BAM! I could not agree more. Certain things, yes, you may want to / need to improve. But there are things/activities - and it is all personal - that improving is secondary. For me, people see my guitar and ask āoh, you play?ā and i always say āactually, no, i practice a lotā. And i love every minute. Some nights, i just do scales to a beat a feel great. LOL
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@Silvia80
@Malz
@mattswain
@liaty
@Karende
thank you for your company my fellow travelers 
I believe you accused me of engaging in sexual intercourse with ants many moons ago.
Do you think a mierenneuker changes his spots?!? 
ā¦ and both of us have relatively short guitar guitar lines, my friend 
Indeed we have much in common, guitar-wise as well as many outlooks on life and you provide as equally thoughtful (and long) commentary as I do 
Cheers for the engagement and vote of confidence for improvement.
I wouldnāt hold your breath for the collaboration- I hear my piano player left for Marrakesh this morning 
I will not shoot you, Rogier.
I wouldnāt hurt an ant. (Well, unless it was consensual neuken) 
This.
I did come here to learn and āget betterā. Iām staying for the company that @Mari63ās cartoon so elegantly depicts
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Some people are happy being average and if thatās what makes them happy thatās OK. But Iām happy that (insert your favorite musician, poet, artist, writer etc here) strive to be the best that they can be. The world and this forum would be very boring if everybody was happy being stuck in neutral.
Very few here will reach Kaspers level of playing, but to not try and be the best you can be seems pointless to me.
To quote Yoda
āDo or donot there is no try.ā
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āGetting Betterā at the guitar doesnāt have to mean better technique. We can āget betterā by learning new songs (that we play just as badly as the ones we already know) or by buying a new guitar and learning to play that one as badly as the ones we already have. 
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A very interesting topic Brian and I do like your take and refreshing outlook on things. For me personally I did not start learning to play with any great notions of becoming a rock god or a shredder on guitar. I think starting to learn at the age I did (47) served me better than had I started at 18 and doing it with ideas of becoming a rock star or to impress someone.
I had played competitive sport, mostly rugby until age 40 and was looking for something to fill that void when I stopped. I had always loved music and just got up one day trotted down to guitar center in Chicago and walked out with a cheap guitar. Some drunks on the L (train) ride home asked me to play them something 
.
I am also one who doesnāt set goals for myself and have just been enjoying the journey rather than wondering where the destination will be. Perhaps I will know when I get there but right now that doesnāt matter.
On the subject of improving I think we are all improving, even if it just playing open chords, and after a period one realizes that you are still only able to play open chords but without looking at the fretboard, well then thatās improvement.
The most important thing for me is not wondering how good I will eventually be, but getting up each morning or coming home in the evening and looking forward to picking up my guitar and just having a little fun, as well as having a hobby for life. Itās also a lot safer than rugby 
.
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The point is to find your own voice on the instrument. After that you can help others do the same which in turn allows you to get better at playing with others. That is truly something worth striving to get better at. Practicing to become a better note-by-note song regurgitator, no matter how accomplished, would be rather pointless IMHO. Either way, live your best life. Itās all good.
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The point, for me is to make music, and along the journey to play music with others, and enjoy such company as may be. At the moment I am not making music with others apart from on here, and for that I am grateful. Joining this community has provided me with a connection to guitar/ music minded people and though still considering myself a newbie, the more time spent reading and watching/ listening to posts the more inclusion is felt. Music has helped me through some dark times and I am gratified to have found this community, with all its wonderful diversity and encouragement.
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What in interesting dilemma it is. Using @Kasper as an example, itās pretty fascinating how diverse this community is in its musical taste, proficiency level, etc. I think Brianās question is quite philosophical, like trying to find the meaning of life.
Thereās just no one answer to why someone plays music or what āgetting betterā means. We should bear in mind that Justinās website and this community are not a conservatory with clearly defined admission/graduation criteria and examinations.
JG is just not a school where you cannot afford to regress or divert from the curriculum at will. By and large, I think thatās a plus given that most of us are adults who have other things to do besides learning music and we know what we are interested in / what our major goals are. However, this entails that the criteria of the various grades and lessons are less strict and after grade 1 most people can sort of gravitate to the topic of their interest more freely than at a traditional school. As a result, we may have quite a different set of skills despite learning from the same teacher.
Like, I canāt do tapping or pinch harmonics because Iām just not interested in the sort of music that typically uses those techniques, so I wouldnāt have much use for them. Does that make me a worse musician? Objectively, probably yes since those 2 items on the list of my guitar skills have big red exclamation marks next to them. Does that worry me? Not very much. So in that sense I may not be getting better.
But we all may be getting better at expressing ourselves in the idioms we like and are interested in, even unconsciously. I think that one of the biggest advantages of JG is to teach not only how to play music but also how to learn music (or anything else) and to become more or less independent. That means we should be able to tell if we are getting better or not, and to know where we need to improve ourselves, whether in a technical or artistic sense.
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If a person is on the path to finding their own voice on the instrument what ever they do is extra-ordinary. No one would be doing the same things in the same way. People may like or dislike what you are doing, but the ārock radio readyā and other goal posts and yardsticks no longer apply. Stylized cover versions are the gateway drug to finding your own voice.
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And some people are happy playing open chords to sing along with their favorite artist. Thatās what makes them happy and there is nothing wrong with that.
Others like to learn from their favorite artist complex solos to perfect their own voice. Thatās what make them happy and there is nothing wrong with that,
Others like you play what ever makes them happy and thereās nothing wrong with that.
