By Chad Crawford, PMI Guitar Instructor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you are new to guitar, or\nespecially if you have been playing for a while then you may already be\nacquainted with the vaguely uncomfortable feeling that there is a long road\nahead and you are not sure you can see the destination. If you have attempted any\nkind of lesson program you have surely observed that there does not seem to be\nany one clear thing or few things that you can do to get the results you seek.\nMaybe you have sensed that there are a LOT of things you need to accomplish. If\nyou are currently involved in a program of instruction, you may have a pile of\nthose things on your desk right now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As with other impediments to\neventual success with music, this feeling is quite normal. Once you get deep\nenough into this to realize how much is involved with fluent guitar playing, it\nis easy to become awed by the amount of information to learn and tasks to work\nthrough. You may then conclude something like this \u2026 \u201cI am not able to do\nthis\u201d, or \u201cI could possibly do this, but I do not have the time\u201d. Then the next\nlogical step is, of course \u2026 giving up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So\nlet\u2019s consider how we get stuck in this trap and then how we can avoid it, or\nwork around it. The first thing we need to know about overwhelm is this \u2013 it is\na state of mind, not an objective reality. Particularly, it is a feeling \u2026 a\nfeeling that we are not up to the job ahead of us. It is also a false feeling.\nUnfortunately, there is enough of reality inspiring this feeling that it may be\ndifficult to see the falsehood in it. Let\u2019s put on our reality glasses and take\nanother look at this self-defeating false feeling of doom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
1 – Know The\nFacts:<\/strong> The first thing we need to do\nis address the truth \u2013 that learning to play an instrument well is a big task.\nAlthough I am a proponent of \u201cpositive thinking\u201d to a reasonable extent, a\npositive attitude does not change the immediate reality of things. We can sit\nall day and think positive thoughts about being a great musician. Other than a\nfleeting feeling of self-satisfaction, this will accomplish nothing unless<\/em> we allow this positive framework\nto motivate sustained action<\/em> toward a\nspecific goal<\/em>. A positive outlook combined <\/em>with focused action will indeed\nyield impressive results, possibly far beyond what we would have thought ahead\nof time. So, let\u2019s start by rejecting the sense of doom and replacing it with a\npositive outlook that we are indeed potentially capable musicians. Let us also\ncombine that mental framework with the willingness to do some work toward our\ngoals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 2 – Formulate\na Properly Balanced Perspective:<\/strong> Second, let\u2019s narrow down our\ngoals to something realistic. Let us not go to either extreme. One extreme\nmight be what I call the \u201cmoon child\u201d. In other words, shooting for the moon.\nExample, \u201cI\u2019m 38 years old, know three chords, work sixty hours a week, have a\nwife and three kids, and I want to play like Eddie Van Halen within 6 months of\ndusting off my old high school guitar\u201d. \nHere is another example that I see routinely in my pre-enrollment consultations,\n\u201cI want to be able to play expertly in any style from classical to progressive\nrock and everything in between\u201d (have you ever taken note that well known\naccomplished guitarists only play in one very narrow range of style?) The other\nextreme might be, \u201cSince I can\u2019t play like Eric Clapton my playing is\nworthless\u201d. Really? Try telling that to B.B. King \u2013 one of the most acclaimed\nguitarists who has ever lived, who made a long, lucrative career and legacy out\nof simple repetitive blues licks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So let\u2019s face some facts \u2013\nsome goals are completely off the chart unrealistic, and some goals are simply\nnot appropriate for some persons. On the other hand some folks go to the other\nextreme and assume that ANY goal is beyond their reach. Here is the balance of\ntruth in the middle of the extremes \u2013 there is plenty of fun to be had with\nguitar at skill levels within the reach of the average person. If you set a\ngoal that is out of proportion to the amount of time you can and will invest\ninto guitar, this is a set-up from day one for overwhelm. If you give in to\noverwhelm at the slightest appearance of difficulty, you are robbing yourself\nand others of the great satisfaction to yourself and others that comes from you\nexpressing yourself well with an instrument. Let\u2019s avoid both extremes. Balance is the key. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n 3 – Set Effective\nGoals:<\/strong> So what is a realistic goal?\nThat is of course going to vary greatly from person to person according to any\nnumber of factors. We can look here at some of the common factors. It is very\nimportant to pick a range of style to focus on. For instance, classical guitar\nis a very different approach to guitar than rock. It is unlikely that anyone,\nand particularly a hobbyist, is going to achieve great things in both of these\nstyles. Even professional musicians tend to focus on one style. So pick the one\nyou like most \u2013 the one that has the most songs that you enjoy hearing. In\ndoing so you have eliminated a great deal of material that you need to bother\nwith learning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now let\u2019s narrow it down some\nmore. For instance, within the Blues style, we have a number of even more\nspecific styles \u2026. Delta Blues (acoustic slide), Chicago Blues (low gain\nelectric guitar), Texas Blues (medium gain electric guitar with a rock flavor).\nIf you want to play Texas Blues, you do not need to master alternate tunings\nfor acoustic slide guitar. So you see, when you narrow down your goal, you\neliminate a LOT of material that you would be wasting time to pursue. This does\nnot mean you are permanently eliminating the possibility of playing songs from\nany other style. Contrarily, learning to play well in one style will\nundoubtedly leave you potentially much more capable to approach other styles\nwith better results, especially closely related styles such as Blues and Rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ok, so we have narrowed\nthings down to where we can see some outer limits to what we have to accomplish\nto reach our goal. There is still a lot left to do. So how do we look at all\nthis and avoid a sense of doom? Very simple. There is an old adage I am fond of\nrepeating to my clients: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time<\/em>! Rather than look at a whole body of knowledge\nand tasks with awe and overwhelm, we break the project into parts that we can\nmanage and set up a plan to start building up fluency in each of a number of\ntargeted areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have been at this for\na while you have probably accumulated a lot of material and it becomes\npractically impossible to study all of it routinely. So what do you do? You\nhave to look at your short term goals and see what material will help you reach\nthose goals. If you have material that is not pertinent to your short term\ngoals, set it aside for now and focus on things that are directly relevant to\nthe closest goals. For instance, if your near-term goal is the ability to play\npop rock solos, you do not need to practice exotic scales and diminished\narpeggios. Focus on pentatonic scales, embellishments, and phrasing. The more\nadvanced materials can wait until you have mastered the basic stuff to an\nextent that you can yield more practice time to exploring new ideas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Essentially, the problem of\noverwhelm yields to these things: positive attitude combined with positive\naction, goal-oriented organization, and targeted elimination of non-essentials.\nPush aside incapacitating thoughts. Replace them with enthusiastic action.\nOrganize your practice time and materials around your near-term goals.\nEliminate (for now) those things that do not contribute to these goals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, as with all things guitar, practice well and often! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Copyright \u00a9 2005 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Chad Crawford, PMI Guitar Instructor If you are new to guitar, or especially if you have been playing for a while then you may already be acquainted with the vaguely uncomfortable feeling that there is a long road ahead and you are not sure you can see the destination. If you have attempted any […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,2,59,69,22],"class_list":["post-367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chad-crawford","tag-guitar-lessons-greenville-sc","tag-guitar-lessons-near-me","tag-guitar-overwhelm","tag-palmetto-music-institue"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guitarlessonsgreenville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guitarlessonsgreenville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guitarlessonsgreenville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitarlessonsgreenville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitarlessonsgreenville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitarlessonsgreenville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":368,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitarlessonsgreenville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions\/368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guitarlessonsgreenville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitarlessonsgreenville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guitarlessonsgreenville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}