Any more introvert/non-creative guitarists?

[SkyBlue]

Ditto! Exactly how I feel! It also amazes me how creative people just make something out of nothing. I had same train of thoughts. Usually when I try to “imagine/compose” song in my mind it’s always something I already heard somewhere. If I try to mess around the fretboard, I do get some interesting sounds but don’t have a clue as what to do with it.

Same here, if there is instructions for learning song it really ain’t that hard. I’m almost 2 years in guitar journey and it amazes me how things start to get easier. F chord and strumming. So even some more difficult songs I can get going with enough instructions and ofc practice and practice. Creativity tho… Idk. Maybe some hidden part of brain gets activated one day.

I’d never ever say I’d end up playing guitar. No one who knows me would say either. I am exactly opposite of what you’d imagine typical guitarist to be.

Shy, asocial, introverted and even though guitar can get loud I really enjoy silence. Interesting life God gives us is!

[artax_2]

Haha yes! Give me the most complicated sheet music, a clip of how it’s supposed to sound, and about 3 months and I’ll be playing it, easy peasy.

Yes, you’ve said it- we can make sounds but then it’s like, now what? I don’t know if creativity is a skill that can be developed or what. I don’t and never did have a real talent for piano. I just had curiosity, love for music, time, and discipline. It’s going to be exactly the same with guitar. So long as I have those four things, and the brain capacity, I’ll be able to play a little bit.

[Estel]

I don’t know if I should answer here, because I’m not 100% an introvert and I am - generally - a very creative person (INFJ, according to that test - although I studied psychology for a few semesters and therefore I believe that these tests aren’t able to get your entire personality, even though some of it might fit).

Anyways, despite being a creative ambivert, I do get where you come from. I love directions when I’m learning something new. It was like that with my martial arts training: My teacher always said that I was the student with the most questions. It’s probably a good thing, Justin isn’t in the room with me, because I’d get on his nerves with all of my questions very easily.

What helped me, though, and what I wanted you to know is this: We don’t have to be anything other than having fun with our hobby. We don’t even need to be good at something. If being creative in the sense that you write your own music isn’t something that makes you happy: Don’t do it. If you don’t want to play in front of other people: Don’t do it.

I’ve been learning to play guitar for 11 months now and I’ve NEVER played in front of anyone. Christmas might be the first time for me to let my parents see me hold my guitar. Playing guitar (or rather: learning how to play) got me out of a really bad place regarding my mental health. Which makes me fiercely protective of it. No one is really allowed to touch my guitar (which is fun at a guitar shop - I basically want to strangle the person daring to touch it and still I need them to if they have to check it…). I don’t feel comfortable with the thought of someone criticising my playing. That’s something I have to work on, as I do want to get better and therefore I need people to at least watch a video or something…

What I’m trying to say is: I get it that for you guitar is like this and it is completely fine to be this way. The “only” thing you now have to do is find a way to do these “by the book” things, that seem to make you happy. Still being very much a beginner myself, I don’t really have good advice on that. My approach would probably be to look for songs I like and then master them - by the book, in your case. There’s lots of music out there and lots of tabs/sheet music for it, so you probably find enough tricky songs that will keep your brain entertained.

I think the most important thing is to do the things you enjoy in the way you enjoy them - it’s your hobby! Not a job or something someone else depends on. It’s only for you If, at one point, you think you’d like to change something or you feel you could improve in a certain way, that’s totally fine. Take baby steps in that direction (e.g. I’m recording the audio of my playing. Not to show anyone yet, but it’s a baby step). No pressure.

Hope this helps. It’s mostly rambling without much input, but hey - if it helps it helps and if not, you can easily ignore it

[SkyBlue]

@Estel

Playing guitar (or rather: learning how to play) got me out of a really bad place regarding my mental health. Which makes me fiercely protective of it. No one is really allowed to touch my guitar (which is fun at a guitar shop - I basically want to strangle the person daring to touch it and still I need them to if they have to check it…). I don’t feel comfortable with the thought of someone criticising my playing. That’s something I have to work on, as I do want to get better and therefore I need people to at least watch a video or something…

What I’m trying to say is: I get it that for you guitar is like this and it is completely fine to be this way. The “only” thing you now have to do is find a way to do these “by the book” things, that seem to make you happy. Still being very much a beginner myself, I don’t really have good advice on that. My approach would probably be to look for songs I like and then master them - by the book, in your case. There’s lots of music out there and lots of tabs/sheet music for it, so you probably find enough tricky songs that will keep your brain entertained.

