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Its all to hard.........


bigboy78

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Posted

Just chasing some reassurance that I'm not alone in the feeling that it is all too hard.

I sat down to hit some chord tones on Autumn Leaves last night, the simplest of simple "jazz" peices. After maybe 1.5 hours I was still not even close to managing to do it with any degree of proficiency. :facepalm:

 

This is something that takes work right, like days & weeks, not hours. :)

 

I'm not even trying to be musical yet, just qauter notes ascending one chord then finding the closest tone to decsend the next.

 

I just hate the feeling of complete newbness. I should embrace it I suppose. If I don't force myself to do something I can't do I'm never going to improve, eh?

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Posted

ahh yes, but what you aren't taking into consideration is how much good you just did yourself over those 2 hours. it's hard to measure because it's so gradual, but i guarantee you got a lot out of your practice even if it doesn't feel like it at the moment.

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and by the way, this feeling never stops. I suppose it lessens to a degree once you reach a certain level of profiency, but like a lot of wise musicians have said before: as you get better, your goals progress proportionally to your skill. you're always going to know how much better you could be despite how good you already are.

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Posted

Keep trying... many things that felt very hard get easier. It will never feel as hard as the first time - so you already accomplished something no matter how minute. I think it is all about expectation. Go in not expecting to succeed. Put your toes in and mess it all up man.

 

Just like learning to walk with each wobbly step the neural pathways get stronger. Your mind works like a path through the forest: walk it once and it will barely be visible, walk it a hundred times and it will be clearly defined. Learning guitar is riddled with self doubt. Accept that part of it too and you will be better off.

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Posted

something I do to often remind myself of how far I've come:

 

flip the guitar upside down albert king style, and try and play. you have the chord / scale shapes in your head but yet.... it won't come out through the opposite fingers. And it hurts them, too! :)

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Posted
Just chasing some reassurance that I'm not alone in the feeling that it is all too hard.

I sat down to hit some chord tones on Autumn Leaves last night, the simplest of simple "jazz" peices. After maybe 1.5 hours I was still not even close to managing to do it with any degree of proficiency.
:facepalm:

This is something that takes work right, like days & weeks, not hours.
:)

I'm not even trying to be musical yet, just qauter notes ascending one chord then finding the closest tone to decsend the next.


I just hate the feeling of complete newbness. I should embrace it I suppose. If I don't force myself to do something I can't do I'm never going to improve, eh?



Lots of work, but keep at it, its the only way, days, weeks and years, your'll get there in the end, all depends how much you want it..

One thing ive grown to accept is "whats the rush?" ive got a whole life time to enjoy my music learning experience. When i was 20 i thought i had to know all of it by the time i was 25 or i would never make. Well 25 has gone as has 30.

I guess what im saying is, get settled in your learning, enjoy it and it will come before you know it :)

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Posted
If I don't force myself to do something I can't do I'm never going to improve, eh?

True. But it shouldn't take much force. (Me, I have problems forcing myself to even pick the damn guitar up, instead of sitting here and typing...:rolleyes:)
You don't really learn anything of importance if you're not enjoying the process. So you have to find a way to enjoy it: to find pleasure in the simplest things (eg the sound of a single note over one chord).
The great musicians didn't get where they are by 6 hours (or whatever) of hard work every day; they got there by 6 hours of enjoyable challenges every day.

IMO, it's like what people say about physical exercise (I wouldn't know, I never do any :D): to some people it's "hard work", a chore; to others they do it for the feeling of pleasure it gives, for the endorphins it produces - and that's when it actually produces the physical benefits too. If you give up as soon as it feels a bit tough (eg after around 3 minutes for me :)), you won't get the benefit.
Playing a musical instrument is the same, only its effects are mental. It's a matter of attitude. It has to be recreation, something you want to do, not something you feel you "have" to do.
When practice bores you, stop and do something else. If that means you never get any good, well that's as it should be: it means you're not cut out to be a musician. (Not everyone is.) Musicians are people who never find playing boring.

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Posted

It is hard..........I mean, what percentage of the population plays guitar? And how many homes have an abandoned new guitar stuffed away somewhere, discarded by someone after a few frustrating hours trying to do something with it?

 

I can't add to the advice already given, really. It's hard to measure progress, day to day or even week to week. I'd say I get a "moment" every couple of months or so.......if I play every day, that is.

 

Then I'm amazed with my new abilities for a week or two, before things flatten out on the long road towards the next "moment", when something exciting happens again. But I now know that progress is being made all the time, albeit "invisibly", most of the time.

 

Stick with it, if you enjoy the challenge.

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Posted

Keep at it. Maybe try Tune Up first. It's a great intro into jazz as it's a bit less involved but still contains the common moves similar to Autumn Leaves.

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Posted

It is hard..........I mean, what percentage of the population plays guitar? And how many homes have an abandoned new guitar stuffed away somewhere, discarded by someone after a few frustrating hours trying to do something with it?

Very true.

I just want to quality one of my comments: that not everyone is cut out to be a musician.

That's only the same as saying "not everyone is cut out to be a sportsman". People often give up a musical instrument (or don't start in the first place) because they are intimidated by the pros, and by the notion that there is this thing called "talent" that a few lucky ones possess (meaning YOU don't).

Without getting into that debate here, the comparison with sport is valid. You don't have to be of professional standard to enjoy kicking a ball around with some mates. (It may be slightly easier to kick a ball - or throw one - than to play guitar, but a sport like golf needs a lot of practice on the swing to become efficient. You wouldn't let that put you off if you fancied an amateur game, right?)

Music is the same - there's no magic in being a musician; it's not the preserve of an elite any more than sports (or other recreations) are. It doesn't require you to be born with anything special, just the willingness to try it (and suffer feeling awkward for a while until you get used to it).

