How To Avoid Frustration When Learning Guitar - 010

Introduction

Avoid frustration when learning guitar

Knowing where you are headed means everything on guitar!

Have you seen this guy. I’m not going to link to it and if there are kids listening don’t watch it. But he’s trying to learn this nice calm little song and sing along with it. Everything is going along fine and then he makes one little mistake.

And it’s on. It’s like his blood pressure goes through the roof. He shakes swears. Hits his hands. Kicks his guitar and then tries again. It’s so funny, but not because he’s kicking his guitar.

I’ts funny because I’ve felt that before.

Sometimes you just cant believe the things you have to go through to play this thing.

As I have hit episode 10, and I’ve been getting some great feedback from you, I’ve been a bit surprised.

From what I’m hearing , I’m getting a good bit of feedback about some of what you would call the coaching aspect. Putting us in the right frame of mind to move forward on the guitar.

I thought that the: “do this and then put your finger here, and play this scale over this chord”, etc., would be the most discussed things, and they are, but not by the margin I would have thought.

Learning the guitar is so huge right now. It’s very much like being a kid in a candy store. There are so many songs to learn, and so many videos that will teach you whatever it is that you want to learn.

It’s overwhelming and can be frustrating. A lot of times you may not have the skills you need to attempt a certain song or lick, but you dont’ know that ahead of time. Until you have spent so much time trying and it’s too late. You are stuck and discouraged.

Now there are some that are the type of person that thrive in this kind of environment. Just throw all of this information at them and they just soak it up like a sponge. And for that small percentage, they are loving life.

But, from my experience the majority, the rest of us are having a different experience. It’s still a tough road to travel.

I think that if we knew what was ahead of us, most would have an easier time learning the guitar. (and that’s why having a teacher is so effective, they can see where you are going and can warn you of what you are going to go through ahead of time. And either steer you away from some bad moves or help you go through them)

If we could see the things that are potential obstacles in our path, learning the guitar would be what it it supposed to be …FUN

Thats right, FUN. This thing is supposed to be FUN. And our desires to be incredible on this thing put so much pressure on ourselves. We are in an environment that encourages us to become our own worst enemy.

It’s not simply enough to spend an enjoyable amount of time with the guitar. We feel like we need to be progressing at an ever increasing rate. And when that does not happen the way we would like, it feels bad.

I say this a lot. How you feel when studying the guitar and how you actually are progressing are two very different things.

Do you remember when you made a big accomplishment on the guitar. How did you feel. You felt great obviously. But what happened in the weeks and months after that.

For a lot of players that feeling is quick to wear off. You are still practicing like you did, but you aren’t having the big wins like you did before. It feels like you went up a step and went no further, you leveled off.

But then, one day someone pays you a compliment. BOOM, you jump up to the next level. You feel great!

And then the process starts all over again. That’s how it feels. I’ve heard it from a lot of guitar students. Even though that is how it feels, that’s not how it actually is.

The time you spend on the guitar working on scales, chords, techniques, songs, is bringing you closer to mastery on the guitar. It may not feel like it, but it is. I can see improvement in a student when they can’t.

So how do we fix this? How do we navigate our way to getting great on the guitar while still staying focused, avoiding pitfalls and having fun when you have all of this information at your fingertips and no one to guide you?

How can I help you avoid your pitfalls when I don’t know where you are on your journey with the guitar, and how can I help lots of people at the same time where it would be impossible to help them all one on one.

When you start to help lots of different guitar players,who like lots of different styles of music, and have lot’s of different goals with the guitar, some things start to come into focus.

You start to see some trends. Although everyones problems are a little different, you can see that most are going through the same problems over and over.

For me, I want to take these problems into account ahead of time. Realize that you are going to go through them before I prepare a lesson online. Make the content I put out to you structured in a way that informs you what could be a potential stumbling block and what we are doing to avoid that.

So I’m going to go through today some of the most common problems guitar players have today (this is not just beginners) and what you can do to avoid them.

