Drive for personal betterment.

[loansindi]

I know there's a fair number of physical musicians on the AF (when I say physical musician, I mean someone who plays an instrument which produces music acoustically at some point in the process, or is directly derived from such an instrument. Guitar, piano, drums, keyboards or squeezebox, whatever)

I direct this post at these musicians primarily because there's a primary fundamental difference in this form of music production (at least in my mind) from most forms of electronic production. I know a large number of electronic artists on the forum don't use any kind of MIDI input device, opting rather to use a point and click interface, and this post is directed less at them.

My problem lately has been this, even though I have a little bit of free time between school and work, I can't motivate myself to practice the guitar, or even screw around for a little while. I think it's a motivational issue stemming from a couple of issues. Firstly, I've reached a point in my playing where it's very difficult to challenge myself to greater playing. I have trouble selecting pieces to learn that will benefit my skills.

Another issue is simple motivation to PRACTICE rather than screw around. It's hard to convince myself to run scales and exercises even though I know I should.

I think a big problem is I don't have any other musicians to play with, I've always learned the most while interacting with other artists.

The long and the short of it is:

How many of you have similar issues and,
How do you overcome them?

[Kanped]

If you want to be as good as you can be at an instrument, then you need to run scales and excercises often, say about an hour every day.

However, the world doesn't really need another 'virtuoso' guitar-wanker, so why not just have fun with it and play what you like. Try listening to different types of music; really old blues/jazz is always a good one. Or learn some Zappa.

[loansindi]

At 4/13/09 08:12 AM, Kanped wrote: Or learn some Zappa.

I'd love to play like zappa.

My goal isn't ridiculous. Honestly, if I could just hit a level like you hear in bands such as... At Vance or Iron Savior, I'd be happy. Kind of an 80's/power metal level.

My problem is that it's really hard to motivate myself to practice because I've kind of hit a wall where it's really, really hard to improve, and I don't know how best to attack it.

[Kanped]

Just pracice the songs, or buy a songbook with that kinda thing in it. Its not difficult. There's no muscles in your fingers (not that you can build up, anyway) so there's no physical restrictions on your playing ability. Just take it one step at a time and learn the songs you want to play. Take something you can play and play it.

[Gorgorothx]

At 4/13/09 08:23 AM, loansindi wrote: My problem is that it's really hard to motivate myself to practice because I've kind of hit a wall where it's really, really hard to improve, and I don't know how best to attack it.

As a musician, you can always improve something. I find that scales/theory stuff is only a small part of the whole of music making. If you look at a lot of semi-successful (and awesome) bands these days, it's not skill or instrumental talent that makes them awesome... it's creativity. In your case, I'd say to try and work with different genres. Sometimes that can open you up to new ideas and techniques. (Even the blending of multiple genres in one song/session!)

[Deflektor]

Well, i would follow Kanped's advice. Play songs you like, and practice until you can play them perfectly. Doing exercises can help, too, but you can use actual songs as exercises.

I'm going to give a personal example ; as a violonist, i needed to know how to do the vibrato. So, i practiced the vibrato movement and stuff, but couldn't seem to make any progress. Then i tried a piece with short and long notes to practice with (it was Magus battle theme from Chrono Trigger). I tried again and again until i finally and suddenly figured out how to do it.

Also, you have to remember that these things take time. Give yourself some time.

[Nav]

The exact reasons posted above are why I quit playing my physical instrument and moved to pure digital: Lack of motivation to do the same thing, over and over. On the computer, I can change it up every time! :)

[YouriX]

Well i moved from guitar to Computer simply because its cheaper and easier. But i think both require also patients and motivition. If i wasnt motiveded i dont think i would be able to produce very cool and nice sounding DnB songs.

The Advice
My advice to you is force yourself. Make a list of things you want to do in a day and also write/type the in wich time you want to do this. Eventually if you pin point it. You need motivition either physical or virtual.

[DavidOrr]

Start training your ear. Chances are, the reason you find it hard to improve is because you can't hear what needs to be improved in your music. When I hit a wall when I'm developing my piano technique, I do a lot of listening and ear training. You'll be amazed at what your ears won't pick up on. That's why there are a lot of crappy vocalists out there that think they're great; because they simply can't hear all the flaws in their singing.

Training your ear will also help motivate you to do more practicing, because you'll start to hear new things in music that you had never heard before.

[LaForge]

"Practicing" takes on many different forms for the "physical musician", as you aptly put it. For me, practicing simply taking all those melodies and riffs that flew around in my brain that day and turning the ones I can remember into music.

I've never been able to actually sit down and write a piece of music, let alone do the excercises and chops that supposedly improve your skillz. I just get bored.

So anyway, my advice to you consists of two words: Voice Recorder.

You take one wherever you go and when a tune comes into your head that sounds pretty sweet, hum it into the recorder to help you remember it when you have a chance to record.

That's how it works for me, and I'll tell you personally, it works well.

