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Old 07-17-2012, 06:17 PM
BlueBird2 BlueBird2 is offline
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Default Do you ever feel like you just want to smash the guitar ?

I DO !

When I know which note I should be playing and which string I should be hitting, but I just can not do it. I get so distracted by trying to read the notation and remembering which note they were. I just can not put correct fingers on my left hand nor can hit the correct string on my right hand. Its just lately.... I have not bean able to hit the right strings. I feel like I just want to smash the guitar.

Am I the only one going through this ? Any suggestions to how I can overcome this problem ?

AGhhhhhhh

Last edited by BlueBird2; 07-17-2012 at 06:42 PM.
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Old 07-17-2012, 06:34 PM
mr. beaumont mr. beaumont is offline
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how long have you been playing?

relax. the first twenty years are the toughest.
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Old 07-17-2012, 07:08 PM
pgilmor pgilmor is offline
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Never wanted to take out my frustration on the instrument, but I have wanted to smash my head against the wall. Usually I just strum some loud chords and hit 'em hard.


Quote:
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont View Post
relax. the first twenty years are the toughest.
Funny you should say that. I'm approaching 19 years and things are actually starting to make sense.
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Old 07-17-2012, 07:36 PM
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ljguitar ljguitar is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueBird2 View Post
...Am I the only one going through this ? Any suggestions to how I can overcome this problem ?

AGhhhhhhh
Hi BBird...

Slow down the passage in which you are fumbling/missing notes till you can play without missing them. Play it a thousand times and as you nail the accuracy move the speed up.

When you can play them perfectly 10 times through while watching a show and/or talking with your wife, you have it.


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Old 07-17-2012, 07:56 PM
DreadFred DreadFred is offline
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No, I realized from the very first day this would be difficult, but oh so rewarding.
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Old 07-17-2012, 08:07 PM
JohnnySmash JohnnySmash is offline
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Never felt that way about a guitar - a computer - that's another story. Johnny
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Old 07-17-2012, 08:10 PM
jpd jpd is offline
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never, maybe smack my fingers , but never take it out on the instrument!
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Old 07-17-2012, 08:17 PM
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Actually, it never crossed my mind...
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Old 07-17-2012, 08:54 PM
BlueBird2 BlueBird2 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont View Post
how long have you been playing?

relax. the first twenty years are the toughest.
one year on my own, 1 month with a teacher. I just smacked a guitar and an electronic fell apart. I picked it up and flew it across the room. since it did not break, I stepped on it and toss it out from my front door. It flew across the street and landed on the concrete. May be I will smash my door next.
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Old 07-18-2012, 02:42 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Quote:
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how long have you been playing?

relax. the first twenty years are the toughest.
Yes, and then it's all downhill from there...
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Old 07-18-2012, 02:52 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueBird2 View Post
one year on my own, 1 month with a teacher. I just smacked a guitar and an electronic fell apart. I picked it up and flew it across the room. since it did not break, I stepped on it and toss it out from my front door. It flew across the street and landed on the concrete. May be I will smash my door next.
Yes, smash a door. Smash the house to pieces. Don't smash the guitar.

Not even Pete Townshend smashed a guitar in anger (it was all showmanship).

Becoming a musician requires enormous patience. You need to relax and treat every difficulty as an exciting challenge, not as a frustration.
You have to ENJOY your practice, all the time, however long it takes. If you're not, you're doing something wrong.

Do you get that feeling often in other areas of your life? Is it just the way you are, or something about learning the guitar?

Maybe it's what the teacher is giving you? Did you ever get so frustrated when learning on your own? (Personally, I never ever felt like that. But then I taught myself all the way; I never felt frustrated, let alone like smashing anything.)
It may be that he's giving you too much too soon. Or trying to get you out of a few bad habits you picked up (that can be annoying, realising you've got used to doing something the wrong way).

Next time you feel like that, just put the guitar down, take a few deep, slow breaths, and go off and do something else. You will learn nothing of any use when you're in that mood (or when you're bored with it), so practising is pointless.
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Old 07-18-2012, 02:41 PM
Cue Zephyr Cue Zephyr is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pgilmor View Post
Never wanted to take out my frustration on the instrument, but I have wanted to smash my head against the wall. Usually I just strum some loud chords and hit 'em hard.




Funny you should say that. I'm approaching 19 years and things are actually starting to make sense.
Same for me. I love my instruments and will never take it out on them. Just on myself for not practicing the right things, being structured, really bad at improvising and generally limited in what I can do.

I am actually 20 right now and I first picked up a guitar when I was 14. I only seriously got into it at age 16-17, right when I got my first guitar (my Taylor 110ce).

