Frustration and Feeling Down

General Music Discussion
#41

Personally, I find a tremendous reward in the work itself and love the challenge of working to learn something I can’t play yet. If someone who practices for hours at a time can’t say the same, I’d have to wonder, what is the guy doing this for?

Regarding this thread, I didn’t get the implication that RG707 doesn’t also enjoy these things. I know he didn’t say it outright. I noticed some people tok what he said and sort of just ran to the worst possible extremes he may have implied. Someone even brought up suicide in a way that made it seem he thought RG707 is suicidal! I certainly didn’t get that from what he wrote, did you? From what he wrote I got the sense that sometimes he suffers for his art, but that’s part of becoming and being a professional virtuoso level musician.

It’s my belief that those few of us who want to take this all the way to the virtuoso level are willing to suffer for their art because it’s that important to us. Now does that mean we should be suffering very day? No, of course not. But to me it’s natural that if someone loves music enough that he’s willing to put in the type of effort and endure the hardships both in becoming a virtuoso player and being a professional virtuoso level musician, that certainly when a guy like that gets stuck in a rut where he plays poorly, well below his usual level of playing for a few days, or even a week or two (much like a hitter in baseball being in a slump where he goes 10 games without getting even one hit), it’s going to be very disheartening and there will be a certain amount of mental distress that goes along with it because we do care so much about the quality of what we do!

Edit: I scrolled back and you were the one who brought up suicide. You also said that successful obsessive people don’t look at their art as a “chore.” I didn’t see where RG707 wrote anything that made it seem as if he considers his guitar playing and practice a chore. Apparently you and I have very different interpretations regarding what he meant. I’m glad we at least agree on some things such as the desire to become the best guitarist you can possibly become to be a far more admirable motivation than the hope of acquiring fame!

#42

I’m the one who brought up suicide, and I did it not as a response to RG707’s original post, but as a response to your very dismissive attitude toward the legitimacy of mental health concerns in general.

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#43

It’s hard for me to believe that anyone could have read that into any of my posts here. In fact the very first thing I wrote in response to his OP was “No, it’s not silly at all. It’s very real and to be this way is both a blessing and a curse.” You see, I used to have the same problem that RG707 described, back in the late 90s and early 2000s! If anyone were to be dismissive of what he wrote about, it certainly wouldn’t be me.

What was it that I wrote that made you think a have a dismissive attitude towards the legitimacy of mental health concerns? I’d really like to know because that’s quite an offensive thing to say to me, so unless you can back that up with something I actually wrote, you really shouldn’t be writing that about me.

If you’d even given a little thought to the fact that I have devoted a considerable amount of time to help a guy who I don’t even know (RG707) while the vast majority of the people who post on this forum have contributed nothing at all to help the guy, I don’t think you’d have made that offensive statement about me. I’m the only one here who even bothered to ask him what his goals are regarding music, to ask him how old he is, and how long he’s been playing guitar. After all, the needs of a 17 year old kid who wants to dedicate his life to being a professional guitarist would be different than the needs of a 50 year old man who only plays guitar as a hobby.

If it turns out he’s 50 and it is just a hobby, having a bad day of practice should not “bleed into the rest of the day” and ruin it as RG707 put things. That’s too much suffering for a middle aged man who is just playing guitar as a hobby. But suppose he’s a 17 year old kid and wants to dedicate his life to music and hopefully become a professional guitarist. If that happens to be the case, then in my opinion, he should be willing to tolerate more mental distress from time to time (as opposed to every day which is far too much IMO) than the middle aged man doing it as a hobby because the 17 year old has to be willing to, as Yngwie said, to “…scarifice, to suffer, and to be ridiculed” because that’s part of the “blood, sweat and tears” as Yngwie put it, that go along with being extremely driven to become the best guitarist he can become.

