Nothing feels or sounds right. How to overcome this slump?

[414CE Koa]

Hello all,

I hope you are having a fantastic new year so far! I have been having a very strange relationship with playing guitar lately. I seem to have entered a stage where I am not happy with the sound of my guitars, my playing ability, everything just doesn't seem right for some reason. I have gotten a couple of new amps, for my electrics which are the main issues, and although they are great the feeling still seems to persist. Even the feel of the instruments sometimes doesn't feel right and I start messing with the straps heights. I'm not sure what to do, what to play, how to grow. I love guitar and love playing so this is really bugging me. I'm sure I am not the only one who has hit walls like this before. How did you overcome it? What can I do differently or am I doing wrong? I was a heavy Metallica player and I am trying to branch away, but now I got to the point where I can't even play the Metallica stuff anymore because I haven't practiced it enough. I feel like I don't deserve the amazing instruments I own. I have been playing for 20 years and I should be much further along than I am. Any insight from veteran players, and new alike, would be appreciated.

Thanks everyone and keep on pickin!

[Charlie Bernstein]

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[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by 414CE Koa

Hello all,

I hope you are having a fantastic new year so far! I have been having a very strange relationship with playing guitar lately. I seem to have entered a stage where I am not happy with the sound of my guitars, my playing ability, everything just doesn't seem right for some reason.

I have gotten a couple of new amps, for my electrics which are the main issues, and although they are great the feeling still seems to persist. Even the feel of the instruments sometimes doesn't feel right and I start messing with the straps heights. I'm not sure what to do, what to play, how to grow. I love guitar and love playing so this is really bugging me.

I'm sure I am not the only one who has hit walls like this before. How did you overcome it? What can I do differently or am I doing wrong? I was a heavy Metallica player and I am trying to branch away, but now I got to the point where I can't even play the Metallica stuff anymore because I haven't practiced it enough.

I feel like I don't deserve the amazing instruments I own. I have been playing for 20 years and I should be much further along than I am. Any insight from veteran players, and new alike, would be appreciated.

Thanks everyone and keep on pickin!

Sure, we all go through dry patches. A do, two don'ts, and a do:

- Do play with other people.

- Don't judge yourself.

- Don't worry about it.

- Do use paragraphs!

[martingitdave]

Playing with people
Listening to new music or artists
Writing a new song
Letting go and/or mediating
Walk away your guitars for a little while

Making music is not competitive sport. It’s audible art.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by 414CE Koa

I have gotten a couple of new amps, for my electrics which are the main issues

Uh-oh.
Firstly, buying gear is never the answer (I suspect you know this, right? )
Secondly, "a couple" is a bad sign. One ought to be enough...

Originally Posted by 414CE Koa

, and although they are great the feeling still seems to persist. Even the feel of the instruments sometimes doesn't feel right and I start messing with the straps heights. I'm not sure what to do, what to play, how to grow. I love guitar and love playing so this is really bugging me.

Well, you love the idea of it, at least. But you've somehow let the idea become disconnected from the reality, from the actual experience.

Originally Posted by 414CE Koa

I'm sure I am not the only one who has hit walls like this before. How did you overcome it? What can I do differently or am I doing wrong?

Well, it's never happened to me, and I've been playing for 58 years (and counting...).

But (I can confirm!) Charlie and martingitdave both have the answer. I'd been paying for less than a year when I joined my first band, and played in public just a month later. So, for me, it's always been about playing with -and for - other people.

IOW, music is a social art. All art is a form of communication - painters want their work to be looked at, authors want their work to be read, playrights want their work performed ... - but music above all is about performance.

Doing it just for yourself is fine up to a point - it makes great therapy, and is like a drug with no side effects (except that the more you do it for yourself, the more it actually gets in the way of your normal social activity! - like any addiction... )

Of course, finding other people to play with (or for) is not always easy. (I was lucky because that first band were already my closest schoolfriends before I took up guitar.) And maybe where you live, there are no local venues with open mics or jam sessions? Obviously if you think there might be, find out!

Originally Posted by 414CE Koa

I feel like I don't deserve the amazing instruments I own.

Stop that right now! I spent years thinking I didn't "deserve" a really good instrument, even after I'd been gigging for a few years (in 3 or 4 different bands by that point). Eventually I gave in and got what I considered a "pro standard" instrument, and never looked back.
You should always have the best you can afford.
However, while you shoudn't stint on quality (within a sensible budget), you have to put a limit on the quantity you get - because it's common to blame the instrument when you feel you're not quite getting the sounds you want (that you imagine in your head, or hear on record). More likely, you simply haven't fully explored what your existing instrument(s) can do. You might be trying to play stuff beyond what that guitar can do - but missing out on all the sounds it can produce (w/wo an amp).

Originally Posted by 414CE Koa

I have been playing for 20 years and I should be much further along than I am.

Again, that's the wrong way to think. You are where you are - no sense in regretting anything you might have done but didn't (or did do but shouldn't have!). You have plenty you should be able to enjoy right now - with a shift in attitude - and of course you have a lifetime of exploration ahead of you.

I'm now 74. I still hear new music all the time that excites me (that I want to play), and I'm more and more aware of how much music there is in the world that I will never hear - even if I live beyond 100 and don't go deaf!

That "shift in attitude" can mean starting back from first principles - just exploring the simplest sounds a guitar can make. Pick up a guitar - any one - don't plug it in (even if its a solid), and play one note. Play a second note. Now add a third note and make a melody. Hum a tune to yourself and play it on the guitar.

