Help Needed, I'm Wasting Away

Nidge

I just did the Leaving Cert 4 weeks ago and went on a 10 day holiday to Australia straight after it during which i had no guitar to play. Since returning from my holiday i have not played my guitar anywhere near as much as i promised myself or as much as i thought i would. The Senior Cycle of school for me was characterised by apathy. I wanted to do well but my body/mind was not willing to do the work needed to do so.

Now I feel since being free of school that the guitar/music, the thing i thought of and was distracted by in all my classes in school has replaced studying. I know potentially i could become a really good guitarist if i used the summer and the coming years wisely and possible even avoid a desk job. But what the feck is stopping me? There's no limit to the amount of equipment and reading material i have to make this a reality but yet i sit at my computer talking of this possibility rather than acting.

I read a few threads concerning people's mental blocks and their psyche's hindering them. I was wondering do any budding musicians have any advice? I am really stuck in a rut I see these guys (the professionals mind you) used to and probably still do play 10 hours a day to get where they are and now that school's out there's nothing stopping me, except my mind. I'm beginning to think i have that block that if i try there's a danger i will fail and won't improve fast enough. Any advice is appreciated. (Trust me this is not better suited to the "Personal Issues" board people there will tell me to get a life for taking Music so seriously)

jcoote

go totally off the beaten track an learn something new...say if your a rocker learn regaee or classical guitar or something...maybe some lessons would help cos if u paid/had to leave the house to play u would be more likely to do it

Nidge

I was thinking in terms of getting a teacher again too, i stopped getting one just before the LC. He was primarily a theory based teacher, i think i want a technical one now, if you or anyone knows a good technical teacher let me know, preferably kind of young guy who is capable of teaching i wanna be able to learn sweeps and similar techniques, i really do hope this is the missing link.

jcoote

u couldn't use the videos on cyberfret.com to get u goin no???

Nidge

Nah as i said i have loads of sources from which to learn but i think it's gotten so broad now i don't know where to start, it's also a long time since a guitar teacher has critiqued my playing habits, i need a direction.

feylya

I've been stuck in a rut for about 2 years now. Not really any desire to further my playing which is annoying. Try playing stuff that's just beyond your reach maybe. Some Vai or something.

jcoote

try joining a band

Nidge

Ha Feylya you hit it on the head there, while in Australia i got a magazine containing part of his 10hour workout. I thought "so to get anywhere one must play 10 hours a day?". I've never gotten near that since i read it, i haven't played for fours since never mind 10, 4 hours used not to be that amazingly much for me. I also have G.A.S. but i have plenty of equipment i deserve nothing more until i improve drastically. I'm exactly like you said Feylya, for no particular reason i seem to have no desire to improve myself whereas when i was in school i replaced study with guitar playing. I think it's that i need a routine to get me up in the morning, but having worked the whole of last summer and having done the LC i have no interest in speeding up my summer by getting a job, besides even if i do start playing the guitar once i get a job, i still won't have near the amount of time to do so without a job.

feylya

When I was at school, I played three or fours hours a day. Now I'm lucky to play three or fours hours a week

Jamming with other musicians but they have to be at least at your level. I was jamming with a couple of lads a while back and while they were ok, they just weren't great and that just depressed me. I ended up just leaving the guitar in the case when I got back from jamming with them for a few days and not playing.

I tried the lesson route but the teacher I had was dreadful. Great player, terrible teacher. Believed there was no other music than the blues and that blues techniques were the best for everything

jcoote

blus the be all and end all god no... i don't get a chance to practice much so just got new gear that helps ...i dunno lads i only started playin at like 20 to 21 so school never came into it...fey u are destined to be a guitar tech

feylya

I really am. That's what I've been doing with myself recently. Looking over new guitars and setting up for people's gigs.

jcoote

thats what u know about so why not...i wouldn't know where to start tbh

feylya

Start at "this is a guitar. You plug it in here"

Anyway, no hijacking

Nidge

I HATE the blues, if it's original grand, but how do people think they are good if they play the blues? It's like there was only ever one blues song and it's just been varied ever since by an array of con artists who want all the girls with none of the practice....off topic.

