Never good enough...

[Jimi75]

Hey folks,

I have played a session this weekend. There were two really great players that studied Jazz music.

After 45 minutes of constant jamming we had a beer and started talking. Those guys said started discussing about things like "should I have played a diminished chord here and there" and things like "oh shit, I missed to play the drop two chord over the fith of the root of the modal harmony". Big question mark! They told me more or less that they feel they are not good enough and they still have not reached the status where they could "destroy" a normal street player (like me maybe?) with their playing.

In their eyes they were not good enough.

This is a phenomenon that maybe 95% of all guitarist suffer from. I met so many world class players. They all stated that they are not that good and so on and so on. In the beginning I thought this would be understatement, but later I learned that it was the naked truth and they were in a spiral with their thinking!

For me guitar playing is a never ending FUN journey. Some years ago I just stopped comparing myself with other players. I stopped searching for things that other guys could play better than me. Instead I concentrated on the things I coud do very well. I figured out that when I learned things that I saw another one playing, it took only days and I saw someone else playing again something entirely different and I wanted to learn this. It was a MOSAIK of broken pieces. I am happy I have a clean picture right now and I can enjoy making music also if I do not learn 20 licks per day. My forthcoming on the guitar is something that comes naturally right now, which doesn't mean that I don't have a plan or am not organized, but you know it runs smoothely and in a way that keeps me motivated.

Jimi

[jpfeifer]

Hi Jimi75,

Good points in your post.

I agree, I think that us guitar players tend to get so hung up on comparing ourselves to other players that we always feel like we're "behind" in some way and never good enough. I suffer from this too.

I think that the important thing is to compare yourself only to your own development, not to other people. I used to feel like burning my guitars after seeing some great players, thinking that it was useless for me to continue (this happened a lot when I lived in Austin and used to see Eric Johnson play live quite often). I'm sure that Eric Johnson's playing has the same effect on lots of players :-)

It's also common for people to never persue the next level of playing or writing because they feel that they aren't quite good enough yet. This used to hold me back from recording my own songs, etc. But after a while I just said "to hell with it, this is how I play right now for better or worse", and found the experience of writing and recording to be a development process all of it's own.

-- Jim

[just strum]

I was always getting frustrated with "Oh, I should have done that" or "Oh, by now I should be able to do this". It's a natural thing for anyone that wants to excel at something they enjoy and love.

A couple of people kept telling me to not expect so much of myself and just enjoy and relax. Wingsdad and Rocket were two people that made me realize that in learning guitar, the objective should be learn, enjoy, and feel the music.

What you describe is the same thing at a much higher experience level and perfect example of the pursuit is never ending, there is always something to learn or something to do better. Your estimate of 95% might be too low

[R_of_G]

about a year ago, i stopped comparing my playing to the playing of others. i came to the conclusion that no matter how good i get, there will always be players who are "better" or "faster" or whatever. i decided i don't care. it's not about being the best or the fastest or the most technically proficient for me, it's about finding my own voice and my own style. when i play, i want it to sound like me, not me trying to sound like someone else. this marked a major change in my approach to playing and has freed up my playing in such a way as to make progress much more possible and easy to realize. always play for yourself. whatever anybody else gets out of it is an added bonus.

[Spudman***]

Train your weaknesses - race your strengths. That is an athlete axiom that I've applied to my playing as well as my sport.

Work on the the things that you aren't strong with when you want to improve when you can. When it's time to play follow the Robin Trower album title "Go For What You Know."

[Jimi75]

about a year ago, i stopped comparing my playing to the playing of others. i came to the conclusion that no matter how good i get, there will always be players who are "better" or "faster" or whatever. i decided i don't care. it's not about being the best or the fastest or the most technically proficient for me, it's about finding my own voice and my own style. when i play, i want it to sound like me, not me trying to sound like someone else. this marked a major change in my approach to playing and has freed up my playing in such a way as to make progress much more possible and easy to realize. always play for yourself. whatever anybody else gets out of it is an added bonus.

Welcome to the club!

[Robert****]

I am rarely happy with my own playing, but I have learned to accept it. I don't want to whine and cry about it all the time - make the best out of what you got, and have fun with it! Life can be hard enough as it is already. I really enjoy playing, I just don't want to hear myself too much (recorded I mean).

[magoo]

I'm now happy with my playing, This took a lot of time to get to this stage.
Now I'm face with another Problem, My band was a 5 peice now down to a 3 peice. The lead was shared, now I have to do it all.
The problem is I hold back more on the lead breaks because I don't want to throw the band off when we had two guys playing lead it was much easier to cover up for each other...LOL
Darn That was long winded.:
Guess what I'm trying to say is maybe we will never be happy with our playing, but don't that make us better guitar players when you are always trying to get better.

[Plank_Spanker]

For too many years I worried about what other players thought of my playing. That really handicapped me. I'm in a good place now - I'm having fun, I'm not afraid to take chances, and I know where I want to go.