This talk is given by a drummer, but what he talks about is valuable knowledge to any practicing musician - or indeed to pretty much anyone, period!
Can you guys relate? I was definitely nodding when he talked about âMount Stupidâ. I thought I was at that point in my teenage years, but giving it some more thoughts⌠Iâm afraid I stayed there for quite a while! Hopefully Iâm on my way up along the steady slope towards proper mastery now⌠
Kasper this guy talks sense, he has not spoken one word wrong and this applies to anything we do thanks for the post cheers Hec
He touches on a few things that Iâve learned about in recent years and have spoken about on these forums.
Perfectionism is a curse. Like many I used to believe it was the thing that drove to be better. In reality it just means youâre never happy which isnât sustainable. Iâve only been able to get where Iâve got to with guitar by recognising what perfectionism is and abandoning it. Try being kind to yourself and notice the difference. Speak to yourself as you would a friend rather than a sworn enemy.
The other thing that I now wholeheartedly agree with is learning how to accept a compliment. We often try to play down what weâve done (oh anyone could have done it or it wasnât that good etc) but that only serves to create an awkward situation. Say thanks, smile and everyone is happy.
Thanks for this. The main thing I got out of the talk was âdonât be hard on yourselfâ which I know I am and the reason I donât do videos of my âplayingâ.
a very good presentation on the subject.
one thing you should add, though, is to accept othersâ praise, but be careful leaning too hard into it. Ideally, we could keep the peak of mount stupid lower and even out the downslope into the valley of despair (and also keep that valley from being too deep).
But Iâve seen it happen in a number of different scenarios (music, sports, etc) where someone whoâs kinda good hears so much AMAZING feedback all the time and either never hears criticism or ignores the criticism they do hear, such that they reach a high peak of mount stupid and then suffer a very major, harsh criticism that sends them crashing into a very sharp, deep valley of despair.
on my personal journey, Iâm still low on the confidence/competence curve. I also do not see myself as ready to record myself playing (for others to see) or to play in front of anyone except family and very close friends. Iâm working on a song to record, though, and itâs coming along. the plan is to play a duet with my wife. I have a suspicion that there will be a point where she wants me to get on stage to play with her, since thatâs something sheâs starting to enjoy. She has done a couple open mic events so far. this afternoon sheâs playing in an album release party (for an album where one of her songs is included). and the owner of a bar where she did one of her open mic events invited her to be part of their holiday party show. I just see the writing on the wallâŚthere will be a point where she starts needling me to do these things with her. when I started playing guitar again a year ago, it was explicitly not on my goal list. it still isnât, really. but Iâll only be able to hold her off for so long once it starts.
This is a great visual summary of the actual learning process⌠especially the concept of âthe slope of enlightenmentâ
Personally, I havenât spent much time on Mount Stupid. But many, many years in the pit of despair⌠before finding Justin and finally getting on the slope of enlightenment.
Good share!
Nice share, Kasper 
I enjoyed the presentation and understand where he is coming from, but Iâm going to be a bit picky regarding the content 
I believe he used the wrong labels for the graphs (and heâs a maths teacher 
)
I donât believe there is a useful relationship between competence and confidence in populations.
Just look at the journey of almost every newbie in our Community, as we progress.
Competence starting out is by definition very low, but confidence hugely variable and it depends what kind of confidence weâre talking about: confidence in our playing abilities or âself-confidenceâ
In all the time Iâve been here, I can only think of less than a handful of beginners/intermediates, who over-estimated their abilities as their journey progressed. Most have reasonable judgement.
The useful correlation, and he refers to this during the talk, is that of practicing and competence.
You can know youâre a very competent player but be terrified of sharing your abilities. Or you can be more like me and with limited skills (which Iâm aware of), have confidence to share the things you can do.
According to his graph, he is only on his way to achieving half of the confidence he had as a 15-year-old. I find that sad (and also donât quite believe it. He sounds very confident 
)
This is the graph I would have liked to see, along with my personal representation on the one he proposes below.
(You can see, I started on the top of Mount Stupid and havenât moved very far. The view is fabulous! )
I agree wholeheartedly with with some of his main points:
Hilsen
Guess Iâm still flat lining then. Had zero confidence in my teens and not much more now.
So I have no concept of Mount Stupid and to me the Slope of Enlightenment although certainly undulating, never achieves much with regard to altitude. But as far as the guitar is concerned Iâm still in for the long haul !
Even if I am âThe Fool on the Hillâ, I can see see that all slopes (including enlightenment) lead downwards 
BLIM has certainly increased your confidence and given you a push up the hill, not sure whether itâs up Mount Stupid or the Slope of Enlightenment.
I would say BLIM has provided some competence, which I am not overly confident to use as yet.
