Motivation - when it's off visiting someone else, it really SUCKS! - so how do you coax it back?

willem
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Wed Apr 27, 2011 10:54 am

Oh YES,I can find all the things said in the post's ,,when i was a bit negative i had no motivation to play or practice ,i could not give it the energy what it needs and put it a way for a coplle of day's and its great to look back and find my progress back,,its not much but enough on this moment..

I find my fun back with the song Halellujah(really a debut in playing in front of people) which i may do the playing and a choir member does the singin this is for a jubileum we have 21 may,,i find him a good singer and think he can do something with the lyrics..(he was very pleased with my playing).

FOR me it really works to do something else or nothing at all when i feel negative on playing or practice the guitar,,well there's more in live..but the guitar is the bigist..


I work now on a view travis pickin songs i try diffrent songs to make it not sad or boring

Its spring here and summer is coming so i got a lot to enjoy...damn why do think on that guitar..well he can be sunny too..


Willem----


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Wed Apr 27, 2011 11:41 am

dennisg wrote:
guitar playing should exist to make our lives better. Not worse. It shouldn't be a source of frustration. It should ease the frustration. So, all I can say is that if what you're doing with the guitar is causing you more pain, do something different. Change it up. Allow yourself to quit worrying about all the things you should be learning on the guitar, and focus on treating yourself to a day (or two, or three) of just having fun. Remind yourself that your brain is preoccupied with other things, and allow yourself to make mistakes without beating yourself up.
Excellent choice of words Dennis. For me it is certainly a positive therapy after a long or difficult day. Finding a simple song and playing it for no other reason than FUN can be a huge spirit lifter.... :)

Jason


sbutler
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Wed Apr 27, 2011 1:09 pm

Wow Michelle, I can now see that I'm not the Lone Ranger here.

We've hit this subject before, but its good to cover it frequently (I think) because what ever this funk is that we get into, Friends can help us out.

I go back to my days of competitive archery. And when I finally learned just how much of archery is mental. I rarely missed an evening of practice in the back yard. I had a walk around, 25 target course in my 50 acres of woods, and it was a ritual every night after work. But I learned that if I had had a bad day at work, it showed in my accuracy. I learned to just put the bow down and walk away. It did no good to push a bad situation. Some times in less than an hour, I could be back to my old self again. The key is to take the pressure off yourself.

With my guitar, I simply take away the self imposed practice regiment , and I just noodle. I'm not much of a noodler, but I let my left hand dictate the sound that comes out. I find myself simply playing the stuff that I know or have learned already. I did it last night while watching basket ball playoffs. I amazed myself by how long I played, and never played the same song twice . When I finally did hang it up for the night, I walked away pretty proud of how far I've come in just a little over a year.

Another thing that I do is just play with songs that I don't really want to dedicate real practice time too, yet I like the songs, and have had them in my head for years. After the things that Neil has taught me, its fun to be able to watch one of his previews or "Fly on the wall" segments, and start playing along with him, never having opened a tab or a chart. That too me is another measure of how far I've come, what I've learned and the excitement of what I've yet to accomplish.

Once I get the urge to open my binder and start practice again, things usually come a little easier than they did before.


those moose tacos last night set me right.

Scott


tovo
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Wed Apr 27, 2011 2:07 pm

Mmm Shel...much wisdom you seek (repeat in your best Yoda impersonation)

Great thread my friend with some really great responses. This is an issue that I get concerned about but have yet to experience. I absolutely love to play. I am always up for it. (Can you guys think of anything else in the same category?....careful it's a family site!)

Seriously I have yet to suffer any drop in motivation to play. My biggest regret is that I left it so long but as there is exactly zero I can do about that I try not to dwell on it.

There are some great responses here. I guess it's common to look at the skill level of others and think "no way am I that good and probably never will be" and let that get you down, but again, I just use the better players as a form of inspiration. Guitar is so good for me because it's the first thing I have ever done that is never, ever negative for me. Through guitar I am achieving a life long ambition and at the same time I have made some great friends (one of them being the owner of this thread).

Perhaps when I have been playing a few more years I will experience these problems with motivation. Knowing that it is a common occurrence will surely help me if and when that happens.

Again, great thread.


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Wed Apr 27, 2011 3:18 pm

tovo wrote:
Guitar is so good for me because it's the first thing I have ever done that is never, ever negative for me. Through guitar I am achieving a life long ambition and at the same time I have made some great friends (one of them being the owner of this thread).
:) :) :) :)

Well said Tony.....

J


tombo1230
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Wed Apr 27, 2011 4:13 pm

I'm with Tovo on this one, I just love playing and can't wait to do so. I would say I have two modes of playing which I use depending on what I want from my playing and sometimes I mix them together. I sometimes play to practice and learn and sometimes just to enjoy and play and sometimes both. I genuinely can't remember getting down or frustrated, I just wait for improvement, sometimes it comes fast and sometimes slow, but I usually have several tunes on the go at the one time and if something isn't working after a good while, then I play something else and try again later. You have to mix it up a bit. Getting motivated just isn't an issue I'm happy to say. :)

Tom N.


michelew
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Wed Apr 27, 2011 5:10 pm

Thanks to everyone who responded. I won't respond to you individually as i would like to as I'm about to get ready for work, but know that you've all touched me with the thought and time that you've put into your response. You are all such great people, I'm really proud to call myself a part of this community.

