I've been feeling a bit upset with my musical situation lately. I'm now 31 and feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole with my musical progress. I started guitar a few times in my life, but never committed myself to actually learning much the first couple times and assumed I wasn't very capable. Then I got heavily in to EDM a couple years ago and having taken a bit of percussion as a kid figured I had a handle on rhythm, and developed a desire to learn to make trance music.

In learning production and sound design I got tired of using the mouse to interface with effects and softsynths and felt like I wanted a tactile experience, so I put together an outboard studio with some synths, effects, and a mixer. Somewhere in all of that realized I didn't know how to actually play the keys for synths, so I enrolled in piano lessons, and bought a piano. My thought process at the time wasn't so much that I wanted to be a great pianist, but I do enjoy the "feel of the keys". This was the first time I felt some confidence in myself with an instrument and noticed I had the ability to gain some technical facility, and wanted to learn my way around the keyboard so I could "understand music" I guess.

So I find myself in a home studio, and a couple years in to this realize that, I'm not actually working on any material, and whenever I sit down to design sounds or work on a track, it feels like I'm beating my head against the wall and pulling teeth to be "musical" with it at all.

Recently I had a fairly bad injury that put me in to a tight spot. It kept me down and out for awhile and gave me some time to think. The first thing that went were the piano lessons. Even though I enjoy the feel of playing piano I felt like I was missing something and not getting enough out of the lessons, and to this day struggle to "feel" very musical and free at the piano.

So some time a few months ago I had a wild hair and decided that since I never had a decent guitar to practice on, maybe that was frustrating the experience, and so I did a ton of research and bought a guitar that feels good to me. Maybe it's the idea of finishing what I first started musically. Maybe it's the idea of a guitar being portable instrument with less hidden costs than piano (like tuning.) Maybe it's the fact I'm still paying for the piano and other gear I have and the guitar was actually affordable. But I've been absolutely obsessed with learning every thing I can about guitar, and becoming as good a player as possible, every day since I picked it up again. It's all I can think about musically. Playing feels good, intuitive, musical.

This passion isn't such a bad thing except for the fact it highlights my annoyance with myself over everything else. With all this other gear I've collected I realized I could spend the rest of my life with just a guitar and a couple pedals and never explore all the sonic territory. Messing with synths, piano and much else now all feels superflous and like it's taking away from guitar. I respect a lot of sounds that originally got me in to EDM and synths, but I feel like I have too much to focus on. I feel like I don't really have time to master everything and in a way I want to reboot and just focus purely on guitar, but I feel like I'd be hard on myself over the possiblity I'd want to use some piece of gear in 10 years. Plus where does one draw the line. Keep all the gear/keep just the desk+fx/get rid of it all? I've learned a good bit about production and could probably mix a project if I had it in front of me on the desk. But, from a musical sense all I want to do is find some people to jam with anymore... though I feel very hard on myself as I'm basically back where I started.

Not sure what kind of advice I'm expecting but I figured fellow musicians might have some thoughts.

Last edited by The Mysterious Stranger on Apr-20-2014 at 19:55

Sounds like you just want to play some guitar. Nothing wrong with that. You shouldn't have to force yourself to make Trance or EDM if you're not interested. If you like playing the guitar, you can focus solely on that. Nothing wrong with it.

If you feel like you're missing out and want to include other instruments, you can always mix the guitar with other gear like a drum machine and some synths. You can make some cool experimental guitar music. I've wanted to do that with the piano a while ago - like mix some hard 909 beats with piano. Never got around to it, though.

But if all you want to truly do is only play the guitar, you shouldn't feel guilty about not using your other gear.

It occasionally feels the same way with me too bud...a lot of trance producers only make a couple songs each year. I think it's because whereas rock musicians seem to kind of do their own thing usually, trance musicians have the mindset that we have to match the quality of our favorite tracks, so producing can often seem very tedious. I release something every month or so, but I have literally hundreds of wips and abandoned projects.
The tough truth is, you don't have enough time to play around with everything that's available. You will never have the time, energy or resources to work with it all. What you have to do is learn to make do with what you've got...like ideally, I'd have a personal studio with high quality speakers, packed to the ceiling with various synthesizers but I haven't got the money nor space for it, so I work with vsts and a pair of Technics. I think once you learn to accept what you've got, you can become GOOD with that stuff and start making music you're proud of.
I'm fairly satisfied with my work...could be better, and like I said, my setup is nowhere near my ideal, but can I make a song I can listen to over and over and still find something enjoyable about it? Yes.
It's all a matter of acceptance around the board...accept that you'll never experience everything musically, that most of your stuff is going to flop, that you'll rarely be completely satisfied with your work...it's a sucky process, but once you can get over those things, you'll feel better about your music.

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nice thing about playing the guitar is that it can be social - and you can leave all the knob twiddling to an engineer and mixer if you ever start recording music.

Go with what you love..

T

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quote:

Originally posted by The Mysterious Stranger I respect a lot of sounds that originally got me in to EDM and synths, but I feel like I have too much to focus on. I feel like I don't really have time to master everything and in a way I want to reboot and just focus purely on guitar, but I feel like I'd be hard on myself over the possiblity I'd want to use some piece of gear in 10 years. Plus where does one draw the line. Keep all the gear/keep just the desk+fx/get rid of it all?

Welcome to the world of musical ADD. I'm 46, have playing since elementary school, and still feel like I can't stay focused on all the things I want to learn or improve upon. It's a constant struggle for most people, especially with everything that is so readily available to us these days. But, I agree with the others and think you're on the right track. Go with your gut and focus on guitar. I'd suggest keeping at least one keyboard, since it's such a commonly use instrument and you'll probably pick up a lot more than you'd expect over the next few years just by having it in front of you. Also, I think you'll find that learning guitar will help improve your keyboard skills, or at least some of the things you learn from the guitar will transfer to keys.

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cryphonic makes good points - especially regarding keeping your gear, I really regret selling some of my kit and miss a couple of synths almost daily.

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If you just want to play guitar then do that. DOn't worry so much about all your gear, sometimes I guess you have to take numerous routes that are wrong to find the one that is right. So then don't worry about all the wrong routes, just worry about the right one....then follow that one. Maybe in the future it will have an offramp onto one of the old ones.

Y'all rock. Thanks for the thoughts everyone. More helpful than I expected to run this through the filter of other artists.