What do I do once I learn guitar?
February 20, 2016 3:18 AM Subscribe
Last year I quit my job and went freelance/work-from-home. I'm also single & early 30's, so healthy and no big commitments. One of the first things I did was bought the electric guitar (2 actually, an 8-string & 6-string acoustic), because I've always wanted to learn and it's something I can work on during downtime. Now I'm finally getting the expected downtime, and a question popped into my brain - what am I gonna do with this? Help me understand where knowing guitar can take me.
I know I risk a chatfilter question, but I like benchmarks, and "knowing guitar" seems to have a lot of room between "competent" and "in a band". I also know it may take years of practice for that to be an option. Knowing myself, I'll probably think "I'm not ready to start a band yet" and then doodle around making up my own stuff that nobody hears. So show me the possibilities. If I can play guitar, how do I integrate that into my life? If I can play an 8-string, does it even matter (my guitar hero is Tosin Abasi)? My musical tastes lean metal, I'm gonna do this, I know I'll need a day job and I have one, and I'm open to pretty much anything, but help me map out where, potentially, this could go, and how I might motivate myself when it gets to be a slog.
I know I risk a chatfilter question, but I like benchmarks, and "knowing guitar" seems to have a lot of room between "competent" and "in a band". I also know it may take years of practice for that to be an option. Knowing myself, I'll probably think "I'm not ready to start a band yet" and then doodle around making up my own stuff that nobody hears. So show me the possibilities. If I can play guitar, how do I integrate that into my life? If I can play an 8-string, does it even matter (my guitar hero is Tosin Abasi)? My musical tastes lean metal, I'm gonna do this, I know I'll need a day job and I have one, and I'm open to pretty much anything, but help me map out where, potentially, this could go, and how I might motivate myself when it gets to be a slog.
From some of the bands that I've seen, you could be in a band without being all that good.
With all the happy technology that we have today, it is possible for you to create your own recording studio in your home, with very little space and not an extreme cost. You could record yourself and send it out into the world. Someone may want to use it for something that they would be willing to pay you for.
Or, like most men, you could use it to impress women.
posted by myselfasme at 7:39 AM on February 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
With all the happy technology that we have today, it is possible for you to create your own recording studio in your home, with very little space and not an extreme cost. You could record yourself and send it out into the world. Someone may want to use it for something that they would be willing to pay you for.
Or, like most men, you could use it to impress women.
posted by myselfasme at 7:39 AM on February 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
Nah, ignore the why and what for of it, just submit to your artistic impulse. You "always wanted to learn" so go and do, and see where your guitars take you.
posted by Rash at 8:03 AM on February 20, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Rash at 8:03 AM on February 20, 2016 [7 favorites]
I spend a lot of time playing to song backing tracks that contain everything except guitar ie drums , bass, vocals etc (you can find them on the web)
posted by canoehead at 8:17 AM on February 20, 2016
posted by canoehead at 8:17 AM on February 20, 2016
I was in bands in my 20s. My goals now are to play in styles and with a repertoire that I will enjoy in my 80s. I play to force my mind into a high concentration, fully immersed space that is meditative and breaks my anxiety. I have very little desire to play in front of an audience, except at home or parties. I am most pleased now when I play something cleverly, or expressively.
posted by gregglind at 9:19 AM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by gregglind at 9:19 AM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Best answer: 1) There are no small number of books, articles, and (I believe) peer-reviewed papers that suggest that pursuing something creative, even as a hobby, can have a variety of general benefits - keeps your brain more active and more flexible for a longer stretch of your life (as in, it can eventually lead to you being a happier and mentally healthier senior citizen); teaches you new problem-solving skills; teaches you how to stick with something even when it's a slog; etc etc etc. I haven't read it yet, but "This Is Your Brain on Music" seems to be the current layperson-friendly science hotness on the brain-music connection.