Well I sure do feel better after reading what works for you and your suggestions and that most of you struggle with this from time to time too.

'Have fun' seems to be a theme, which is something a couple of sweet friends have been saying to me for a while. I've definitely been trying to do that and playing easier songs has helped.

In fact all of your suggestions are worth keeping in mind. It's funny I knew most of it after talking to you all in similar threads over my time here, but it really helps to write it again and to read all of your responses.

Hopefully it has helped others to know that the slump is something that most people experience and that it passes.

THANKS!!!

Michele


sws626
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Wed Apr 27, 2011 5:21 pm

Hi Michele,

This is a great question and I'm glad you shared it and have really appreciated the views that everyone has expressed so far.

My own experience of this phenomenon is heavily coloured by the limited time that I have to play. With a hugely stressful job that involves long periods of intensive travel and work around the clock, a three-year old daughter, and a couple of other very enjoyable -- but, lately, much neglected -- hobbies, I cherish every minute that I get to spend with the guitar. Sometimes, when I am working from my home office, I get to play off and on throughout the day, which is terrific. But then there are gaps of a week or two at a time when I just cannot pick it up -- either because I'm travelling, or exhausted, or simply in the wrong frame of mind. That's something I've just had to learn to accept and not beat myself up about.

I do feel very much at loose ends after having learned a new song when I'm casting about for the next challenge. But, as I've begun to set some longer term goals, this is less of a problem and I find that I'm pretty immune to marshmallow effect -- not because I don't like the new Target songs, but because I have some pretty specific criteria about what I want to learn next.

I guess I'm pretty much with Dennis on this issue -- the guitar is a source of pleasure; my genuine frustrations come from other quarters. If I'm in a funk that makes me unsatisfied with playing, it's invariably rooted in something other than music. Sometimes playing can help; but, if it doesn't, then I'll do something else for a while.

-Stuart


lueders
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Wed Apr 27, 2011 5:35 pm

I can honestly say I have pretty much ran through the techni-color spectrum of emotions associated with the guitar.

The range of extremes is something like: loosing track- of-time-and- all- other-things- around- me bliss on one hand and " I am gonna throw this miserable block of wood in the fire" on the other hand.

Like many have said, I am generally- speaking, getting pissed off at the times I am just in the wrong head space for the guitar. It is usually when I start expecting the instrument to serve too many miracles. "Come on guitar, we had fun yesterday...gimme the beat and free my soul I wanna get lost in your rock 'n roll and drift away..."

ex."I've got fifteen things to do and I don't want to do any of 'em...I know I'll play my guitar and then I'll thoroughly distract myself and block out all this other crap. Then I'll fell better." NO, I WON"T EVEN ENJOY MY TIME PLAYING GUITAR BECAUSE I WAS DISTRACTED TRYING TO DISTRACT MYSELF AND I WON"T HAVE ANY OF MY NEEDFULS DONE!

I am like a lot of people here when I approach the instrument with ample time and a clear head the relationship is usually a healthy, non-dysfunctional...everything zen sort of thing. In these instances I am seldom let down, mainly because I have low expectations! lol! However, when I was 22 I was just sure I was gonna be a rock star with four homes by now...those were decidedly (at least for me) ridiculously lofty expectations!

Laid- back, short-term goals like: let's just have fun, attempt a new technique, try a new project,
fine tune an old tune, or make some new guitar discovery...generally have positive outcomes.
In other words,they do not usually end in despair. lol!


thereshopeyet
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Wed Apr 27, 2011 7:12 pm

I'm not very sure what to say here (I already deleted three attempts)....but yeah, I do fully agree on that one, I've played for fun almost all my life! The learning I did when I was a young kid and the last 6 years or so. In between I just played for fun (sure I learned a little as well) all the time and I stíll do a lót!

I guess it's also because I really lóve to sing and the guitar is just there to accompany myself. From time to time I just go over some of my songbooks (I have a lót of those) and just play and sing all night. But besides that, I do so during the day several times, one song, two songs, ány song, whatever pops up in my head.

So to me, guitarplaying isn't frustrating at all (yes I know, I'm lucky, usually I can play what I want to play). It lifts my spirit when all other things fail to do so. Often when I'm not feeling well I post a video in here (TG is really fantastic for that matter!), it's such an outlet!

But besides that I also love to practice, whatever it is that I want to nail. But up till now, the only song wich really gave me a headache was Classical Gas (the chorus, the barre-version), so after a while I didn't care for it anymore (just lost interest) and I just let it be (well I might pick it up in the future) and I couldn't be really frustrated about it, since there are so many other great songs to play.

So in short, I'm with Dennis and Tony for that matter.....just play, play for fun, síng if you can/want and don't set the bar too high, don't focus too much on goals, sure it's good to have them, but they're not the main goal/purpose, the main goal is to have fun playing the guitar! If you don't, try something else, I can't say it any better than Dennis already did, he is so very right about that!

The reason that my playing seems so effortless here and there (I've read this many times for instance in the Suite: Judy Blue Eyes-thread) is because I've played a lót in my life, it has become natural because of that. And I dón't mean playing high level songs!

Just play Shel (or ányone else for that matter), whatever you're playing, play it a lót, just pláy! :cheer:

Nessa

michelew wrote:

'Have fun' seems to be a theme
:cheer:


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