IOW, you need to be able to immerse yourself in the activity of making music - the process moment to moment is what it's all about. Even the most complex music is nothing but that: an experience in the moment, the "now". Forget about long term goals, ambition, progress or improvement. You have to love what you can do, now.
If you like, think of your current situation as having taken a detour (accidentally) and hit a dead end. So you need to reverse to get back on track. Find your way back to where you want to be, the reason you loved guitar in the first place.

And if you still can't do that - if the activity itself is no longer satisfying - well there is no harm in just stopping playing altogether.
I don't mean forever! Dont sell it all!! But just stop, for a few days, a few weeks, even. Find other things to occupy your free time.
Eventually, the urge to play something (anything) will return - so then you will enjoy it when you do; even if it's just 5 minutes.
And if that urge never comes .... that's also fine! Your guitar-playing period is over, and a new life has begun...

See what I'm saying? It's all good. You don't have to "achieve" anything. If you never play again, the last 20 years is not "wasted". It was good while it lasted, yes? A lot people have hobbies - even quite passionately - which stop working for them after a time, so they move on. Assuming you're not earning a living from playing, music is recreation, nothing more. If it no longer performs that purpose for you (an enjoyable escape from work and everything else), then it's past its use-by date.

Still - that's just looking on the bright side of the worst scenario! There is obviously a lot more you can do with your music hobby now, more avenues to explore. (I mean, forget Metallica for a start ... )

[Coler]

Would it be fair to say you have felt like this at times over the years?

What got you going again?

[Eastbound]

Try playing a different genre. Reggae, Jazz, bluegrass, metal. Try playing a cleaner tone or a more dirty tone with the electrics

[cliff_the_stiff]

Well, we’re not all on the same paths, but we do come to the same crossroads at times don’t we?
I didn’t know I needed it until I did it, but something that helped me along my journey was learning how to play bass.
Taking the time to focus on something both totally different and very similar was cathartic and also made my guitar playing better as I progress through the process of learning bass lines and looking at the music theory from a more basic perspective.

[Mandobart]

Many people post here about this issue, so I know it's real though like JonPR this has never happened to me in 50+ years of playing.

Of the suggestions you've already got I'll add my vote for the absolute #1 thing that I've found to play better, have better rhythm, better timing, learn to sing better, learn more songs, make new friends and just plain enjoy music more:

Play Regularly with Other People

It is the one single thing that will yield more positive results than any other single thing. One-on-one lessons are great. YouTube lessons are good. Books, DVD's, are good too. Directed, focused practice is a must. But playing with others is what you need right now.

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by martingitdave

. . . Making music is not competitive sport. It’s audible art.

Bottle that.

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by JonPR

. . . Well, it's never happened to me, and I've been playing for 58 years (and counting...) . . .

Heh heh. I've been playing since '68, when I was sixteen. It happened to me (I remember it well) exactly once, when I was maybe twenty or twenty-one.

I realized that no matter how much I wanted to, I'd never be as good as all my friends who played in bands. I had no chance of ever being the world's best guitar player. Depressing. Discouraging. So I gave up.

But about six months into it, I realized two things.

1. If only the world's best doctor stayed in the business, there wouldn't be enough doctors. You don't have to be the world's best doctor to cure someone. And even the best loses a patient sometimes.

So it's good that we have lots of doctors and guitar players who just do their best with the talents they have. In fact, the more the merrier, right?

2. I missed playing!

So I decided to accentuate the positive, and thought about what my real talent was. It took a while (I can be dense), but it finally dawned on me that while all my guitar buddies were great at nailing the songs they covered, they'd hardly written any originals — something I did all the time. (Not well, at that point, but I'd only been at it a few years.)

Which brought me back to both playing and writing — never as a pro, always as an enthusiast. Sometimes work and life have pulled by away from making music, but I've always kept it close at hand and enjoy the time I can put into it. When it gets stale, I just try something new.

It's only rock 'n' roll, but I like it.

Koa, I don't know if that helps, but there might be something to latch onto in there.

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by Mandobart

. . . Of the suggestions you've already got I'll add my vote for the absolute #1 thing that I've found to play better, have better rhythm, better timing, learn to sing better, learn more songs, make new friends and just plain enjoy music more:

Play Regularly with Other People.

Absolutely.

[414CE Koa]

I appreciate all of your thoughts and input. It is greatly appreciated. How do I actually find people to play with? It has been years since I have and at this point I don't really know anyone who plays or has time to play.

[gerhardp]

I was in this kind of rut in April 22.
I decided not to touch any guitar all month of May and did other things instead, in and around the house and made a short trip.
Surprisingly I didn't miss guitar all, so I added two more weeks until mid June, when I felt like noodling some melodies.
It took me some weeks to get back to my level, but playing felt like fun, and I guess this is what we're after.

[Mandobart]

Originally Posted by 414CE Koa

I appreciate all of your thoughts and input. It is greatly appreciated. How do I actually find people to play with? It has been years since I have and at this point I don't really know anyone who plays or has time to play.

Go to local music stores, library, college, and check their bulletin boards. Google phrases like "acoustic music," "guitar club", "folk life", "song circle" and your town or area. Call local music teachers and ask them. Search social media in your area. I live in a fairly small town and I went to 5 acoustic jams this past week.