What do you do well?

Working on my own material... When I make time to work it out or play it out that is. Good times.

I am actually serious when I say I am best at enjoying myself while playing. It is always fun. I don't stress about trying to do things or how well I play. I just do it. Now Chris mentioned golf. I stink at that so I definitely have to just play for fun. If my level of play there dictated my enjoyment it would be time to throw the clubs in the pond. :lol: I'm much better at guitar.

I ignore little blunders and keep plugging away. Like a slow chord change, an extended measure, a repeated lyric ... most of the time others dont catch on if you keep on keepin on.

TR I know what you mean. It's just my personality to be like I am it really has nothing to do with playing music it's the same for everything.

I'm not a perfectionist either so it's not like if I make a few small mistakes it ruins my day it's but if I don't execute something I think I should be able to then I'm not happy and if I do it enough times then I'm not having fun.

I think though for me it maybe the things I feel I'm not quite as good as I wish I was, that makes me mad. If I'm good at something and make a mistake or whatever, I'll tend to not worry because I know I'll bounce back and everything will be fine.

But if it's something I'm not as good at like playing and I make a mistake I'm never sure if the next one will suck or not and that's what frustrates me.

I know have fun and dont' worry.

I make little mistakes every night that I play. For me it's impossible to play a 4 hour gig without making at least one mistake.

When doing a recital, and you only have one or two songs to play, it's just a matter of practice to get them out without a mistake. But when you are on stage, and you have 500 songs memorized, and some clown wants to request his/her favorite song while you are concentrating on your part, or when there is some big distraction on the dance floor, or your mind just wants to relax after 3 hours without a break, it's very difficult to stay completely focused.

The art of making mistakes is to make them work so that the audience, and often even your band-mates don't know you screwed up. This comes with experience. Fortunately the audience rarely notices my mistakes, and my band-mate seldom hears them as well.

And TR, you are absolutely correct. Playing music should be fun. That's why they call it "playing".

Notes

I'm pretty good a coming up with neat stuff on guitar that sounds interesting. Not a super technical player, but I can get really creative sometimes.

same here. I enjoy exploring what stringed instruments can do. when ever I am idling or relaxing I grab my guitar and noodle around the fretboard. I stumble on familiar melodies all the time. I find out what song they came from and discover new things on guitar. after forty five years on guitar I am amazed at how much I can learn.
I am a rhythm player. I love locking in with a bass and drum. now I am being pushed into being the lead player in our new band.
so here I am again learning new things. it never stops.
so to answer the question...what are you good at?...learning new things on guitar.

Riding horses.....

Ah sorry you want guitar related... well I'm good at buying books and reading about playing the guitar...

I'm no great shakes, but I enjoy playing, and want to continue enjoy playing...

I've recently taken part in a jam or two which have been great fun, and being able to play with others without making a complete prat of myself and have a good time was a brilliant experience :-)

Also helping the economy too with my guitar related purchases :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

I'm no great shakes, but I enjoy playing, and want to continue enjoy playing...

I've recently taken part in a jam or two which have been great fun, and being able to play with others without making a complete prat of myself and have a good time was a brilliant experience :-)

:

Thats my next goal!!!!!

What do I do well? I enjoy myself while playing. There need not be anything more.

I'm pretty good a coming up with neat stuff on guitar that sounds interesting. Not a super technical player, but I can get really creative sometimes.

Those two quotes nail it for me. :D

I don't alway come up with super neat stuff, but improvising around and making fresh discoveries - even if they're only simple ones - is what keeps me going back.

I rarely ever write goals down, and I certainly don't aim to copy any particular 'guitar hero'. It used to puzzle me a bit that I don't follow books or lessons plans well. I just can't seem to stick to the script or follow the approved pathway or rules. Instead I run around like a dog in a park, sniffing all over the place, and then stop for periods of intense sniffing and concentration in one spot, before dashing off again. It looks random, like it might lead nowhere, but it does seem to fairly quickly build a good overview that is constantly being re-evaluated and developed. It works for the dog, and I've learned to trust that it works for me too.

So I guess that's what I do well now - trust my own instincts. :D

Chris

What do I do well? I enjoy myself while playing. There need not be anything more.

I'm pretty good a coming up with neat stuff on guitar that sounds interesting. Not a super technical player, but I can get really creative sometimes.

Those two quotes nail it for me. :D

I don't alway come up with super neat stuff, but improvising around and making fresh discoveries - even if they're only simple ones - is what keeps me going back.

I rarely ever write goals down, and I certainly don't aim to copy any particular 'guitar hero'. It used to puzzle me a bit that I don't follow books or lessons plans well. I just can't seem to stick to the script or follow the approved pathway or rules. Instead I run around like a dog in a park, sniffing all over the place, and then stop for periods of intense sniffing and concentration in one spot, before dashing off again. It looks random, like it might lead nowhere, but it does seem to fairly quickly build a good overview that is constantly being re-evaluated and developed. It works for the dog, and I've learned to trust that it works for me too.

So I guess that's what I do well now - trust my own instincts. :D

Chris

Man you hit the nail on the head!!! Ive done much the same thing before...I know I have to focis a little more..... But Im also out to find MY voice, and style.... I dont want to learn to play SRV, Clapton, Page, etc.... I want to learn to play ME.

Ive done much the same thing before...I know I have to focis a little more..... But Im also out to find MY voice, and style.... I dont want to learn to play SRV, Clapton, Page, etc.... I want to learn to play ME.