I think the most important thing is to do the things you enjoy in the way you enjoy them - it’s your hobby! Not a job or something someone else depends on.

Hey Estel, I hesitated to answer, but this what I quoted really nailed it. As I also struggle with mental health issues, guitar (and music) is medicine of it’s own kind. Faith in God and guitar helped me tons in dealing with illness, it’s really a miracle

Can completely relate to protectiveness of guitar. I had to hand it over for some adjustments, but it was painful and in the end I wasn’t happy with result. But when I adjusted it, sanded the saddle down it felt awesome. My wife sometimes tries to mess with it and I get angry XD Although I am comfortable playing in front of her as she isn’t criticizing my playing. Also, for Christmas I can even play in front of my small family

But definitely I agree and it’s basically what I do. I find some good songs and play until mastering them. First 3 grades of Justins’ courses are absolutely great. I am waiting for final few lessons and when I complete grade 3 I’m of to doing exactly that. Find song, master, move on…

[direvus]

another self-described introvert checking in.

For most of my life I would also have described myself as non-creative, non-arty, un-musical, but lately I’m thinking that was me being unfair to myself.

My advice, for what it’s worth: don’t be in too much of a hurry to pidgeon-hole yourself with labels like ‘introvert’ and ‘non-creative’. If you like rules and instructions, then simple categories probably appeal to you! And I can certainly sympathise with that. But people are complicated. Simple categories can be useful, but they don’t define you. The Myers-Briggs type indicator in particular (the 16 types thing) doesn’t really have any scientific evidence to back it up. It’s kind of fun, but don’t take it too seriously.

You said that you enjoy noodling around with random melodies. That’s great and it definitely is creative. So already it seems to me pretty clear that the ‘non-creative’ label is not a good fit for you. You might find, if you continue to explore random melodies, that at some point it evolves into songwriting, or maybe not. Either way it’s fine.

Yes the transition from Grade 2 to Grade 3 is challenging, suddenly you have to start figuring out your own goals and designing practice routines that will get you there. I’m feeling like I’m wandering around in that space too.

If your guitar goals are noodling/melody design and strumming along to worship/country music, then you might want to focus your practice time into improv and scale shapes for the melody stuff, and chord changes, time feel and strumming patterns for the rest.

[RobDickinson]

@SkyBlue

how do you go about playing guitar as such person?

Ok so heres the deal, I’m not the most creative person ever, when in a new area creativity is hard because you dont understand the rules and the tools.

Creativity itself cant be taught but the tools can, and spend time on experimenting, find what feels, looks and sounds good to you, dont be afraid of basing things on stuff you already know and modifying and keep working the thing.

[Estel]

I’m glad this resonated with you.

I just want to add, that @direvus really has a point, too. It’s easy to label yourself as one thing, when it’s just one part of your personality. I read an article recently that described how people tend more and more to trying to fit into boxes, especially for social media. That is helpful in a way, because it makes you able to find similar people online - but it also makes you dismiss parts of yourself because they don’t “fit”. Especially as some parts of yourself only come out at certain times or disappear for some time. E.g. my most introverted parts really came out now with the pandemic. But before that, the parts of myself that were extroverted were more “visible” to others.

Being creative, by the way, doesn’t have to mean that you write a song from scratch. If you ever cooked a meal and added some seasoning that wasn’t in a recipe (or you didn’t even use a recipe): Congrats. That was something creative Creativity comes in all shapes and sizes and sometimes it’s a wonderful song and sometimes it’s just your favorite spice added to a meal.

[DarrellW]

I suppose that’s a big part of my problem that maybe I make excuses of it being my having Fibromyalgia - I can share some of my music but not with video of me playing and I tend to play and record when my wife is out. In the past we used to play together but not for the past few years.
I’m doing some really interesting stuff at the moment but feel uncomfortable about sharing it which is a shame really because it’s so different from what I would usually play. The other thing that happens is that I start a good project off and get so far with it and then stall and find it hard to pick it up again, I think that it’s sort of a fear of it not being good enough; I have decided to get help with it from a hypnotherapist to see if that helps!