The first I already touched on. That is, realize that you are not going to always feel like you are getting better all the time, but, if consistently put the time in, you are improving.

Just spending the time on an exercise or a song, is a step forward. Be confident that the time you are putting in will pay off. It will, I’ve seen it so many times.

Students that are ready to quit because they just don’t feel like they are getting better. And then BOOM something sparks their interest or someone gives them a compliment. And It’s full steam ahead.

That’s important to realize, but, it’s also important to realize that getting better at the guitar does require some PATIENCE, DEDICATION and FOCUS.

Do you have to have these things to play guitar. No. If you are happy just strumming a few chords then that’s great. But, knowing what I know, Most of us want to go a lot farther than that with the guitar.

To really progress, It takes TIME. And to make the most of that time we need to be prepared for it.

It’s going to take time to get better, but being patient, dedicating your self to a schedule, and being focused on the right steps it takes to learn what’s at hand, will dramatically speed up the whole process.

It’s like being a horse with those blinders on. Have you ever seen that. A horse that is pulling a buggy and they have these little black shields that keep them from looking left or right. They keep the horse from being distracted. It makes it easy for the horse to pull the buggy directly where it needs to go in quick time.

The next thing that I would recommend is to keep your repertoire of songs up to date. I dealt with this just yesterday. I had a conversation with two of my longterm favorite students. One said that he didn’t know what to do when he got the line that all guitar students get from family and friends. “Oh your learning the guitar, well play me something”. He didn’t know what to play. I thought what are you talking about. We had learned songs over years and performed them at our concerts. I knew that they had many songs that they could play in that situation. But once we played them at a concert, that is the last they played them.

You never know when you are going to need to play something you know. You should periodically work on keeping these songs up. Make a list of them and play them from time to time. Don’t let them go. Songs are valuable. Even if you just loop the solo section and work on your improvisation it is very helpful! You could also try playing that old song with chords in different areas, different chord voicings. You could be working on new things while keeping up the repertoire.

The next thing to help you keep on course is to try to keep a daily practice rountine. This is important.

In school, when you knew you had a test in a week, did you always study everynight? Or did you put it off and cram the night before the test, Stressfully trying to keep all of the information in your head until test time.

What happened. You may have done well on the test, but, the minute you left school, I’m sure most of what you learned was gone, dumped. You fought to keep all of that in short term memory.

But, what if you had just studied a bit every day for that week. Just the repeated action of daily study put all of that information in long term memory.

That’s what we want on guitar.

We want to be that guitar player that doesn’t have to think about every little chord and finger movement. It looks effortless, because it is. Most of what a well studied guitarist plays comes from long term memory.

So, spending a reasonable time on a repeated basis is so much better for retaining everything we are learning, than these marathon weekend sessions.

The last two things are tips that are very common online, but are still very valuable.

The first you hear a lot is: don’t compare yourself to other players. This isn’t a race and everyone learns a different pace.

The goal is really understanding the guitar and how music works.

Don’t throw yourself forward before you are confident in what you are studying.

We don’t need thousands of players that sound like someone else. Work on YOURSELF at your own pace. If you can be content with your own playing and progress then you keep frustration at bay.

When you keep the frustration away, the learning pace automatically speeds up.

The other you hear a lot is: Make sure your instrument is not difficult to play.

Escpecially beginners, they might not realize that their acoustic guitar is not supposed to have the strings an inch away from the fretboard.

But even if you are not a beginner and you guitar is difficult to play: Do something about it. Take it to someone that knows how to properly adjust a guitar and see if there is anything that can be done.

• Try lots of different guitars and get familliar with what is comfortable to you.
• If the strings on your guitar are hard to play, get some lighter gauge strings and have someone put them on if you don’t know how to.
• Be proactive! Don’t spend time with an instrument that is no fun to play. It’s not worth it! 

So that’s my list of a few things you can take into consideration before you hit stumbling blocks on the guitar. This is not just for beginners. Once a guitar player get set in how they like to do things, it’s tough to change. But a little change could really make the guitar more fun to play and help you avoid a lot of future frustration.

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