Make guitar playing fun again?

[Stiman]

I love this thread. This is the type of content I wish there was more of here. I mean, I love complaining about new guitar releases as much as anyone, but this type of content here is what motivated me to keep working. All that guitar content is a distraction that keeps my GAS up.

 

[cindarkness]

I know, it's fairly poor advice but if you're into games you could try Rocksmith (not the new crap but the older one with custom DLC songs).
At times I do a song or two and it's something different to dry practicing/jamming at least..

 

[feilong29]

Shoot, in between my own songs, I learn a song from a favorite band if I want to cover it, OR, better yet, I'll make a metal version of a videogame song. That is always fun!

 

[Crungy]

I love this thread. This is the type of content I wish there was more of here. I mean, I love complaining about new guitar releases as much as anyone, but this type of content here is what motivated me to keep working. All that guitar content is a distraction that keeps my GAS up.

I agree with all of your points, especially comaining about guitar specs lmao

 

[wheresthefbomb]

I love this thread. This is the type of content I wish there was more of here. I mean, I love complaining about new guitar releases as much as anyone, but this type of content here is what motivated me to keep working. All that guitar content is a distraction that keeps my GAS up.

totally agree. let's be real, the primary role of gear groups/pages/forums is to convince yourself in front of a live audience that your most recent purchase totally fills the void inside and is totally not just raw, conditioned consumerism that ultimately amounts to nothing more than a far-too-brief dopamine hit before you sell it (or not) and repeat the cycle (myself included). that's why we don't have more threads like this, why the live music sub is mostly crickets, and why we're all "joking" about buying guitars instead of writing music.

 

[Kosthrash]

What do you do when you feel burned out or bored to play the guitar?

I find that playing my acoustic guitar, along with nature's sounds (birds, waves, rustling of leaves etc) in a nearby park or even better near the sea, is very relaxing and inspiring thing, so afterwards I have the appetite & courage to do the rest of the "work" (which I like to call "creation"), even if I do it only for my own fulfilment for now... Hope this helps!

 

[gh0styboi]

totally agree. let's be real, the primary role of gear groups/pages/forums is to convince yourself in front of a live audience that your most recent purchase totally fills the void inside and is totally not just raw, conditioned consumerism that ultimately amounts to nothing more than a far-too-brief dopamine hit before you sell it (or not) and repeat the cycle (myself included). that's why we don't have more threads like this, why the live music sub is mostly crickets, and why we're all "joking" about buying guitars instead of writing music.

Facts. Gear's fun, and it's fun to collect and mess around with. But at the end of the day, it's a conduit. It's important, but not more important than creating the art, and in a way, I think it's kind of unique to musicians. I've known a lot of artists, but I've never heard two painters arguing about the wood that their brushes are made from.

 

[John]

Try covering different styles. Or if you're on the "learning songs" binge, try transcribing and applying a composition that was originally done on a different instrument but with the guitar instead. Or vice versa.

Another thing that helps me is taking a break from working on something like an ep, if time allows. Learning other songs can be inspiring or at least something that gets your brain working differently.

Yes, take a break if need be. It's never fun to try "force-feeding" ideas down for an EP, or whatever one is trying to work on. The results tend to be just as underwhelming during the aforementioned "force-fed" phase, too.

I'm not a big fan of collecting gear and guitars as toys

That's sensible, and understandable. Things have gotten to a point where the "collectors" are practically a dime a dozen in both what they've bought and what they've been able to actually do with their acquisitions. ie- it took one of those scrubs well over 50 amps and the associated cash down the drain just to figure out how to dial in one, so there's that.

 

[DoctorStoner]

The recording part (I'm a bad guitarist), and the "how should it be? Is it good enough?" part!

Leave it loose. Once you have the whole song figured out you can practice for a week or two and come back to it. Seems to work for my 80% of the time. The rest I leave or edit manually.
(Pobody's Nerfect)

 

[cthsqd]

I started writing and EP and it's like work. I don't really enjoy it, only the end results.

Sometimes I play other bands songs, sometimes my songs, but that's it.

What do you do when you feel burned out or bored to play the guitar?

I'm not a big fan of collecting gear and guitars as toys, but does it help a little bit to pick up another guitar, or a bass?

I don't want to take a break, because I want to finish this damned EP!

Thanks!