There is no easy way, no shortcut, to becoming a virtuoso professional guitarist The rewards in terms of the personal satisfaction one receives from achieving such a goal are tremendous and if there weren’t that high price to be paid in getting to that level, everyone would be doing it! If it were easy to become the next Michael Jordan, everyone would be doing it! These are difficult things to achieve and that should be apparent when you consider the personal rewards to be had and despite those wonderful things there are to be had in reaching that level, not only is everyone not doing it, but only a very small percentage of the populace even gives it a serious attempt because they either know they don;t have the talent to ever get that good, or they may have the talent but not the willingness to expend the blood, sweat and tears. Practically anything worthwhile in life requires at least a certain amount of hard work and sacrifice.

In closing, I’d like to point out that whether or not you can point to something I wrote to back up that claim about me (and I seriously doubt you’ll find anything I wrote of that sort), you did bring up suicide in a thread about RG707’s post asking for advice regarding his troubles. In the post where you brought it up and mentioned musicians who had killed themselves, to me it looked like you thought RG707 was suicidal. After all, the thread is about him and the problems for which he asked for some advice - it is not about me. Therefore when you brought up suicide without stating that was directed towards me and what you consider my “dismissive attitude…” and not RG707, how was he supposed to know that?

#44

I’m not going to bother reading your entire rant, because I don’t think it’s a good use of my time. But the first clue you could have used to infer that I had been replying to you in the post in question was the fact that I quoted you and nobody else.

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#45

That’s bullshit.

I didn’t even mention your implication that you believed he was suicidal until the last paragraph of my post. What, are you going to claim you read it backwards? Second, whether you were quoting me or not has nothing to do with to whom that remark of your was aimed. it’s very clear that this thread is about RG707. He wanted some advice. That I spent as much time helping him speaks for itself regarding my “dismissive attitude.” As if I would have even bothered posting in this thread if that were my attitude.

#46

Yngwie and EVH aren’t the only models of success on guitar, and I don’t think anyone is unaware that they both went through some pretty dark times.

The whole point of something like Cracking the Code is to try and get the good stuff without making everyone repeat the same mistakes.

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#47

That’s a valid point that leads me to ask a question: Do you think they’d appreciate their success as much if they hadn’t had to go through those dark times? I wonder if having prevailed through those dark times made their success all the more sweet. I would think so but there’s no way to know for sure. It would be interesting to get opinions on it from the people participating in this thread.

#48

As one that struggled needlessly against walls that previously seemed insurmountable, I can say that the benefits I’ve reaped from the DIY process were tangential. Valuable to me personally in trying every way, but I don’t recommend it. The plus being, that many years on an instrument leads to learning something or other, even if it’s not the primary goal. Troy’s development parallels mine (to a scary extent), the discoveries made on the paths have been significantly different. Rambling, and need to get to other things, but I think appreciation of self and others starts elsewhere. Peace y’all, Daniel

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#49

Hey everyone. There’s a lot going on here I see. Just for the record I am not nor have I ever been suicidal. But I appreciate the concern there. As for my age I am 25. I feel old writing that out haha. I’ve been playing I guess since I was 12 or so, but I didn’t start practicing with any regularity until I was 18 and I didn’t start really practicing the picking stuff until about 3 years ago. I’ve probably only had the proper mechanics for myself for about a year to a year and a half. I saw an interview with Paul Gilbert recently where he said he didn’t even attempt his famous lick for something like 8 years. So I shouldn’t expect myself to be as good as I will ever be right now.

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#50

That’s right. You have plenty of time to keep improving. Try to be patient and enjoy the process! BTW, you’re not old :slight_smile:

#51

I, and several other posters observed that RG707’s original post talked about his self-esteem being closely tied to his hobby, and that it sometimes “bleeds into everything else and I feel down about myself”. And he goes on to ask if others experience similar frustration to the point that it “impacts your self esteem or ruins your day.” Without jumping to conclusions, there were enough red flags in the post to justify that it would be sensible for RG707 to reflect on how severe the problem is, and decide whether it’s something he can manage on his own, or if he might need outside help.

