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Originally Posted by Marinero
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08-14-2022 04:46 PM
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Originally Posted by ccroft
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"Almost impossible to find like minded players where I am and those I find either can't play or are jerks or both. " SkipEllis
Hi, S,
It's not just your area . . . this was my biggest problem in Chicago when I needed to find a new band member for the horn section and frequently, I chose a lesser player with a good attitude rather than the "hotshot." And, many of those "lesser players" became really good once they had steady face time on the stage.
Marinero
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First and foremost, I'd like to thank all of you for posting your thoughts, as well as sharing your own stories. Sometimes, it helps a lot to see that others go through the same or similar, and make it through.
Secondly, I'd like to address my absense - just north of 24 hours after I started this thread, I ran into an amazing and beautiful woman whom I'd gone on two dates with earlier this summer, on the night train back from the big city north of here. She and I both hate going out on the town for drinks, and staying up late - in fact, this is one of only two times in my 8 years of being of drinking age that I've ever gone out on the town in that city - so it is an almost cosmic coincidence that we should both be heading back on that train that night. We walked together from the train station as we were going the same way, and things took a turn once we got to hers. We've been going steady since then, and this has made me realize that I might have underestimated how purely emotional music is, or perhaps even should be.
I've been thinking in terms of craft, but yesterday, I thought only in terms of emotion. I didn't play guitar, but I was a little overwhelmed with missing her, so I laid in bed and listened to the Radka Toneff album "Fairytales".
This is an amazing duet record, and I highly recommend it for those inclined to hearing some music that's good for crying to. Dobrogosz is a pianist of the highest caliber and manages to play both with an improvisational lightness, as well as a compositorial intent. Toneff's vulnerable and fragile voice is the perfect match.
I bring this up because I am motivated to play guitar, but not with intentions of performing, only feeling. I think the so-called career path is gone for me, but I don't mind. I've always played only for my own sake.
I ordered a seven-string classical guitar, and I'm excited to use it on its own. Maybe the electric guitar is dead to me for the time being, but that's okay. Like many of you have said, it's not the end of the world, nor the end at all.
I realize that I still sound a little jumbled-up about my own feelings, but I hope I'm making sense. My point is that now that I've been emotionally vulnerable and happy in a different part of my life, I've become more interested in playing music again. I ordered the 7-string on impulse after having run straight from her place to work, go figure.
Now, I'd like to address some points specifically:
Originally Posted by starjasmine
Teaching, however, is something I really enjoy with the right student. My previous relationship was with a person who was initally a student of mine (I know, yikes!). I really enjoyed it because I felt like without me, she wouldn't have gotten anywhere, and with my help, she understood music on a much deeper level. She had excellent taste and practiced much more than me, so I was fairly upset when I had to tell her that I couldn't continue being her teacher because of an inappropriate interest. Even with how things went, I'd love to go back and be her teacher again, because I really felt that it mattered.
Originally Posted by pingu
Originally Posted by Blackguard53
Originally Posted by starjasmine
Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
Originally Posted by Christian Miller
And indeed, there's nothing stopping me from stopping nor starting!
Originally Posted by Litterick
Originally Posted by JazzPadd
Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
(Part 1)
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(Part 2)
Originally Posted by rlrhettOriginally Posted by rlrhett
Cheers, thank you for sharing your story. Ironically, I've felt the very same with road cycling, which has been my big passion this year. I actually went out yesterday with no intentions of being fast or fit, just because I wanted to be outside and feel the road, as I'd been ill, away, and busy. My bike computer/GPS shows me that I set 14 personal bests on road segments I ride on frequently, despite only going on a "fun" ride. I take your words with me. I'm not a guitarist, I just play guitar sometimes.
Originally Posted by chasranneyOriginally Posted by chasranney
Cheers, you're right. I'll bring the aforementioned 7-string guitar, I think. I appreciate your words, it can be easy for a young man like myself to forget how life works.
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Hey Mr. Quick,
Good to hear from you again. I wish you well in this next chapter.
Your most recent post reminded me of something I heard in a masterclass given by a very well-known jazzer; he basically said that when he had a girlfriend, he practiced a lot, and when he didn't have a girlfriend, he practiced less and socialized more :-)
SJLast edited by starjasmine; 09-26-2022 at 12:50 AM.
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Wow. That's a lot to process.
I'll just address this:
In the last 30 years or so I've stopped playing a few times, the longest was for 14 months. Didn't even touch my guitar, lol. Sat on its stand gathering dust. Didn't even put it back in its case.
I knew I would start again at some point. Just needed to take a break.
Then I'll hear something that will revive my interest in learning again.
Another thing that helped was NOT listening to guitar music. I simply cannot stand most of it.Last edited by ChazFromCali; 09-26-2022 at 11:12 PM.
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Since I was about five years old, I have loved riding my bike. Did it every chance I could. As an adult, I decided to get into bike racing. I did that for nine seasons. Towards the end of the ninth season I realized that I hated riding a bike; I enjoyed the camaraderie with my teammates at the races, but I hated the 15 to 20 hours a week of training that was required to be competitive (and this was at a completely amateur level). I finally quit racing. I came to realize that I was only racing to have an excuse to ride my bike; riding your bike a lot makes you look like a slacker but if you're training for racing then you're a serious individual. It was really about how it looked to others. Now I just ride my bike when I feel like riding my bike (which is most days), for as long as I feel like writing and without having to do intervals, sprints, hill training, etc.
