to long/short rather than even. But what they sometimes don’t know is that the amount of swing changes with the tempo, especially in the melody instrument. The swing tends to even out as the tempo gets faster, and in most up-tempo jazz, the melodic instrument playing the melody or taking a solo (often the sax or trumpet) are not swinging as hard as the rhythm section. In other words, they are playing with less swing, closer to straight 8th notes.

5) Not a heavy enough downbeat

Classical music has a great deal of rhythmic subtlety, and over the last 100 years or so, the tradition has been to de-emphasize the weight of the down beat, which leads to a more elegant and refined sound, less course and folk-like. What this often boils down to is a greater emphasis on the groove in non-classical styles, and on the downbeat in particular. It’s not the downbeat for nothing, and bringing it out will usually make contemporary music sound more authentic.