Okay so here's something I've been thinking about: I love the guitar. I love the instrument, I love listening to guitar driven music and I love the sounds a guitar can make.

It's because of that that I'm taking lessons to learn how to make those sounds. Now, my teacher is having me work through note reading exercises that I am having a hard time with. They are absolutely no fun.

So what is your guy's take on this: Should playing and learning to play the guitar be fun all the time? Or is it okay if practice is no fun at all? Is that the way it's supposed to be?

Chell it sounds to me like you started playing then decided to learn sight reading. So your playing skills are a little infront of your music skills.

I was in the same situation shortly after i started. I got sick of playing bah bah blacksheep type songs to learn sight reading and quit the lessons.

Its something i've had ample opportunity to regret. It cost me quite a bit of money years ago too. Had the ability to play any style well and had a chance of session work for a studio that at the time was quite involved with Brian May. Soon as they discovered i couldnt read music they didnt want to know about me.

My advice would be to alter your perspective. Your learning to play guitar at your leisure but learning to read music by instruction. Its an invaluable tool that you will miss in later life should you decide to try and make a living from music.

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No no and no

If you want to get good, then you will have to practice things that are hard, boring and not fun. If you're okay with remaining mediocre forever, then you can just practice fun things all the time.

Pianist Ignace Paderewski was told backstage after a concert one evening that he was a genius. WHen the admirer moved on, he turned to his manager and said, "Genius! For 20 years I practiced scales and Hanon exercises, and now they call me a genius. But before I was a genius, I was a drudge."

PLAYING is fun. But playing isn't practice.

'Think it was about Stravinsky, after playing a piano concert, a high-society lady walked up to him and said, "Maestro, you were magnificent, so far beyond anything I have ever heard on the piano. I would give everything to be able to play like you."

Nonplussed, he replied, "Madame, I have."

Playing guitar can be very fun and enjoyable. It can also be hard work if you want to be good at it.

Talk with your instructor about doing some hard work, then having some fun too!

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Chet Feathers

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I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.

There should be a balance. Learning all the little things not only about music and basic theory, but about how to use that on a guitar, is a lot. It will not be 100% perfectly easy and a party all the time. If it were, everyone could play and it wouldn't be special.

But there will come a time when you'll "get it", things will fall into place, and you'll love it even more. This goes on and on forever. I've been playing for over 25yrs, have toured, recorded, gig regularly, taught, all that fun stuff. There are still, to me, a TON of things I want to get better at, things "I" think I need to practice, and a lot of things that still frustrate because I can't quite do them the way I want. But that gives me something to work on. If I were perfect at everything, I don't think I'd be as interested in playing, it would bore me to a point

Bottom line - stop whining and practice, but keep in mind that there should be a lot of fun too. Keeping that balance is something you need to find yourself.

Not all of it's fun, but about 90% of it is.

I've never put any effort into trying to read music (but from my school band experience I know how boring note reading exercises are). What your teacher is having you do is a good thing though. If you can learn to play sheet music on guitar then a few doors will open up for you that wouldn't for someone like me who can't read music on guitar. Like studio musician. My Dad's bass teacher can read music and he's gotten jobs playing for things like commercials.
Even though it's no fun, stick with it. Reward yourself by playing the fun stuff after the boring stuff.

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Learning the basics is necessary if not always "fun", hang in there, it gets better fast. Just practice practice practice.

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"Life is like eating jalapenos. What you do today may burn your arse tomorrow"

FUN? If you're having FUN you're not doing it right!!




Just kidding! If it really wasn't fun you probably wouldn't be doing it. And yeah, all that boring practice is just, well, boring. I'm pretty sure nobody here is going to recommend that you stop, (unless you're as good as you want to be.) Good luck with it. Stick with it. You're doing fine!!

Gridlok

(Probably as good as I'm going to get - sigh!)

RIght now you are bored with the dull stuff...but I guarantee that once the boring stuff becomes second nature, the fun stuff will be even better. Keep up the work. Suggestion...play around with the fun stuff as well.

RK

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RK

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Yes, as everyone's been saying... the words "practice" and "playing" are literal descriptions of what you do. I haven't put in a serious practice session in a l-o-n-g time, as it's not really feasible with my current work/life balance. When I pick up the guitar, I try to have as much fun as possible in the time I have. I'm definitely not getting any better technically, but every so often I surprise myself with a neat phrase that seems to come from nowhere... and I'm thankful for all those hours I forced myself to go through exercises as a teenager.

My father was always an accomplished pianist, but I know he has hardly touched the piano in the past decade. Sometimes I wonder how that makes him feel, and I wanted to talk to him about it last time he came over. He must have put in some serious work as a youth... I used to catch him reading orchestral scores at night for pleasure like I'd read a book. He could picture the music and sometimes preferred that to hearing a performance.

Anyway, there was some music on the piano that my wife had been wanting to take a look at but had decided a couple of bars in was just going to be too complicated for her. Neither of us have much time on our hands at the moment, it seems. Of course, my dad came in, peered at the sheet music and played the whole piece flawlessly... just as if someone had put on a CD. When we had overcome our surprise (remember, I had thought his playing days were behind him) and told him how much trouble that piece was giving us, he played it through a couple more times with different fingerings to see if that would help.

Heh. I don't know if there's a point to that story. Perhaps it should be that if you are diligent in your practice while you still have time to do it; if later on you forget exactly what you've done or even that you ever knew how to do it, you may one day be genuinely surprised and pleased by something you play. Sometimes I'm amazed at what comes welling up from the past, but it doesn't come if you never put it there in the first place.

That was a pleasure to read. Certainly worth it.

But continue what you're doing chell. Don't be afraid to learn some songs that you like on the side; it's important to stay interested. The more you play and study, no matter what it is, the better you will become. Simply keep it up and you'll eventually find your groove. I most definitely haven't hit some kind of personal "peak" yet, but I can see that with continual practice every day a slow improvement is happening.

chell, +1 to what everyone's been saying here about persisting through the frustrating periods - it's all time well spent and will build a good foundation for the future, and you will probably be surprised how quickly things that were tedious and frustrating get easier.

For some things, though, there is sometimes a funner way to learn the boring stuff. For example, my teacher always tries to give his students a snippet of a song they like rather than just notes; he explained it once by saying, "Some teachers have their students spend ages on a string-skipping exercise, you know, 'First play the A string, then the G string, then the A string again, back and forth', but why not just play Sweet Home Alabama, which has the same pattern in it?"

So I'm very lucky that many potentially boring things have been made fun by him.

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Practice won't always be fun. The results you get will be though. Once you gain experiance and learn your way around your guitar it will become more and more fun.

Another note, that some already touched on, and something I recently told a friend learning to play - don't "wait" to start playing what you want.

My friend had(has) this thing where he wants to learn a certain amount of things before he "starts playing". If you can play some chords, play them hell out of them. Find songs that use what you know - right now, and just play. Make up your own songs. If you know one scale - play the hell out of that scale. Play it up, down, sideways, skip notes, skip strings, etc. Use any little bit of musical knowledge to the max right now.

Yes, theory and practicing will do you very well, but there is a lot you know already that you can have fun with all day. Don't "wait" for something magical to happen. Make that happen for yourself now.