Good to know that somebody else learns like I do! :D

With some things (like building houses) I draw up detailed plans and then mostly follow them. But with music I've not been one to write down goals, and I've never been able to stick to lesson plans or practice schedules. I sometimes print them out but I never follow them. I always end up getting interesting in something else along the way. In attempt to find out why I never seem to work 'by the book' (as part of a discussion on another forum), I recently did finally try to write out some goals, and see if it told me anything. TR's point came out top of the list. This is what came out:

1. Enjoy the journey.

I don't see this as a trivial point. The majority of people who start guitar (or most instruments) don't ever make it to the big goal they might have set. The drop out rate is startlingly high.
I firmly believe that a large reason for the high failure rate is that students don't pay enough attention to finding the joy of the simple. Instead they climb doggedly on towards some imaginary peak or plateau where they'll find the prize they seek. But music isn't like that , there's always another peak above. The trick is to enjoy climbing, not concentrate on planting the flag at the top - because music has no top. When you look for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the rainbow keeps moving as you walk. Music does the same thing. At least it does for me.

I initially tried pushing on through books, looking for the pay-off that might be some chapters ahead. When I saw all those ancient out of copyright songs in the books I too had a touch of the common reaction: “Do they have to use all THAT old stuff….'sboring…”. But I soon learned to go back and find out just why those old tunes survived. Even the simplest nursery rhymes hang around a reason. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star might look too childish for us, but if it was good enough for Mozart (and it was - in K265), Liszt, Saint-Saens, and others, then maybe I can benefit from finding out why it survived for hundreds of years. I still play a simple version of Amazing Grace from a beginner book that uses A, D and E chords. Easy chords because you can use an anchor finger to switch. But I can't imagine ever running out of ways to improvise around that old tune. You can start with the simplest of strums and head off wherever you want, and take as long as you like to return home.

2. Play with others, even if they're not physically present at the time.

If I was only ever going to play guitar instrumentally and alone then I'd be tempted to concentrate more on fancier picking styles that enabled me to play something more than either chords or melody on their own. I certainly like to have at least some ability in that direction, so I do practice a variety of picking and strumming. But my main guitar goal is to play arrangements for at least two instruments. That might mean guitar and my own voice or it might mean playing with a backing track (perhaps recorded by me, perhaps by others) or it might mean fitting in with a varying number of playing buddies. I don't stress about not being Cher Atkins.

3. Learn to write my own music in my own style.

This is a really big motivation for me. I don't do much work on building a repertoire of existing songs. I'm certainly not very interested in learning by copying tabs in a note for note fashion. What I try and do is learn the musical logic behind the piece and then arrange it to suit. Writing my own music the big carrot that dangles in front of this donkey, and I'll try and squeeze every spanner, hammer, chisel and saw into my toolkit that I can.

4. Sing.

Let's face it, the singer is usually the star of the show for a reason. I am not a good singer, by any stretch of the imagination, but I persist with trying because it's such a huge asset if you can do it at all. Firstly, it allows you to literally tell a story in way that no instrument can. You have to be one hell of an instrumentalist to even try and compete with a good vocalist. But it also allows me to carry the melody ‘hands free' and use the guitar in a less complex and more supportive role. That can be a pleasant change from trying to fill the whole sound space with one instrument. I enjoy writing lyrics too, so that motivates me as well.

So I guess that's what I do well - follow my own path. For me, not always knowing where it will lead is a bonus not a drawback. :)

Chris

Couldn't agree more with the 4 points above. I think you get to a certain point and you just realize that you gotta have fun on the guitar, or what's the point? Sometimes I think we forget that the guitar is for making music. That should be our focus at all times. Not how many notes per second we can cram in cleanly.

well..im good at making the guitar sound like anything but.. hahaha

im more of a bass player, and a good one at that, im not afraid to admit it. not being cocky either 8)

Derek.

Great post Chris. We are defently on the same page.

I realy DO enjoy playing... Ive had bad times in the past when I just wasnt getting it, and got so upset about it, I put it down.. Im still a very early stages player, but now Ive gotten to the point that I realy do enjoy it all the time, and I have a few "feel good" stuff I can fall back on when I get frustrated with learning something. I am also just starting to write stuff. Ive been writing poems for about a year now, and slowly changing my style more toward song writing. I find it realy enjoyable, and also a real nice way to deal with issues in my world. I can put some of that bottled up emotanion into words, and realy helps keep the mind clear!!! I cant realy grasp the act of coming up with my own music yet though... I hope it comes with time... but if not, I still have the words, and maybe one day I can hook up with someone that can write music, and beable to proform my own stuff.

Great post Chris. We are defently on the same page.

I realy DO enjoy playing... Ive had bad times in the past when I just wasnt getting it, and got so upset about it, I put it down.. Im still a very early stages player, but now Ive gotten to the point that I realy do enjoy it all the time, and I have a few "feel good" stuff I can fall back on when I get frustrated with learning something. I am also just starting to write stuff. Ive been writing poems for about a year now, and slowly changing my style more toward song writing. I find it realy enjoyable, and also a real nice way to deal with issues in my world. I can put some of that bottled up emotanion into words, and realy helps keep the mind clear!!! I cant realy grasp the act of coming up with my own music yet though... I hope it comes with time... but if not, I still have the words, and maybe one day I can hook up with someone that can write music, and beable to proform my own stuff.

Yea, it's a great thing as a guitarist to be able to just turn your inner world into a piece of art. Something that represents how you were feeling at some point in your life. I look back at my old songs and it amazes me. It seems like so long ago that I was in that "space", and I can't relate to it anymore. But I'm glad I grabbed it while it was hot and turned it into a song instead of letting it just fade.