Anyway yeah i don't want to land with another crap teacher, it took me two teachers before i found one i want when i was starting out. If anything i would have thought musicians who were far better than you would depress you, although i think i understand. That's what i found weird when i did have teachers, when i got home even though i learnt all this new stuff i didn't seem to go home and play immediately, i'd leave the guitar in its case and watch tv. Others may well go home and play for four hours....it worries me.

I mean many of the interviews i have read from guitarists i love:Daron Malakian, John Frusciante and Steve Vai (i don't love him though, wait i don't love any of them, i admire them, but i'm only aware of his talent i haven't listened to his stuff) they all state in their interviews that they knew early on that music was their call. There's nothing in me like that, music is a big part of my life but i can equally see myself working as anything else aswell as a musician. Also John Frusciante said he had this great desire to be a rockstar, i think i would like to be one, but i think it's the fact that i haven't been playing enough to back that ambition that stops me from being so vocal about such an aspiration.

feylya

Na, I never really had aspirations of "being big". I'd love to be able to get up on stage with a band and play but that's not happening. At the moment, being a tech/roady is much more fun. Get to go to gigs for free, couple of free pints and you get paid at the end of it. Plus, if one of the guitarists from the bands can't play, who's gonna step up and fill in for them?

As for only one blues song, same could be said for metal. I love the blues though. Some incredible stuff that most people miss out on. Rory Gallagher is a legend but doesn't get enough acknowledgement.

Nidge

As i said if they can do something original with it grand. Obviously there are many recurrences in all types of music but in few styles is there a very set generic chord change like in blues, such as the twelve bar blues. I mean there's even a blues scale, and all beginners go straight for the pentatonics and think they are great. Let's not forget the turnaround in blues to go back into yet another run of 12 bars of the same chords. I don't think one could quite accuse metal of being THAT similar from song to song.

feylya

Well, fair enough. Just chord progressions really.

Anyway, have you thought about jamming with random people, not with a view to starting a band, just for learning off each other?

Nidge

I'm in a band, and i am one of the people that is relied on to come up with the songs. I have ideas recorded but in truth i am becoming too lazy/apathetic/uninspired to shape the ideas and get things rolling, i REALLY hope that a teacher will be the one to inspire me and set me on the right track. I don't want to resign music to a hobby just yet, while there's still time.

feylya

"Relied on"? Interesting band you have there, one person writing the songs.

Anyway, I'm in the same boat. Come up with a riff and then it just sits there, not developing, just becoming annoying. Maybe a couple of DVD's could help, like Petrucci's Rock Discipline or Marty Friedman's Melodic Control. Or try playing some different music to get your fingers moving in different ways, different patterns? And go see local bands playing, might kick start ya.

Nidge

Yeah those DVDs sound interesting and once i hit 18 in a month i certainly will watch more live music (even Doran's is a bitch at my age and Blast can feck off no inspiration there). No as i stated in my thread if you read again i am one of the people relied on to write the songs. I am getting a new guitar soon enough, don't worry this really is the end of my G.A.S. for now i ordered it freaking 6 months ago, i hope that gives me the motivation to play more again. At the same time once i get it in hand i think there may be an initial depression because i have improved so little and that all i'll be doing, again initially, is transferring what i play on one guitar to another. For now goodnight, i fear one of the things keeping me from playing the guitar is my erratic bed times and resulting fatigue.

juno75

but how do people think they are good if they play the blues?

Grrrr

Stevie Ray Vaughan


Back on topic -

Sounds like playing is becoming an ordeal for you due to self imposed high expectations of yourself.
Im not saying at all not to set yer sights high (thats how we all get somewhere) but I thing you need to chill and just relax your approch to it.

I got stuck in a rut for nearly 2 years and virtually stopped playing. Eventually
I started plonking away on the acoustic with friends in informal drunken jams and actually started to enjoy the thing agian.