You treated the rest of us like morons for suggesting that no, it’s not “normal” for your hobby to mess with your self-esteem to the point that affects the rest of your life. You’re emphasis on the value of “relentlessness” ignored the root of the problem, that being relentless doesn’t require you to experience the kind of negative emotional effects RG707 was describing. When this was pointed out to you, rather than chilling out, you doubled down on your insistence that the rest of us are all assholes, and RG707 just needs to work hard enough to perform at a high enough level that his performance won’t trigger negative emotions. That was what was dismissive of mental health concerns. You did the equivalent of telling a skinny girl who beats herself up for being too fat “well, if you lose a few more pounds, the mirror won’t make you feel so bad anymore. Just look at Kate Moss, you think she didn’t skip a few meals?”

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#52

@RG707, How have things been going since you last posted in this thread? I realize it hasn’t been too long but still I am interested in whether anyone’s advice, or maybe several people’s advice has helped you at all to feel better about things.

Have you made a decision regarding: Is the amount of distress you complained of something that has either started to diminish, or if not, is it an amount of distress that you can live with and that you expect to have from time to time when you’re pursuing as difficult a goal as becoming the best guitarist you can possibly become?

Speaking for myself, I have always set very high goals for myself in my guitar playing, and I reconciled early on that I was going to have to accept that a certain amount of frustration, anger, and even suffering was part of the price to be paid for wanting to achieve something tremendous.

If, by any chance, you are experiencing symptoms that you believe go above and beyond any price that should have to be paid for the achievement of your goals, what are your plans regarding how to alleviate these uncomfortable symptoms? Hopefully you’re not in this situation now, but if you are and you aren’t sure how you should go about alleviating these symptoms, or maybe you aren’t even sure whether the symptoms you’re experiencing are to be expected or if they go above and beyond being part of “the price to be paid” then I have a suggestion for you.

My suggestion relates to the following expression: “Not being able to see the forest for the trees.” If you think this may apply to you, my suggestion is to talk to somebody who knows you well, who you trust, and who sees you reasonably often. This person to talk to could be your wife or girlfriend, a brother or sister, or a good friend. Ask the person what they see in you regarding the subject of this thread. Ask them how serious they think your situation is. I think this is a far better idea than just immediately going to a psychologist or somebody else whose goal it is to make money off you and who doesn’t know you and probably doesn’t know a damn thing about guitar playing! A good friend will be able to tell if he sees a change in your overall mood, how big of a change it is, If it turns out they believe the distress guitar playing is causing you goes above and beyond just paying your dues or being part of the “blood, sweat and tears” Yngwie speaks of regarding the price to be paid for becoming an incredibly good musician, then just speaking to that person maybe a couple times a week for a few weeks on this subject may do wonders for enabling you to better control your reactions to a slowing of your progress or simply having a few off days on the guitar. Only if you or they believe that you have a serious problem and talking to them isn’t enough to alleviate that problem, would I suggest you seek out a mental health professional.

Some people believe in psychiatrists and psychologists and some people think they’re just quacks. Therefore your decision on whether or not to go to one of them is entirely your decision and a very personal decision at that! I have been thinking of you and I wish you well!

#53

There are actual trained mental health professionals participating on this thread, and even implying that “some people” think they might be “quacks” in a roundabout way is super disrespectful. You made your point half a thread ago. There is no need to keep repeating it when all it is doing is causing dissent. Everyone gets what you’re trying to say here, because you’ve said it multiple times.

If you have an issue with this please contact us directly rather than here - I think this particular thread has run its course.

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#54

I’m not a mental health professional so I can only contribute with my own anecdotal evidence.

At times I also tied my self esteem to this or that activity (guitar, physics and swimming being some relevant examples), and it never really helped my happiness nor the activity itself.

With the guitar I need to periodically remind myself (or be reminded by loved ones) that I should enjoy the journey rather than beat myself up about what I can’t do. In this spirit I like a lot @Prlgmnr’s suggestion to always play something you can do well to enjoy at least part of a practice session.

There will always be something we can’t do (I’ve seen plenty guitar gods making mistakes in live shows - and it was no biggie) and perfection doesn’t really exist anyway! Sort of talking to myself here hehe.

Anyway it seems many of us have this issue in more or less severe form, so good luck to all of us to get the most enjoyment possible out of the guitar.

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