2) If you like benchmarks, playing music can be a never-ending (in a good way) series of benchmarks, with a whole set of sub-benchmarks. Like (seeing as you're a metalhead) one benchmark would be "play faster." So you get to that benchmark by hitting the sub-benchmark of "play all the major scales faster." Then all the minor scales. Then the wide variety of scales within modes. Then do all of that in different positions on the fretboard. So even if nobody else in the world ever hears you play, you can have a lifetime's worth of setting and then achieving goals, and the internally-derived sense of accomplishment from hitting those goals.
3) It's fun. I mean, y'know, duh, but I what I mean is that since I have some hours in the day available to entertain myself, I can spend some of that time just playing along to songs and get just as much pleasure out of that as I would watching a TV show or movie I like, or reading a book that I like. Again, all sorts of books and articles and papers out there suggesting that there's a strong psychological benefit to "play" for us naked apes.
4) Playing with other people, collaborating with them, is a whole additional dimension to all my above points about "fun" and setting and achieving goals and developing problem-solving skills.
5) If you consider music as analogous to a language with an enormous number of dialects, then your study of music can take an almost infinite number of directions. You can dive deep into the formal & theoretical structure of the language, you can intensely study one or more of the dialects, you can gain a "street-level" passing familiarity with a lot of different dialects, you can combine all that and more to whatever degree of intensity you like.
6) Your profile says you're not in the US, so I can't speak to your situation specifically, but there are all sorts of ways you can get paid for music, from playing in a cover band in bars on Friday nights to posting a bunch of YouTube videos and developing a following and getting paid from ads. There are all sorts of amateur musicians out there who might not make enough to call it a career, but can make enough to improve their material lives, even if it's "just" having a little extra so they can afford a nicer hotel on vacation or they never have to buy bad coffee or whatever.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:33 AM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
2) If you like benchmarks, playing music can be a never-ending (in a good way) series of benchmarks, with a whole set of sub-benchmarks. Like (seeing as you're a metalhead) one benchmark would be "play faster." So you get to that benchmark by hitting the sub-benchmark of "play all the major scales faster." Then all the minor scales. Then the wide variety of scales within modes. Then do all of that in different positions on the fretboard. So even if nobody else in the world ever hears you play, you can have a lifetime's worth of setting and then achieving goals, and the internally-derived sense of accomplishment from hitting those goals.
3) It's fun. I mean, y'know, duh, but I what I mean is that since I have some hours in the day available to entertain myself, I can spend some of that time just playing along to songs and get just as much pleasure out of that as I would watching a TV show or movie I like, or reading a book that I like. Again, all sorts of books and articles and papers out there suggesting that there's a strong psychological benefit to "play" for us naked apes.
4) Playing with other people, collaborating with them, is a whole additional dimension to all my above points about "fun" and setting and achieving goals and developing problem-solving skills.
5) If you consider music as analogous to a language with an enormous number of dialects, then your study of music can take an almost infinite number of directions. You can dive deep into the formal & theoretical structure of the language, you can intensely study one or more of the dialects, you can gain a "street-level" passing familiarity with a lot of different dialects, you can combine all that and more to whatever degree of intensity you like.
6) Your profile says you're not in the US, so I can't speak to your situation specifically, but there are all sorts of ways you can get paid for music, from playing in a cover band in bars on Friday nights to posting a bunch of YouTube videos and developing a following and getting paid from ads. There are all sorts of amateur musicians out there who might not make enough to call it a career, but can make enough to improve their material lives, even if it's "just" having a little extra so they can afford a nicer hotel on vacation or they never have to buy bad coffee or whatever.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:33 AM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
If you set up a YouTube channel and you have something people like, then anything can happen. Good luck, and go for it.
posted by colie at 11:53 AM on February 20, 2016
posted by colie at 11:53 AM on February 20, 2016
Best answer: Knowing myself, I'll probably think "I'm not ready to start a band yet" and then doodle around making up my own stuff that nobody hears.
This sounds like a hobby. Hobbies are legit. It's stuff you work on/play at because you just enjoy it! If you spend more of your life doing things you enjoy, that's pretty cool in itself, even if not many other people see the results.
