Tamago wrote
I came back to respond... I'll reply about key stuff I saw in the responses.
First of all, swearing on a forum. Its just so not relevant these days. What is the big brouhaha about it? Most forums permit it these days anyhow. Not one evening goes by on DSTV when done does not hear it, so I reckon, since most kids these days know better swearwords than me, the issue about kids being present here is a moot point.
Secondly, as for myself, you don't know me and you have no idea what I went through last year. I am tired, burnt out and I am really just trying to get by. I was extremely sick last year with repeated bouts of flu, and every 2-3 months I keep getting the 'flu I've just had it this past week again. So yeah I am a whiny complaints department.
My issue with Matt's Music was they knew and could see I was not doing so good, but their defense was to throw me in the deep end, they go so bloody fast with the lessons I have to hold on for dear life. That's why I quit it, I just couldn't take it anymore. With all the crud going on in my life I haven't touched a guitar in about 6 months. As is apparent from my previous post I did not get on with the teacher. Furthermore I just found that too much was crammed into a 1/2 an hour lesson, that format does not work for me I learn differently.
I tried it, it was too difficult and I really don't have the energy or finances to pick it up again. Sorry but that is how it is. I really don't have the energy to find a suitable teacher as I get the feeling I get put under expectations and teachers seem to think I can just click at something like that, just because it was easy for them and they played since their teens.
Let's put it this way, I found it very difficult, its far easier to write complex software or to hack a piece of hardware than to do this sort of thing.
I can relate.
My life for the past 7 years has been something of a mess, punctuated at times by some good bits.
My children don't live with me all the time as a result of
<insert country song story> , though they do stay at me 2 - 3 days per week and I'm as involved as any dad could be, and I love them with all my heart. Every moment they're not with me is...like a dull ache, of sorts. Never really goes away, never really get used to it.
I used to be fit, strong and healthy. Now, I'm just another average Joe, trying to figure out how to fit some kind of physical activity back into my life before I can't fit into my jeans anymore. For about 2 years I was also constantly sick, constantly stressed about money and not performing at my best while at work. Your comments about "flu" really touch a nerve. ☹
I earn a great salary, but money always seems to be tight. I'd like to get married at some point but the "ka-ching" involved in putting on (even a small) wedding just makes me shudder and wonder how it's all going to be possible. But I hope, and it will happen at some point.
I'm also a programmer (of sorts, these days) so I understand all too well how strain like this can screw your productivity over; makes you wonder where that bright-eyed wunderkind went: the one people used to wax about when you were little...the one who knew everything, who now feels like he knows very little about the world at all. But that's just the self-pity talking.
So...I can't offer any pithy words of wisdom or a grand solution to it all.
What I CAN say is, you certainly aren't alone out there. It might not be much consolation, but lots of us are in crap so deep it seems almost pointless to try and climb out. That said:
As much as learning to play an instrument involves extra pressures and more demands upon yourself and your time, it can be incredibly liberating and uplifting, at those very points when you need it most. Sometimes I just sit and rotate the same old licks, trying to put some of that "arrrgh" I'm feeling into the way the strings bend; slicing away with my pick so that the notes tumble into each other in a happy sort of dissonance.
Learning to play the guitar...has allowed me to compose music, my own music, for my kids and for the people I love, and for them to hear it and know that a song is for them alone. It doesn't matter how good or bad my playing is, or how cheesy my lyrics are: it's all for them. It's something unique, that nobody else can copy exactly.
Learning to play is something of a personal odyssey, and sometimes it's much more work than I feel it's worth. But every now and again it all comes together and I understand a little bit of what making music is really all about.
I hope that you do pick up a guitar again at some point (I'm sure you will have the opportunity -> life carries on until you're dead), and suck up some air and seek out a decent teacher who understands where you're coming from. If you don't, that's cool too. I certainly won't judge you, but you might just be doing yourself a disservice in the long run -> your contribution to music, however tiny, is one of the very few things that is entirely up to you, in terms of how you approach it.
Good luck man. ?