But say your way is the only way and criticizing others for how and what they are learning is just wrong.
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Wow, interesting topic indeedā¦ and I would not have expected that my quick comment in that other thread could have spawned such replies - or be interpreted in the ways it appears to have been!
Iām the kind of person who is looking to improve in most things that I do - in my family life, at my work, and at playing the guitar. I guess itās simply hard for me to understand that not everyone else feels the same way But now that you mentioned it, I suddenly recall a conversation I had at a party a couple of years back. Someone (a non player) was asking about me playing music, and I explained that, yes, I play in a band and record myself to improve etc etcā¦ And she went on to say something like āwow, thatās awesome that youāre still looking to improve! Most adults are fine with a status quo, due to busy lives etcā¦ā. Something like that. I never thought about it like that before, but this will teach me not to assume too much about how other people operate!
(and btw - someone mentioned the words being used - to that Iāll just say; please keep in mind that Iām danishā¦ I might not understand all the subtleties of some English terms/phrases. You can pretty much assume that I never mean to offend though )
BUT - I also want to add just a few additional words to what I mean by āalways strive to improveā. Because it does not mean that Iām always being hard on myself, not enjoying āthe journeyā, or ājust playingā or āonly interested in learning very hard stuffā. In fact - I never had a practice schedule that I followed! I only play whenever I feel like it, and practice whatever I feel I need to play the next song I need/want to learn.
By āstrive to improveā I simply mean; If someone records themselvesā¦ asks for feedback, and is then told (for example) that it sounds good, but rhythm is a bit off. Or some string noise occurs when he/she plays XXXā¦ Just examplesā¦ But then it literally boggles my mind, if that someone is not interested in focusing on getting those things better - even if itās just a little better - for the next song they want to learn (recorded or not).
That is what I mean by āstrive to become betterā. When someone becomes aware of something that this person could do better, with just a little practice, then I admit to not understanding if that person is not interested in doing soā¦
It is very possible to enjoy playing and the journey of learning - and not being interested in becoming a shredder or superstar player - and yet still be improvingā¦
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Hi Clint,
Not sure if this comment was aimed at me or not, but I just wanted to add a quick comment;
I agree with you, finding your own voice is important. Me, personally, Iām using these note-by-note studies to improve my overall technique and control of the instrument. When I play with my band I can use this to play the songs much more freely live, with my own voice and take/variations on the solos etc. I know that if I have enough control to play something exactly like I hear it on a record, then I have the control to express what I hear in my head exact as wellā¦ That might not be a good approach for everyone, but I enjoy it and it works for me
Take care,
Kasper
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Everybody should strive to be a better person tomorrow than they are today
This is a very thought provoking topic with lots of great comments and some Brian-Rogier banter thrown into the mix.
I particularly liked this point:
I think this point actually aligns with context of Kasperās remark that one should take time to learn a song to best of your ability before posting for feedback rather than posting a rushed recording with an opening statement along the lines hereās one I learned this afternoon, thereās issues with timing, chord fingerings etc.
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You hit the nail on the head James. How do you give honest feed back to someone who admits itās not there best work. Or when someone says my strumming is off. They already know whatās wrong so why bother posting.
To me they are just looking for attention or a pat on the back not real feed back.
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Iām happy playing music.
My ego tells me Iām approaching greatness, but my ears tell me Iām a campfire hack and Iām really ok with that.
Fascinating thread. Great reading. I think where the obsession with getting better becomes problematic is if you mentally beat yourself up with how slow you might think you are at getting better. If your goal setting is making you feel worse, that sort of thing.
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I dunno, it could be that they know whatās going on but not how to fix it. Thatās often the case for me at least. I can always tell whatās going on but maybe not how to fix it or even I may know that something is going on but Iām not quite sure what it is. Iām sure itās the same for others as well.
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Brian,ā¦ we are now repeating the other topic with more of the same, and each other hereā¦ will there be any intervention,ā¦
By the way, you made me laugh out loud again with those ants,ā¦ and was this one word necessary to begin your opening epic to teach and expand upon the meaning of being the best human?..
Greetings and be sweet all,ā¦
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Thereās nothing wrong with being a campfire hack as long as your the best campfire hack you can be. I remember your posts about the kid dancing and having fun when you played. Thatās all that matters. Kids have very natural rhythm and will tell you out right if you suck or just walk away.
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Some days, probably more often than not, Iām not the best I can be. My goal is to still be happy with those days as well. I certainly relish the days when Iām at my peak.
I think you are talking big picture. Iām talking detail.
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Hehe, too many points of view to go into them all, but a couple of thoughts:
Sorry @Kasper, I probably should have given you a heads-up, but reckoned youāre an excellent player, with a lot of common sense and most Danes Iāve met are ok with straightforward discussion. (I agree, if people ask for advice itās really odd to ignore it.)
@Jozsef is quite correct. I was asking this much more from a philosophical point of view rather than practical (although not quite the meaning of life. You can message me if you want the answer to that )
Most folk are understandably focusing on the āgetting betterā side of the equation (in all the different ways), rather than the stagnation/deterioration that I was trying to add into the equation. Doing the best you can in the moment is what you should focus on. Itās ok if your fingers/brain are slowing up and you are no longer improving. Itās ok not to have goals to ābecome betterā (in life as well as guitar )
I started sharing songs 6 weeks after picking up the guitar. I was neither looking for advice nor pats on the back (although I do enjoy both!). I was just enthused about what I had learned to do and wanted to share it with anyone who might be interested. I still feel much the same way
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