There's also a lot of rewards that can come from playing *with* and *for* other people, though. Some of the first ones that come to mind are about achievement and respect and status, and satisfaction of expression. And those are reason enough to do it.
There's this other thing that sometimes happens, though, where you sync up with a group you're playing with. Or where you get most of the audience into a performance. And you can feel it, you're all in the moment, you're all sharing an experience. Together.
A few weeks ago I was at an open mic in Provo Utah of all places. I went expecting the usual 20% good performances and 80% amateurs trying their wings and having a good time, and those are fine, I like those events. But this was some weird freak of nature event where almost everyone performing was unreasonably talented. Being there was a high. There were great covers, and we sang along. We laughed with a fun song a guy did about how women often like cowboys. We got quiet as someone did an original song about watching a ex date again -- and I know that sounds cliche, but this woman was performing on a level close to Adele and the songwriting was arguably better, and that meant not just that we were cool or she was cool, it meant that we were all right there with her in the moment, in a kind of group empathy.
And this was just in somebody's living room. The point wasn't someone's career or acclaim, the point was what we could share this. And I made a few friends from a crowd of people I didn't know, because I played too, and because just being there was kindof a bond.
It was like a Holiday Dinner, the kind of potluck event where everyone brings their best dish and you all feast.
So here's one thing you can do: Make some musical dishes. Nachos, duck confit, whatever. Try to refine them so they're as good an experience as possible. Go share them with people and enjoy being humans enjoying music together.
posted by wildblueyonder at 12:28 PM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
This sounds like a hobby. Hobbies are legit. It's stuff you work on/play at because you just enjoy it! If you spend more of your life doing things you enjoy, that's pretty cool in itself, even if not many other people see the results.
There's also a lot of rewards that can come from playing *with* and *for* other people, though. Some of the first ones that come to mind are about achievement and respect and status, and satisfaction of expression. And those are reason enough to do it.
There's this other thing that sometimes happens, though, where you sync up with a group you're playing with. Or where you get most of the audience into a performance. And you can feel it, you're all in the moment, you're all sharing an experience. Together.
A few weeks ago I was at an open mic in Provo Utah of all places. I went expecting the usual 20% good performances and 80% amateurs trying their wings and having a good time, and those are fine, I like those events. But this was some weird freak of nature event where almost everyone performing was unreasonably talented. Being there was a high. There were great covers, and we sang along. We laughed with a fun song a guy did about how women often like cowboys. We got quiet as someone did an original song about watching a ex date again -- and I know that sounds cliche, but this woman was performing on a level close to Adele and the songwriting was arguably better, and that meant not just that we were cool or she was cool, it meant that we were all right there with her in the moment, in a kind of group empathy.
And this was just in somebody's living room. The point wasn't someone's career or acclaim, the point was what we could share this. And I made a few friends from a crowd of people I didn't know, because I played too, and because just being there was kindof a bond.
It was like a Holiday Dinner, the kind of potluck event where everyone brings their best dish and you all feast.
So here's one thing you can do: Make some musical dishes. Nachos, duck confit, whatever. Try to refine them so they're as good an experience as possible. Go share them with people and enjoy being humans enjoying music together.
posted by wildblueyonder at 12:28 PM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I think it helps to have a strong idea in mind of the sound you're aiming to create. Fairly similar to you (late 20s, single, knew I'd have the downtime for a substantial hobby), I picked up an electric guitar about 5 years ago, knowing only that I wanted to play and sing a specific genre of metal.
Magnaki offers a great progression of the learning curve, btw! Basically my first 3 years were spent in steps 1-3, with much agony learning to make my hands work with the guitar. I doodled around eternally grateful no one would ever hear what I was working on (like it was a frankenstein monster or something). Singing was not possible. I persistently worked at reading tabs and strumming chords, but felt quite far from getting anywhere substantial. Somewhere in the 4th year I picked up a nice little acoustic travel guitar, discovered Youtube for accessing other oddball musicians, and it really started to take off. I might have progressed more rapidly had I picked up the travel guitar originally, but by that time I definitely had the sense that the practice with the electric guitar had prepped me well for the sound I now make. Once I picked up the travel guitar, my fingers were ready to flow. Youtube was like training wheels for my brain on the road to transcribing chords. The 4th-5th year I bumped up to steps 4 & 6, which offered steady progress and more frequent sense of reward.