I started playing guitar when I was in college with some intent of playing gigs, possibly professionally. If I am brutally honest I really don't have the talent to be better than a middling player, although I have pretty good dexterity on the instrument and every so often pull something out of the bag that's really good. I dabbled with various bands but, as it is usually the case, most of them never got off the ground. I had a jazz quintet I played in for seven years and playing gigs really wore thin. It was particularly distressful of the band did not sound good, whether that was my fault or somebody else's. The band broke up maybe six years ago now; I have resumed playing my guitar for myself in my living room and getting together with a bass player once a week, but I'm not sure that I particularly want to gig. I guess it was the same thing as racing: playing my guitar a couple of hours a day just for fun is being a slacker, practicing for a gig is being serious.
I think I've fairly well given up on needing to justify doing the things I enjoy doing. Playing the guitar for the sake of playing the guitar, just like riding a bike for the sake of riding the bike, seems to be where I'm at right at the moment. It's OK.
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The guitar will be waiting for you if you ever want to come back.
If you don't want to play don't play.
The lifestyle of a musician is a real punisher. College debt for a guitar education is a gut punch too.
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Kenny Werner in Effortless Mastery:
Who Cares?
Who cares if you ever play another note of music? No one. What global
purpose are you fulfilling? What burning need? Do you think that there is a
shortage of good jazz musicians? My friends FEAR NOT! There are holes
in the ozone and the ozone layer is depleting. The seas are getting more
polluted every year. There are fewer and fewer places where you can turn
on the tap and drink the water. There are serious food shortages around
the globe. But FEAR NOT, THERE IS A GLUT OF GOOD JAZZ
MUSICIANS! A lot of them! Thousands come out of schools and
universities every year. They multiply like coat hangers in your closet. Did
you ever notice how you always have more and more coat hangers without
ever buying one? Has anyone ever bought a coat hanger? So it is with
competent,
stylistically correct, ”no voice of their own” type of jazz musicians. They can
play fast. They can burn. They can play blues and rhythm changes. We get
more of these people every year. So your participation is not important. We
don’t need you! Go back to your homes and start a new life!
Expression
What do we need? Even with all these well-trained improvisers, we don’t
have any more artists than we ever had. Artists take all that technology, all
that language, and say something. They express something from very
deep in their soul, or their deepest thoughts, political statements, love of
homeland, love of self and of others, or just something that needs to be
said! Maybe they’re just having fun. Such people are not caught up in the
petty issues of the day, but keep their eyes fixed on the truth as they know
it. They may be visionaries, luminaries that light the way for the rest of us.
They give us art from the soul, or the genitals, or from whatever drives
them. When Ben Webster or Lester Young played a ballad, the
atmosphere was supercharged. Their ballads were emotional, sexual or
spiritual statements. Keith Jarrett says, ”It is the individual voice, present to
itself, that needs to be heard. We need to hear the process of a musician
working on himself. We don’t need to hear who is more clever with
synthesizers. Our cleverness has created the world we live in, which in
many ways we’re sorry about.”5
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Originally Posted by stylo
But I just wanted to say a big "fuck yeah" in response to the Kenny Werner excerpt. Don't just be a guitar player, or even a musician (which is far more important) .
Become an Artist. Art is it's own reward, and if there's even a minute spent in it's pursuit that feels unsatisfying, or illegitimate, then we should probably consider that we're not doing it right.
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You could try taking up the sub-contrabass tuba. After a while you will yearn for the guitar again.
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Guitar and music are infinitely patient and forgiving. They will wait endlessly for you to return from alternative pursuits, loss of interest, injury, or burnout. That's one of the things I love most about them. They will never betray you or abandon you.
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Listen some mileley. Miley. Or pink floyd. something. Get drunk, put it on. Giving up on music - its a crime.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
Last edited by John A.; 12-12-2022 at 09:50 AM.
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Originally Posted by John A.
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It is not music but your mind. When I say mind, I mean your thinking. However there is a relationship to your physical brain.
I assume you are in your mid twenties. (If I am wrong, then the next stuff I write might not apply). I think in males, around 25ish, there is something that happens in the brain. You can tell it is happening be a lose of that new excited feeling. I remember when it hit me. I was at a Phish concert and I thought, “I have done all this. I really done everything I want to”. That feeling is normal. If I remember right, it has to do with how the brain is developing or slowing down creating new neurons… something like that.
Now instead of new and exciting, I get to explore subtle, perhaps even wisdom. Music is not about excitement, but connections between levels of thought, between other people, nuanced meanings. It is like I lost the thrill but gained something more expansive.
If you are a creative person, you will be driven to create. It will be something that you have to do, or feel lost. You get to choice where and how to create. Music is cool but so are many other areas.
This all assumes you are not experiencing depression.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
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It's a tricky one though - which is more likely to impress, a giant tuba or a giant tuna?
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Originally Posted by grahambop
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I realized I have to quit guitar and bass. My left index finger had an injury and it gets more and more decrepit when I play. The alternatives are don't use that finger or go lefty. I ain't got time for that so just gonna focus on keys.
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Go listen to Bucky for a while, or Stanley Jordan, and it puts things in perspective.
Try putting on some new strings, or playing a different guitar, or getting an old one out and have it all gone through and tuned up,,,,that alone can be quite inspirational. When you can play classical gas note for note, you can quit!
Jay
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Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
Please Delete.
Today, 06:37 AM in The Players