Whilst I haven't reached a stage where I have thought about quitting or even giving the guitar a rest (yet!), I did reach a stage where I was finding things a bit of a chore. For me, I think the problem was basically that when I started, I looked at Justin's intermediate course and I thought "wow- when I get through that stage I'll really rock!". So I stuck rigidly to my practice routine to get to that stage as soon as I could. But like so many others, I found that whilst I was making quick progress through the course, I wasn't really mastering the stuff that I had covered to any real extent which made my playing significantly less fulfilling - less fun.
My turning point was reading a Guitar World interview dated 25 January 2012 with Gabriella Quintero (one half of the ridiculously talented acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriella). I was expecting her to bang on about how you have to practice, practice, practice stuff you can't yet do to progress, which let's face it she must have to do to achieve the mind-blowing stuff she does. However, to my surprise what I read was this:
"Play and just practice and be inspired more than being disciplined, because discipline is ******* boring and instead, if you get inspired, you want to play all day long. And if you keep disciplining ****, you don’t want to play. So if you keep yourself inspired…you can listen to a lot of music, or you can read incredible books or whatever. To me, in my case I love arts and I love nature. That really keeps me inspired, so that I really crave to play guitar, or I really crave to do creative things. Whereas before when I was young, I was very disciplined, just very straight, you know? I wanted to do two hours a day in the morning, three hours a day in the evening, very like military, you know? But I think that’s not so much fun!"
After reading this, I reminded myself why I started playing guitar and why I used to enjoy it so much more. This will be a different blend of things for different people, but for me it was to lose myself in a process of producing what I call "tingle moments" - such as when a chord change just sounds so cool against the last one or against a simple vocal. I'm talking about very simple open chord playing here. I also wanted to get to a stage where I could play stuff without thinking about it, and to give my own slant and expression to simple songs. I realised that I had lost sight of this a bit in my haste to "progress". Why was I in such a hurry, I asked myself? It wasn't like I wanted to start gigging by the end of the year or anything like that - I just wanted to play for my own pleasure. So I slowed down and instead put more emphasis on identifying and transcribing new songs that were within my capabilities which produced new, fresh "tingles". And yes sometimes I cheated by looking up the tab on the internet! I practiced the more basic stuff that I had already covered in order to get it to a higher standard so I could really get some expression into the simple tunes I was capable of playing, rather than constantly pausing to break new ground on the training course all of the time.
The result for me was that I started to really enjoy playing again, which in turn left me fresh and eager to occasionally try something new and tricky from the lesson schedule. Now and again I get stuck into progressing through Justin's course for a spell for as long as I am still enjoying it - which for me is the whole point.
Some people of course play for different reasons. A good friend of mine has just started to learn piano, and he openly admits he wants to do this so he can impress people. Each to his own, though I wonder how sustaining his attitude will ultimately prove to be. Personally, I just play "for me" and for fun. I find that the guitar helps to give my brain a rest from worrying and brooding over stuff , which it has an annoying tendency to do quite a lot left to its own devices. But my guitar playing only has this therapeutic effect when I am really enjoying it - when I am playing for the sheer joy of it. Otherwise, it basically becomes yet another chore amongst many others in my life.
I browse YouTube for the "inspiration" that Gabriella talked about in her interview, and I usually find it a-plenty whether it is from some fantastic simple acoustic re-working of a pop song (such as Jayme Dee's version of Britney Spears' Toxic or Maroon 5's Sunday Morning for example) or even some laughably poor effort which even I could top! By definition, only one person in the world has no-one who is a better guitar player than him / her, and only one person has no-one who is worse than him / her. The rest of us all fall in between these two people. People's motives for playing and their expectations will vary hugely, and personally I sometimes lose sight of mine. Having said that, as I get older I personally find it harder to draw up a list of simple things that I really like, as opposed to what I am supposed or expected to like. You know, the sort of easily attainable "brown paper packages tied up with string - these are a few of my favourite things" things as opposed to say licking jam off of Keira Knightly's neck (to take a totally random example!!). Judging from some conversations I have had, I suspect that I am not alone on this (the "listing things you like" bit, not necessarily the Keira Knightly thing....!).
Chantal, you seem to be in a bit of a vicious cycle / chicken-and-egg situation which I have found myself in all too often. You are having a bad time generally and I'm assuming that you want to be able to immerse yourself in enjoyable guitar playing to escape this on occasion, but you can't because the bad time that you are having generally prevents you from doing this. I only hope that if you shift the emphasis on the fun bits of guitar playing and away from regimented learning and "progression" - as you seem from your most recent posts to have now done - then you can break any such deadlock. I hope you can gain "inspiration" from whatever source suits you to inject the fun and joy back into your guitar playing and that this in turn will dilute the crappy time that you seem to be going through. I have enjoyed your posts in the past and you are clearly a nice, kind person who deserves better and I hope things turn around soon. I hope you take some comfort from the posts you have received from so many people on this thread - they are testament to the fact that they think well of you too. Keep playing and keep posting - you would be missed! I wish you all of the very best both in respect of your guitar playing and in life generally.
Topic: Procrastination and/or lack of inspiration (Read 7776 times)
