What do yo do to keep motivated?

[hujh2012]

When I first started playing, I was addicted, I could put in 3 hours every night and had no trouble getting into practice, but now I have to keep up the love affair. I think it is easier when I generally happier too.

I have experienced a slump in my motivation for guitar in the last 9 months, since completing exams, (even though I did well). I know there are some of you, like Jamie, who never have that problem, but for others, I am interest in your strategies to keep motivated in playing guitar.

[jules]

Hi hujh2012,

For me it's all about making a connection with music that inspires me. As your technique and musical understanding progresses then you can explore new songs and ideas. Performing these songs and connecting with other people is the ultimate experience for me and what everything is aiming for.

So I'd suggest listening to music, whether it be Rage Against the Machine, Led Zeppelin, Beethoven, Sibleius, Paco de Lucia, U2, everything really... also go to any local jam sessions and gigs.. get talking to other musicians... play your guitar at parties. In fact I was playing guitar at a party once, started playing with another guy, we are now friends and have our own acoustic duo, that's in addition to another band I play with.

So in summary, get inspired by watching, listening, talking and playing with other people.

Music through the centuries was always about performing. I think the idea of someone playing on their own in a bedroom or study is quite a recent development

jules.

[Augustine]

Set your goals.

As a player who is relatively new to "The Principles" I have strived to improve my practice methodology as much as, or even more so than, my guitar playing itself. Which includes keeping track of my practice and insights in a journal, covering the key areas (technique, scales & chords, repertoire) and doing short- and long-term review.

For the last few weeks I have had my head in "music business" goals. My base non-negotiable guitar practice is to do at least half an hour of foundation exercises a day, and over this period that's all I could manage.

Last weekend I decided I needed to re-focus and re-commit. So I stuck up a chart of my weekly practice hours on the wall in front of my guitar stool. It seems to have done the trick. I have logged as much practice this week as I did in the previous three weeks combined.

Are you setting goals?

Are your goals in strong alignment to your desires?

Are you recording and reviewing your progress?

If these questions don't already have answers then your real goal is, or should be, to improve your practice framework.

[Augustine]

Another piece of advice... try not to make your commitment to practice conditional on your general emotional state.

What you are in danger of doing is setting up a "negative feedback loop": not practicing makes you unhappy, and unhappiness makes you not practice.

Sooner or later you will deaden yourself to one of these behaviours. Make it the latter, not the former.

[N E Y]

.



I would stop the guitar completely for as long as it takes you to become interested in playing music again.

Right now you are not interested in guitar and you heart is not in it...and that can happen. Players have gone through personal hardships that have caused sometimes a break of a year or so before they played again. Forcing yourself to play now will make matters worse. One play's for love of music. When the love is gone one has to stop and do something else for a while until the love returns. If it does not then that's fine too. There is no obligation to play guitar!

When one is a professional one has to discipline oneself a bit, as a form of study organization to get things happening onstage, but that happens only when the love is there.

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[leigh]

You are not the Lone Ranger when it comes to that question! Especially if you do not have like minded souls to practice with or have some professional motivation. I always felt I did not have the time to warrant spending money on instruction so am self taught with all its challenges and deficiencies. Once I get my fingers back up to speed I am looking to give Guitar Principles a go through the Sherpa program.

Back to your question. As you say, playing initially through raw enthusiasm is great but with the work of learning guitar this can wear thin. I think you need to understand what you hope to achieve with your playing - ranging from playing gigs for payment to just jamming out with friends. Either are commendable goals. Then figure out what techniques you need to master to achieve your goal - strumming, flat picking, finger-picking, hammer-ons, slides, ... etc. Then set yourself small achievable goals that will move you to your end point, no goal is too small, you are better off achieving easy goals (building towards a bigger one) than failing at a single big one. Achieving your "small" goals will then encourage you to keep going - give yourself a reward as well! The advantage of a teacher/mentor is they can guide you to making up an achievable plan in a reasonable timeframe (I hope that is the case!). It is the "longest journey starts with a single step" type approach. Plenty of stuff on the net about goal-setting. I think it helps and is worth investigating. Having no plan is a plan to fail!

Good luck!

[HappyRon]

I've been fortunate in a way that I play alot of open mikes, so i play sometimes 6 or 7 times a week over 3 to 5 days, so knowing I am going to performing keeps me motivated. I always ask people going through slumps are you playing? Why did you start playing in the first place and is that reason still there. For me I can't imagine practicing if I didn't think I would have an opprotunity to play for people, but of course everyone's different.

For me my "slumps" are that People like what I'm doing enough that there isn't that much of a push to become better at guitar or write songs or grow in any way. So I don't have to learn new things to keep enjoying playing out.

But i enjoy the challenge and am getting better at learning and every time I write a new song, or play guitar in a different way it's a challenge to go onstage and do that. That's where the motivation to learn comes from.

Don't know if any of this helps, all the best to you.

www.happyron.com

[Ted]

I have a driving rhythm station in my head that just won't leave me alone. Everything I even think about somehow turns into music. I can't sleep nights because of all the blues, jazz and rock and roll going off in my head. I have to spring out of bed and grab a guitar and get to it. If someone drops a dinner plate on the floor and it shatters, seconds later, it turns into a song in my head. A squeaky wheel noise becomes a song. A large branch in a tree creaking as it is swayed by the breeze becomes a song. Everything becomes a song. A song becomes another, or maybe two or three other songs. My whole life is one big, long, bloody song. It drives me to madness at times.