[Kor-Rune]

Well, it seems there has been a good bit in this thread about getting better that I don't feel like repeating. But if you're looking to get faster, and more technical to remove limitations on compositional skills, I like to say "Play and practice what you know you can't". Push yourself to play faster than you actually can cleanly. It will sound sloppy at first, but once you get to cleaning it up, you can proceed to apply what you just got out of whatever you played to other techniques, and then polish them like that.

Or something. I'm a bad teacher, and I'm self-taught, so argh.

[DavidOrr]

At 4/13/09 09:25 PM, Kor-Rune wrote: Push yourself to play faster than you actually can cleanly.

That's actually something you shouldn't do. The rest of what Kor-Rune wrote was good advice (at least in my opinion), but never player faster than you can cleanly. You will learn mistakes that way, and then you'll have to go back and undo them. Speed comes with time, don't push it or you'll end up sounding like many wannabee musicians out there. Pushing yourself with a "reach" piece though is a really good idea. I like to have one or two "easy" pieces that are almost sightreadable, a normal piece, and then a piece that is a bit beyond what Im capable of. That way you have a good mixture of music to work on. As time goes on your easy pieces will start to get harder (but still remain the same level of easiness for you), and you'll end up finding what you one thought was a reach piece much easier. That is what motivates me to practice. If you can structure your work you'll get more done, and the results you'll see will make you push yourself.

[Pure-Metal-UTA]

I would recommend trying to learn Guitar Masturbation
That's literally what it's called from what I know.
It's for the soloists of bands. After Megadeth split because of Dave's accident, Marty Friedman got into making the solo albums like Music for Speeding (shown in the second link)
Try to learn soloing. That is where the motivation will come from. You will be saying "fuck I want to play like that" and that will be your motivation. That's my opinion anyways.
Good luck.

[Kor-Rune]

At 4/14/09 12:14 AM, DavidOrr wrote:

At 4/13/09 09:25 PM, Kor-Rune wrote: Push yourself to play faster than you actually can cleanly.

That's actually something you shouldn't do. The rest of what Kor-Rune wrote was good advice (at least in my opinion), but never player faster than you can cleanly. You will learn mistakes that way, and then you'll have to go back and undo them. Speed comes with time, don't push it or you'll end up sounding like many wannabee musicians out there. Pushing yourself with a "reach" piece though is a really good idea. I like to have one or two "easy" pieces that are almost sightreadable, a normal piece, and then a piece that is a bit beyond what Im capable of. That way you have a good mixture of music to work on. As time goes on your easy pieces will start to get harder (but still remain the same level of easiness for you), and you'll end up finding what you one thought was a reach piece much easier. That is what motivates me to practice. If you can structure your work you'll get more done, and the results you'll see will make you push yourself.

Well, yeah, pushing yourself within reason. It's just a little kind of tip I picked up from Shawn Lane. If you just began playing guitar, obviously you aren't going to nail something like flight of the bumblebee at 210 bpm, but maybe you could learn what chromatics are first, and apply what you know to a much slower version, and then get it structurally and musically sound, making it fluent and what not. Then you can progress to a slightly faster tempo, and maybe decide learning something other than the chromatic scale could be interesting, so you're introduced to the three basic minors and your on your way to theory and such. I guess I suck with words, lol.

[la-yinn]

At 4/13/09 08:23 AM, loansindi wrote:

At 4/13/09 08:12 AM, Kanped wrote: Or learn some Zappa.

I'd love to play like zappa.

My goal isn't ridiculous. Honestly, if I could just hit a level like you hear in bands such as... At Vance or Iron Savior, I'd be happy. Kind of an 80's/power metal level.

My problem is that it's really hard to motivate myself to practice because I've kind of hit a wall where it's really, really hard to improve, and I don't know how best to attack it.

You have to feel the wall, smell the wall... Be the wall, young grasshopper.

:Then kill yourself. No more wall. lolol

[loansindi]

At 4/14/09 02:09 AM, Kor-Rune wrote: stuff about pushing

Well. I've been playing 3 years, and the first 2.5 or so were great. I could feel myself making progress and I got to a good place. Then it just got hard to get better. And when I do practice, even on a regular basis, I just feel like I don't make any progress.

Part of it is I have trouble finding things that would fall into the 'easy' and 'reach' categories, because my goal is still definitely outside my reach for the most part.

[Bad-Man-Incorporated]

Depending on what your goal is with your music.
I don't practice at all. When I get serious with a song, I get serious. Otherwise, I'm just wanking around, not forcing scales or anything. The wanking is kinda practice. And less work. If it ceases to be fun for me, I just put it down.

I like to grab a simple drum beat and just fuck around. Sometimes for a week, I just fuck around. All of a sudden, I've started developing a song of sorts. Then I work on it.

But it all depends. If you are serious about your music, can't practice enough.
If it is a fun hobby, fuck it. Fuck around. You'll find yourself expanding your skills anyways. Maybe not as quickly...but much more fun.

But that is just my opinion.