heya, its been a while since i’ve been here at all and honestly for the past like, few months i’ve slowly been getting more and more demotivated to learn how to play the guitar, its not even that i dislike it, i really dont but i dont know.
whenever i try to sit down and continue learning things, i end up just giving up beacause it either feels like its way too much stuff to come back to, or that i just cant really focus on things, either that or i just kinda dont believe in myself or just, get frustrated for no reason.
i dont wanna drop, i really dont but i feel myself slowly loosing the abbility to play things i used to know how to play and i really dont know how to move foward properly
im gonna try to pick up the pace again and go back a grade, im currently on grade 3 module 15.
ps:by the way sorry to kind of bring down the mood of anyone who took the time to read this.
Don’t despair! I think you are at a common place to feel discouraged. I know I did. You have learned enough to know that there is soooooo much more to learn that it is hard to figure out what and how and you realize that learning it takes a lot of time.
Yeah, that is all true and there is no way to pretend it isn’t. What I did when I started feeling that was to back way, way off on the didactic and just play songs.
Go have fun with it and what you do know. Songs, songs, songs. Don’t worry about anything else. You are a guitar player not just a student, so play!
Eventually you will find that there are things you want and need to learn so you can play what you want to play. Then you will have motivation again.
i see, thanks for the advice, honestly looking back at it i havent found many songs that i want to lern to play, even then the ones i do want to learn are either way too hard or just, too obscure for anyone to actually know about, ill try to find other songs to learn and see what i really need to learn on the guitar itself to play those songs and whatnot, it does feel like im running around in circles sometimes when i do that but ill find something eventually.
@Jamolay tells basically my story as well. I was feeling like I’d never get past grade 3, saw all the stuff I hadn’t mastered and all the stuff that I had coming my way. Sitting down with the guitar felt like work, not fun.
I have combatted this in a few ways:
immerse yourself into the circumstance that made you want to learn to play. I research songs to learn - this not only gets me listening to songs but also thinking about where my capabilities are and ways to improve them by playing something fun. This always gets interest in playing back because, for me, being part of the music I was hearing is the primary reason I wanted to learn to play.
I only play songs I know and like and can accomplish. this usually leads into checking if I can play something previously considered too hard which leads to practicing some technique I need to work on.
I change something on my guitar. Usually it is a string change to something I don’t usually use, like brand or gauge. May be drop tuning, or capo. Doesn’t need to be expensive, just something different.
I play electric, so I can always just fiddle with the signal chain and not need to actually PLAY something beyond a few power chords or starter open chords. this is good when I am really tired at the end of a difficult week.
take a nap. not kidding. For me, a lack of motivation is usually over-stimulation from life stuff. A nap does wonders.
I have tried doing other stuff like ear training and theory, but a lack of motivation to pick up the guitar usually extends into those as well and I am often in need of a nap.
What kinds of music are you interested in playing? Maybe we can make some suggestions.
You aren’t alone in that either. However much I think Justin’s program is fantastic, maybe 80% of the songs he has lessons for don’t interest me.
I have picked some of the ones I do like, scoured the internet for beginner song lessons for songs I want to play, started classical lessons to access that music better and found huge fun in some songs I never thought I would like anyway!
thanks! honestly now that you mention it i think i definetly suffer from the tiredness thing lmfao, i am tired alot of the times, i usually dont take naps beacause when i wake up i wake up at like 5pm or something so i barely get time to do anything, i will be trying these tips out aswell! i normally play electric too since i only gotten my first acoustic like last christmas, but i havent messed too much with effects yet, i did make some wacky sounds when i did but i never really tried to mess too mcuh with it. but thanks!
I think we all get to this point at sometime, i know i have but it is worth trying to get past it. I learn songs i like, no matter whether other people know them or not. I have started learning more ‘popular’ songs but stopped as i didnt enjoy playing them. I have learnt solos but not the rest of the song as i wanted to see if i could, including the solo from comfortably numb, which i never thought i would be able to play.
I have recently started jamming to backing tracks on YouTube and, although i love listening to heavy metal, i have jammed to many different types of tracks including blues, prog types and even jazz funky tracks. I was surprised thst i enjoyed playing to all of them. Try and find your jam then relax and enjoy
weeelll mostly metal/rock stuff or prog rock, since i have been taking a liking to those genres ever since i started learning guitar, though i have been noticing that the ones i absoltuley love the style of, like the guitar parts and whatnot, like the rain formerly known as purple’s solo and some songs from good kid. the stuff i definetly have to try to play in the future is now sink by syncatto, heir of grief by tensei and i guess flow by bernth and syncatto.
but yeah i definetly would love some song suggestions! im always down to try new stuff out honestly
im honestly sorta at that point where i learned stuff i like, tried some popular songs but gave up on those cuz i didnt like them, and ended up just learning different easy-ish solos and fun bits of songs but never the entire thing
i havent tried to play along with backing tracks though, like actually jamming out with them but it is something i certainly am going to try and do!
Hey Bruno, a few years ago I was feeling exactly like this…anything felt like too much and too difficult for me almost everyday; it felt like my heart would loose beats so naturally and that learning to play the guitar wasn’t for me. Then one day Justin made a post on Instagram that went something like this:
IF IT WERE EASY ANYONE WOULD PLAY THE GUITAR
…and it made sooo much sense to me that I started repeating those words like a mantra anytime I was down and tired and feeling only the struggle. It helped me a lot…maybe you can find it helpful too
I felt the same, I can relate to this. For me, the social aspect (both online and playing in person with people) helped a lot. I think there is nothing better for motivation than preparing / practicing a song to play with others. You should try that.
One other thing you can look into is the lessons on transcribing. Once you get over the learning curve, you will find that figuring out songs no-one has a lesson for is something you can do yourself. I find this really fun, and this in itself may help you get out of the doldrums.
I bought Guitar Pro 8, and have been using that. It is fairly cheap (Justin gets a kickback if you use his code, see the lesson notes) and it runs on Mac and Windows (I did not get it to run in Wine on Linux).
haha thas alright! im not gonna be trying to play stuff thats way out of my league since, there is absolutely no way i can even do one section of the songs at my current skill level
interesting, honestly i could try that! though i dont believe in mantras all that much and most of the times inspirational quotes lika that never really worled out for me or did anything, but I’ll keep a post-it or sum with that quote and see if it helps!
eh, whenever i played or tried go learn songs i didnt like i never really got anywhere with them and quickly lost interest in playing them, like wish you were here for example that i didnt even bother to learm the riff, sure they can help but i personally believe that if i did play stuff i didnt like i would just kinda lose all interest in playing guitar in general
oh yeah! that is something i want to do and whatnot, i dont think it’s too difficult when you actually learn it, but honestly what i really need to do for that is know a few scales and identifying them in a song lel, but tuat is def something im willing to try!
im using musescore for guitar things, since i tried to compose some stuff that im kinda proud of, especially with the new update where they added proper guitar notation functionality!
Don’t let it stop your progress! use your ears. Jump in and just try it without knowing that stuff - I don’t know much about the scales and how they interact in a song and it doesn’t stop me from working out a song. Assuming you know what to expect the next note or chord will be can fool you into mistakes. Justin has a lesson on that, too (of course…).