Man, I'm sure everybody who writes music gets to this point sooner or later.
What you said about new gear, in my case I can easly say - yes, it does help a lot. Even if there are no real reasons to buy another guitar because I have everything that I would need to write and finish a song, there is this little thing called motivation, which really can be boosted by playing a particular guitar.
I currently have 2 six strings and 2 seven strings. When I'm in a thrashy mood I choose the Jackson V, when I feel the need for some modern/cyber sounds I enjoy playing my Ibanez RGD71ALMS, and for darker things I love my Solar 1.7V. Technically I could have recorded everything with just one of them, but the motivation they all give me is priceless.

..and it's addictive

 

[budda]

Is it addictive or are you on forums

 

[AwakenTheSkies]

There is no fun. Only hard work.

 

[SalsaWood]

Branching out into different styles is fun for me. I don't really go full tilt, but it's always fun and helpful to at least learn up on a few stylized chords- jazz, black metal, country, whatever. I find ways to work them into whatever I'm writing a lot of the time, small progressions or arpeggios and stuff.

 

[cthsqd]

Is it addictive or are you on forums

Lol, actually I use forums for the same exact purpose whatever has the tiniest bit of something that I can use for motivation I exploit it.
Hell, I'd spend half a day drilling holes and pulling wires through my desk if the final outcome was a new idea for a song

 

[wheresthefbomb]

There is no fun. Only hard work.

-Friedrich Nietzsche, probably

 

[crushingpetal]

I started writing and EP and it's like work. I don't really enjoy it, only the end results.

Sometimes I play other bands songs, sometimes my songs, but that's it.

What do you do when you feel burned out or bored to play the guitar?

I'm not a big fan of collecting gear and guitars as toys, but does it help a little bit to pick up another guitar, or a bass?

I don't want to take a break, because I want to finish this damned EP!

Thanks!

I have no special answers here, but my two cents are the following. Sometimes when things feel like work it's actually a message that what you're doing isn't working. Be honest: are you really digging something about the current EP? It's not a flaw to say that maybe these aren't the songs. Move on and see if something else inspires you.

If you keep getting stuck at the same point in the process, maybe ask / pay for help. If you hate cleaning up tracks or drum programming, ask / pay for help and focus on what inspires you.

Having said all of this, sometimes the direction really is through. Sometimes you need to work through the frustration to get the end goal.

Sometimes you really need to put it down and read a good book (for inspiration) and get hungry again for the creative process.

 

[Neon_Knight_]

I just don't play guitar when I don't feel like it. I also don't get any better at it or write new material. I just exist and own guitars that I sometimes pick up and do exercises with. I'm fine with it, I'd rather get my leg chopped off in a civil war era abortion clinic than be a professional musician of any kind.

I sometimes wish I had more drive to knuckle down and make rapid improvements in my playing, but ultimately I agree - I wouldn't want the pressure of guitar being my career. For me, playing is purely about personal enjoyment. My playing is gradually progressing, but very quickly and often in spits and spurts with periods of stagnation.

 

[dhgrind]

writing an EP was a cause of a ruined friendship for me.

I honestly hate feeling rushed to create music - I stopped playing for a long time due to this.

If you do this only as a hobby and not for money - I suggest you don’t burn yourself out trying to force the artistic process because you’ll end up releasing subpar work and hating playing music.

 

[Emperoff]

IMO, at some point you gatta acknowledge that some parts of the music process are work. Songwriting is work, recording is work, mixing is work, etc.

But work serves to get you to the fun parts. Just as someone has a job to fund the more enjoyable parts of life, you have to do the work part of music to prop up the fun parts of music. Can't brag about your cool solo album or whatever until you actually make it. Can't write that epic 3-hour long concept album or whatever without going through the iteration and the practice and the attempting it and failing and attempting it again and slogging through the "I've got nothing to say and am not a great writer" parts of it, etc etc.

It's a lot of why I mostly play other people's music. Let them do the work parts of writing stuff, I just show up, play my parts, do the fun bits and the shows, bask in the post-concert praise, and go home.

 

[Werecow]

I started writing and EP and it's like work. I don't really enjoy it, only the end results.

Sometimes I play other bands songs, sometimes my songs, but that's it.

What do you do when you feel burned out or bored to play the guitar?

I'm not a big fan of collecting gear and guitars as toys, but does it help a little bit to pick up another guitar, or a bass?

I don't want to take a break, because I want to finish this damned EP!

Thanks!

Sometimes i take a break, but i also have a system i employ for this. I have a few amps that have quite different tones and feelings, and i swap them out and cycle them every two or three months. I get that fresh "oh wow, this amp is awesome!" feeling each time i do it.

I know that probably doesn't help if you record, and want tones available all the time, or if you're digital and have different models available at the touch of a button, but for someone like me who just plays for fun, it really gets me going again.