As a hobby it's been one of the best. My brain clearly has its own pace it likes to learn at. The switch to the small acoustic guitar really freed me up to practice more often. I suppose it has also helped me to better appreciate my singing. It's been delightful to spend evenings when my brain effortlessly absorbs new songs into its repertoire (as opposed to another night of watching TV or browsing the internet). I have no idea if I will ever play in a band but I still would like to play the music I enjoy with other people, and feel confident to perform in front of small groups of friends. This past xmas I jammed with a friend; it was so much fun and encouraging! I'm hoping by next year I will advance myself to step 5.
The most consistent anchor throughout the process: the kind of music I want to make has not changed. I really like my sound, whatever it is exactly. So that's what I mean if you know intuitively (even though you can't actually make it yet) what sound you want to make, go for it! You never know, in 5-10 years you might advance through the Magnaki progression and be experiencing more diverse connections with people. Opening up the possibility is worth it. Good luck! :)
posted by human ecologist at 4:29 PM on February 20, 2016
Magnaki offers a great progression of the learning curve, btw! Basically my first 3 years were spent in steps 1-3, with much agony learning to make my hands work with the guitar. I doodled around eternally grateful no one would ever hear what I was working on (like it was a frankenstein monster or something). Singing was not possible. I persistently worked at reading tabs and strumming chords, but felt quite far from getting anywhere substantial. Somewhere in the 4th year I picked up a nice little acoustic travel guitar, discovered Youtube for accessing other oddball musicians, and it really started to take off. I might have progressed more rapidly had I picked up the travel guitar originally, but by that time I definitely had the sense that the practice with the electric guitar had prepped me well for the sound I now make. Once I picked up the travel guitar, my fingers were ready to flow. Youtube was like training wheels for my brain on the road to transcribing chords. The 4th-5th year I bumped up to steps 4 & 6, which offered steady progress and more frequent sense of reward.
As a hobby it's been one of the best. My brain clearly has its own pace it likes to learn at. The switch to the small acoustic guitar really freed me up to practice more often. I suppose it has also helped me to better appreciate my singing. It's been delightful to spend evenings when my brain effortlessly absorbs new songs into its repertoire (as opposed to another night of watching TV or browsing the internet). I have no idea if I will ever play in a band but I still would like to play the music I enjoy with other people, and feel confident to perform in front of small groups of friends. This past xmas I jammed with a friend; it was so much fun and encouraging! I'm hoping by next year I will advance myself to step 5.
The most consistent anchor throughout the process: the kind of music I want to make has not changed. I really like my sound, whatever it is exactly. So that's what I mean if you know intuitively (even though you can't actually make it yet) what sound you want to make, go for it! You never know, in 5-10 years you might advance through the Magnaki progression and be experiencing more diverse connections with people. Opening up the possibility is worth it. Good luck! :)
posted by human ecologist at 4:29 PM on February 20, 2016
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- Learn how to use your hands and a guitar to make sounds.
- Improve the above, learning chords, scales, and some music theory.
- Start playing other people's songs based on tabs and chords you find online.
- Start transcribing the chords and melodies of songs you like.
- Start playing those songs with other people.
- Start writing original music alone/with other people.
- Perform original music in front of friends.
- Perform original music in front of strangers.
There's obviously way more depth to each step. I'm not a metalhead, so I can't give you any advice specific to that genre, but I imagine there isn't that much.I learned how to play many years ago, so I'm not sure what are good resources for beginners today. However, my colleague actually bought his first guitar at Christmas, and has been using an app called Yousician, which I was quite impressed with. At the very least, it'll help you with step 1 and maybe 2 on the above list.
I would recommend finding a teacher at some point though, there's nothing like playing with other people and getting good, informed feedback on your technique and progress.
posted by Magnakai at 5:29 AM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]