But like a dog with a bone . . . .
Iâve never been a confident person. I think the only thing I ever had confidence in was my own opinions and looking back I would they say were mostly wrong/misguided!
The pit of despair with a guitar tends to do this:
Interesting TED talk, thanks for posting.
I think that almost nobody in this community is even good enough to feel super-confident (i.e. climb Mt. Stupid). Think about it: the speaker reached Mt. Stupid when he had been playing for 10 years and had just signed a record contract at 18 years old. He felt like he was almost as good as the best drummers in the world.
The fact that many (any?) of us on this forum havenât experienced that surge of confidence: well, how many of us have signed record contracts? Does anybody here play well enough to even entertain the thought that they are among the best in the world? Weâre mostly all scrunched down in the lower-left side of that graph, the starting point with low ability and low confidence. Weâre not nearly good enough to reach the summit of Mt. Stupid!
I think the graph is kind of misleading in the sense that when youâre on Mt. Stupid, youâre not a beginner, youâre a pretty decent player. Probably a professional musician. Anyway, good enough to be able to believe yourself to be as good as almost anybody. Thatâs Mt. Stupid. Iâm not surprised itâs not the experience of the folk in this community.
Thatâs how I see it, anyway.
Where would you put Kurt Cobain on that chart?
I tend to agree with Brian, competence is a function of time, confidence not necessarily. There are so many examples of great entertainers who have so much charisma and confidence.
A lot of interesting a good replies!
I donât think the graph is supposed to be taken too literally, especially when it comes to details such as the exact height of âMount Stupidâ, the following slope etc. I also donât think you have to believe youâre equal to your heroes to be on Mount Stupid. I do think you can find yourself on Mount Stupid multiple times, not just the once. That certainly matches my own experience quite nicely.
My own story/journey goes like this; I started playing quite early on, and was lucky enough to be playing in bands and in front of people from an early age. Thatâs probably point number one - I think kids/teenagers are much more likely to fit the graph than older learners. Anyone with a teenage kid of their own will know that sometimes young peoples opinion of their own competences does not necessarily match reality
In any case, at age 17 I was starting to be âknownâ in my local town as a competent - dare I say good - player. Of course that felt nice, and for a good decade or so I was playing hundreds of cover gigs as well as original material. Weddings, birthdays, festivals, competitions etc. I was well aware that I was no-where near the ability level of my heroes - but still felt quite good.
However, as the popularity of my band started to grow I also started playing with better and better players, sometimes musicians from the professional Danish music scene. And annoyingly enough, sometimes those people would not praise me quite as much as the ordinary drunk person in the audience! I was good enough that they wanted to play with me - but would sometime comment that I was not playing precise enough. Or make too many small mistakes during a gig. Or sometimes hit a bend a bit off pitch. Stuff like that, stuff I was not necessarily hearing myself⌠but stuff that any professional musician will notice!!
In other words - I was on âMount Stupidâ And it took quite some time before i realized just how right these people were, and started to hear those flaws myself. To âfix itâ I started to be much more ambitious and methodical about my learning. Thatâs about the time when I joined the (old) Justin Guitar forum, started learning music theory⌠and started to record myself to document my improvements. All documented on my SoundCloud.
Fast forward to 2016⌠about a year into my recording journey. At that time I was starting to achieve learning covers of songs I never thought possible. Joe Satrianiâs âSatch Boogieâ, Deep Purpleâs âHighway Starâ, Metallicaâs âOneâ.
So NOW I must finally be getting honest-to-god good, right? Those are hard songs! What an achievement to be able to play them, right? Well⌠listening back now, 8 years later, while I was able to play those songs, they still outright sucked when compared to the originals Apparently I had taken another trip to âMount Stupidâ. Or, perhaps, thatâs what is meant by one of the smaller âbumpsâ on the Slope of Enlightenment.
Now, I have a personality that leans towards perfectionism and can be hard on myself. Not always a good thing, but not all bad either as itâs led me to have quite many successes, both in music and my work.
But perhaps the main takeaway from this Ted talk is then the âBe kind to yourselfâ mentality, because while all those songs I learned and performed might never have achieved perfection⌠itâs OK to still be proud of what I did manage throughout my learning process.
And another takeaway is perhaps that the slope will continue forever, none of us will ever reach the topâŚ
Now youâre speaking my language !
The Princess Bride has so many funny quotes, thanks for reminding me of the âPit of Despairâ!!! Kind of describes my guitar journey in lots of ways! 
Tod
By the way, I wonder how Confident & Competent the Six-Fingered Man would be on guitar?
It really is full of great quotes. Oh man i didnt even think of the six fingered man playing guitar! What a sight that would be.