Long way to go, darnit.

Quote:
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Becoming a musician requires enormous patience. You need to relax and treat every difficulty as an exciting challenge, not as a frustration.
You have to ENJOY your practice, all the time, however long it takes. If you're not, you're doing something wrong.
Thank you, I really needed to read that myself.

I teach myself also, and improvising has always been a wall for me. Now I've found a way I can actually tell what I'm doing. It does still take a lot of time to think but that will get better. I may not have the most efficient and/or effective way of teaching myself, but at least it's still a lot of fun for me to do.

I know for a fact that if I'd get a teacher I'd stop practicing altogether. It's really stupid but I'm just like that.
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Last edited by Cue Zephyr; 07-18-2012 at 02:49 PM.
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Old 07-18-2012, 06:47 PM
gitgal gitgal is offline
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I think the frustration you feel is normal but no need to take it out on your guitar. Slow down your pace and eventually you'll get it right.
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Old 07-18-2012, 10:00 PM
jeanray1113 jeanray1113 is offline
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Never felt like taking it out on my guitar, but very frustrated with my perceived lack of progress at times. I say "perceived" because I really think that as long as we practice on a regular basis, and by that I mean working on new stuff that stretches us, not just playing what we already know, there is no way that we are not making progress. I can think of many times that I've felt like no matter how I worked at it, whatever I was working just wasn't coming together and thinking, "I'm never going to get this." And then, one day, I pick up my guitar, and seemingly all of a sudden, I can see improvement. Learning, whether it's guitar or anything else, is repetition, repetition, repetition. And eventually it does pay off.
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Old 07-19-2012, 02:44 AM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cue Zephyr View Post
I teach myself also, and improvising has always been a wall for me. Now I've found a way I can actually tell what I'm doing. It does still take a lot of time to think but that will get better. I may not have the most efficient and/or effective way of teaching myself, but at least it's still a lot of fun for me to do.

I know for a fact that if I'd get a teacher I'd stop practicing altogether. It's really stupid but I'm just like that.
Interesting statement - and not an unusual feeling. I get hints of that with some of my students, especially one or two in the evening class groups. It's like they go to a teacher because they don't want the responsibility of teaching themselves. They transfer the responsiblity for their learning on to the teacher.
It's a hangover from school, IMO, where you only went to lessons because you had to. The teacher taught you stuff, you might pay attention in class, but as soon as it was over you forgot all about it till next time. Any homework you had to do in between was a chore. Basically you weren't interested.
That attitude to teaching (or rather being taught) can get deeply ingrained; even when, later in life, you study something you actually want to learn - that old knee-jerk teacher-pupil dynamic kicks back in.

As someone once said: "I forgot everything I was taught. I only remember what I learned."

IOW, learning is your responsibility. It's an active thing, not a passive thing; something you do for yourself, not something someone does to you.
Even when you have lessons, you only really learn in the practice time between lessons, when you try out the stuff you were taught, experiment with it, apply it, test it out; make it your own.

I was much like you (judging from what you say). I was bored with school. So much so that I never applied to university because by the end of high school I'd had enough of being taught. Guitar was the total opposite to that: the first thing I'd encountered in my life (I was then 15/16) that I really wanted to learn how to do. In those days there were no guitar teachers anyway (at least none who taught blues, folk or rock!), but if there had been I'd have given them a wide berth. Even if someone had offered me free lessons I'd have run a mile. Because it would mean them taking away something that was mine.

So I don't blame you at all, nor anyone else who avoids lessons - even though I'm now a guitar teacher myself.
I realise the above attitude is immature, adolescent. The right attitude to a teacher is to treat them as a fount of knowledge; you take from them what you need; you ask them questions all the time. They are a professional consultant, and you are the client. You're paying them so you're in charge. IOW, the drive comes from you, not from them.

But I still admire people who teach themselves, and am bemused a little by my adult students; by the fact that they seem to lack the necessary drive. It's as if they've gone for driving lessons, but want to sit in the passenger seat...
The kids I teach are mostly different; their lessons are in school, and many of them forget to practice; but at least they show a genuine enthusiasm for playing. The adults often seem a little lethargic, as if guitar is something they always had a vague dream of doing, and now they have a little spare time, and some spare money, so it becomes a new hobby; but still only a peripheral part of their lives.
I know, of course, that they have families, jobs and other pastimes; normal lives IOW. But I keep wanting to yell at them: "Guitar has to be more important than any of that! Forget your families and your job! Guitar has to be your central passion, otherwise youll never learn!" (Of course I don't say that; I need their money!)

Last edited by Kerbie; 01-07-2020 at 07:51 PM. Reason: Profanity
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