To an African, to say you "can't sing" would be like saying you "can't talk". Anyone who has a voice can sing. Everybody sings. The problem in the west is the over-education (hothousing) of a musical elite and the under-education of the rest of us: artificial boundaries are set up. Singing is easy and natural, IF you're not dissuaded early on by comparison of your initial efforts with professionally trained singers.

Same with guitar: don't compare yourself with pros: that's fatal. Compare yourself (if you can) with how you were last week, last month. (You may not think you're improving, but you almost certainly are.)

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Posted

One thing that isn't promoted NEARLY enough is how your ear develops naturally along the way. Once again, it's so subtle and gradual that you don't notice it.

 

the more you play, you start to combine:

 

knowledge in your head

the ability of your fingers

 

with the sounds that it all produces. and after that happens, you start to be able to pick out sounds in the music you hear when you're not playing your guitar. That's been the most beautiful thing that I've noticed about my development, as well as the thing that really helped me advance.

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Posted

More good advice there...........

 

I'll add a bit more.

 

It's become a popular cliche that "it's the journey that's important, not the destination".

 

If you look at it this way, you can't lose. It is an interesting journey, with highs and lows, frustration and achievement.

 

Consider for a moment what is involved......

 

The re-training of parts of your body to do things they've never been told to do before, to incredible degrees of controlled strength and accuracy. They will resist, fight back, be stubborn..........but they WILL yield, in the end.

 

I liken guitar playing to the art of the ballet. Dancers have to go through tortuous routines to achieve their goals. Some give up - it's simply too much. Others stay the course.

 

It's important to play everyday, to maintain progress, so the body doesn't start forgetting where it's up to, technically. But a day or two may have to be skipped sometimes, if you're stuck in a frustrating low and simply need a break. Even then, just five or ten minutes scale practice will keep things "on hold", until a brighter day dawns.

 

Between me and you, learning to play guitar is a head thing more than anything else. You have to reconfigure your brain to accept what it once thought impossible.

 

I can now change from a G major barre chord at the third fret to a C7 chord in first position and back so fast that I can't see the changing movements of the fingers as they flit from the one to the other.

 

Amazing to watch, this is!

 

Did I do that? Did I really do that, that freakin' fast?

 

Yep, I can do that, even with my eyes closed!

 

I once never thought this would be possible.....ever.....even slowly.

 

Makes me feel good, so I'm glad I stuck with it.

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Posted

Thanks guys. Always helps to have a bit of a motivator. I'm not really in any music "circles" at the moment, you guys are my only contact to the force.

I've always give the response to people who say that music is a natural talent, that the only natural talent required is the patience and perserverence to stick with the crap until the music starts to come. Finding excuse not to wade through the crap seems to get easier the older I get.

I'll take on JonR's advice and hit one note melodically, instead of 4 notes robotically and definitely move away from Autumn Leaves to Tune Up, Cantaloupe Island or even Freddie Freeloader. Might practice my chord tones and my transcribing and few of Miles' solos..........or maybe I 'll just stick to one note for a while.

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Posted
One thing ive grown to accept is "whats the rush?" ive got a whole life time to enjoy my music learning experience. When i was 20 i thought i had to know all of it by the time i was 25 or i would never make. Well 25 has gone as has 30.
:)



Man, that sounds so much like me. I pretty much gave music away when I was 25-ish. You know Hendrix was dead at 27. I was 25, never been in a "real" band, still noodling in my bedroom fantasising about being Slash. Why even try. Nothing worse than an '"old dude" (this is at 25 FFS!!) trying to rock out.

Now I'm 30+, have a family and a decent job (to pay for decent gear) and the rest of my life to master my instrument. I have seen some pretty "old dudes" funking it up at jazz gigs.

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Posted

Robotically............that's the way to go. The roboticism will gradually morph into your own personal technique.

 

Be patient. Execute every muscular action slowly and methodically, and resist the temptation to speed things up too soon.

 

Remember, your brain will be in a process of re-training, so give it time to figure out the new demands. It's a clever device, but will need the training over a period of time. Don't push it.....it will be pushing you when it's ready.

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Posted
Compare yourself (if you can) with how you were last week, last month. (You may not think you're improving, but you almost certainly are.)



Thats a great comment. About 6 months ago I tried to learn a Radiohead song (I've been learning guitar almost a year now) and my fingers/brain just could not do it. I was gutted. Today I went back and tried again and it only took about 20 minutes to get my fingers working and brain soaking up the chords, and another couple of hours to get it sounding decent.

It's amazing how much you have progressed when you look at where you have come from. Learning guitar is a total buzz. It's frustrating, challenging and sometimes I want to smash the stupid plank of wood (I would never do that I love my guitars!:thu:), but the reward of being able to play the music that once seemed impossible is pretty hard to beat.

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Posted

Jazz is a difficult animal to start with. Do you have a long playing history with other styles?

 

My advice for anything, is to play slowly and in control. If you are like many students I've taught, the problem is, you're hearing the original song, tone and tempo in your head and trying to measure your progress up to that. I don't know if I agree with the process being robotic, that seems to have a cold disassociation with it, I prefer the experience to be organic, tactile, and involved. Take your time, "feel" the chords under your fingers, let the notes ring, strive for clarity. Banish the original tune. Take it a couple of bars at the time.

 

A lot of it (all of it?) is mental. Its our pressing need to evaluate and scold our own progress. Its a mind game we set up and willingly play without even being aware of it. That's something that you must overcome. That self talk, those fears, it's all our own personal fight. Once you break those chains, and decide that you aren't going to judge yourself, and instead play and learn bar by bar, come weeks or months, it's that attitude that ironically frees you for the greatest progress, the development of muscle memory and the like.

 

Good luck and I wish you the best!

 

rnbacademy

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