I tried shutting all this off once, many years ago. I stopped playing musical instruments, stopped singing, burned all the lyrics and chord progressions I had written and tried to stop it, tried to burn it out of me. But my all-consuming passion for the Muse only morphed into martial arts and combat science studies. It was no use. I couldn't stop all the noise and the words in my head and I went back into it. And here I am again, all messed up and nowhere to go. It wouldn't be so bad if maybe I was good at it. But I know nothing about music and I suck at guitar, vocals, harmonica -- everything.

But I keep on strumming and picking and singing and screaming away at it anyhow. There's no real reason for it. I just love it. That's the real big secret. It's not that I, as the poet Blake said, am "organized by Divine Providence" to play the Muse. No, not at all. That's a cop-out. That's the cheaters way. No, rather I do it only because I am selfish through and through and I adore the Muse and want her all for myself. No, I don't want her in chains, all tied-down and miserable; but I do want her to make frequent stops wherever I may be and make love to me and spark my imagination from time to time.

Music is hell. Music is torture. Music is murder. Music is an accidental discovery. Musicians are aberrations.

Music is a form of mental illness. We're all freaks.

That is the hell of music. It has a brighter side, too. I am not always able to see it however.

The more I study music theory, the less I understand music. I think that music theory is just a man-made up thing so that musicians could attempt to communicate with one another and try to understand, as I try to understand, the noise, the sounds, the music in our beings. It's a secret code-language for freaks, like, me, who are always trying to organize and pin-down all the racket going on in their heads. It's an admirable attempt that I love it with every cell of my being and I am so happy to be a part of that tiny community. All those little black markings on the page just make me so happy that I can hardly believe it. Here I am, this science-guy, able to snap a spine in a single movement, able to crush a liver like a grapefruit -- tickled to death and happy as can be sitting off in a corner by myself somewhere reading and playing little black markings on a page. Driving me on, pushing me forward, making me crazier than I ever was.

But I keep at it with my Mel Bay books anyway. What keeps me motivated? What keeps driving me on and pushing me -- even though I am getting nowhere?

Part of it is the mystery. I love the unknown. I love it when the unknown is revealed to me. I love to learn. And for that, music is a great place to be. There is no end to the learning. No one knows it all -- and we haven't even scratched the surface yet.

Thank goodness for that silly little book Jamie wrote, "The Principles of Correct Practice for Guitar". Who'd have ever thought that a little book like that could do such a number on a guy? It has confirmed my conviction that I know absolutely nothing about music and probably never will. But that little book can really knock a guy on his ass and make him think. And thinking is what it's all about. That little book has helped me make more tones and better tones than ever before with the guitar. It has helped me make sense of a lot of things. I read it and said to myself, 'But of course! What the hell was I thinking?!'

I'll tell you, one of the first things I did when I started reading that book and began to realize the true power of the information therein, was to scratch out part of the title and give it my own name; I call it: "The Principles of Correct Practice for Anything". That's right. "The Principles" doesn't just apply to the guitar. It applies to just about anything one does in life. No, it doesn't give out some great secrets of the universe, but it does in fact help keep you from stumbling around and getting too tense and hurting yourself while you are exploring the universe. That in itself is worth it's weight in gold -- or silver -- if you prefer silver, like I do.

I think that the trick to anything, the motivation, the big secret, is that we want to come into our own. We want to discover ourselves, our highest potential. I think that's the ultimate goal. Music is like a magical power. And who does not want to be magic?! Of course, it is a magical power we want for ourselves. It is a magical power we want to make all our own. We want to control it, direct it and put it in our service. We want to master it.

And so, here I am, trying to master music, i.e., trying to make it my own. I have moments where I succeed brilliantly -- and others, most others in fact, well, let's just say they're not so brilliant.

Music is hell. Pure hell. But I'm OK with that.

"If you, who are organized by Divine Providence for Spiritual communion, Refuse, & bury your Talent in the Earth, even tho' you should want Natural Bread, Sorrow and Desperation pursues you thro' life, & after death shame & confusion of face to eternity." -- William Blake 1802

“Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night.”
― William Blake

[Jamie]

Well damn Ted, if that doesn't motivate everybody, I don't know what the hell would!

Great stuff, and I love the description of my book, might have to use that somewhere.....!!

[GAA43]

Wow Ted, that is a heck of a post!

You wrote the following:
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I think that the trick to anything, the motivation, the big secret, is that we want to come into our own. We want to discover ourselves, our highest potential. I think that's the ultimate goal. Music is like a magical power. And who does not want to be magic?! Of course, it is a magical power we want for ourselves. It is a magical power we want to make all our own. We want to control it, direct it and put it in our service. We want to master it.
-----------

I think that very well describes my motivation and interest. It is indeed magic, and to think that I can get a little bit of a grip on such magic, is really inspiring.
I am in no way blessed or cursed with what you describe in terms of hearing songs in everything. I'm a middle-aged newcomer to making music, and am still not sure how really musical I am. However my fingers seem to work pretty well, with Jamie's help, and I really have the bug for this stuff, more than for any other pursuit I've had, so I'm chasin' that magic. And I would clarify, not for power or control, but just to be part of it.

Greg