That led to learning some new things, which led to a new band playing stuff I hadent played before and , lo and behold, I started enjoying it agian.

Dont fall into the trap of thinking to get out of a rut you have to learn something amazingly technically hard, by all means do if you want to but ever tried jamming to some reggae?

Skank guitar is quite fendish to do properly at first ,even simple 2 chord thing like War by Bob Marley. Brilliant praccy for the right hand.

Or some simple country picking? I hate country but learned a few intresting things from it

Bit of open G Slide? easy once you get into it and its a new world man

Alterd tunings generally (DADGAD,Oped G, D Tuning etc)

All easy stuff to pick up and can lead you somewhere you never thought you go. Thats what happened to me anyway and I love my g-tar now rather than stare at it angrayly while it gathers dust in the corner of the room.
Its a real buzz to get back from work and vent it all out thesedays. My nieghbours probably dont agree though

You need find out how to enjoy the instrument agian and stop tortiring yourself.

And fek the GAS, stick to a plec,lead,amp and plank for now. Thats a symptom of our consumer culture (see sig)

I set myself a target - no more new gear untill Im gigging. So easy to get caught up with all those nice toyz out there but it should all just enhance you fundamental playing ,not be the backbone of it.

Maybe Im talking cr@p anyway, as per usuall.

Hope you get back on the horse anyway, just figure out how to find that simple enjoyment that was the reason we all started in the first place.

cornbb

Every guitarist I know has hit a brick wall at some stage, including myself. It can be hard to get the motivation to do more. What I did was expand my tastes in music, I used to listen to nothing but alt. rock, but if you listen to a bit of other stuff you might get loads of inspiration. I'd highly recommend listening to some guitar based post-rock, which is pretty easy to pick up, or jazz or something like that. Even if you hate the music you'll find some inspirational riff or hook or a even whole new style.

Nidge

No i do like the good players of blues such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Rory Gallagher and ZZ Top's Guitarist but it's people who think going through the same A minor pentatonic at 100mph and think it's the be-all and end-all that get me.

Anyway thanks for the advice Juno75 i guess, as you said, that i really am replacing the homework i used to have to do with the guitar. I rate myself as a fairly eclectic person even when it comes to what i play on the guitar, slide is certainly not something i have tried too much as there is a particular technique and i feel i need someone to teach me it, although as you can see from my previous posts in this thread i am trying to remedy the teacher situation.

Yeah cornbb i seem to hit that wall once or twice a year, this being the worst of it, i don't really think i only listen to one type of music, certainly not one type of rock i have albums such as the buenavista social club and Mambo Sinuendo by Manuel Galban and Ry Cooder by i definitely have no Jazz albums. I think it's because i can see myself only admiring a very definite type of jazz and i don't wanna pay €20 with knowledge of the player for something that is, potentially, to me, inaudible.

Thanks for the advice, i'm glad, but also sorry for the people that it happened to, that i'm not the only one this happens to. What are your opinions on teachers? If one can get a good one that can literally teach you anything from sightreading to sweeping and slide-guitar? Are they the way to go? Do you have teachers?

feylya

What about getting a theory book like Fretboard Logic? Might help a bit.

Nidge

No i have loads of theory books, i mean it's all ahead of me, other times i wouldn't know what to do to further my playing. But now i have even spent large amount of money on stuff for ear training and everything, and still my body doesn't go and use it, trust me there's no lack of learning material, this is all mental.

feylya

Ah, laziness and apathy. Horrible things.

juno75

Pick up a slide for a few bob, tune yer guitar to open G and fillde away around between 3/5/7/12 frets.
Rest the slide on the strings ,over the fret, dont press down.

No one can really teach you slide guitar, its an odd disapline. Not at all technicall, its all feel.
I ment to learn how to for years and was suprised how easy it is to make it sound good, for the amount of effort put in you get a high pay off.
Just mess around and if it sounds good, it is good.

Bounus is it sounds great with one guitar. you are accompanying yerself!

Then put a huge space echo on it :cool:

Good Luck!