Posted on September 1st, 2024

You may be at a point in your playing, whether you're a complete beginner or much more experienced guitar player, where you're just feeling a really powerful sense of frustration.  And you may be asking yourself, "does the frustration ever end?"

The answer really is, no it doesn't, but the things that frustrate you will change over time.  What frustrates you today probably won't frustrate you in 6 months.   But so long as you're continuing to challenge yourself, whether it’s by taking guitar lessons to learn more, or some other way, there will -- and there should -- be something new to frustrate you.  There's always a new challenge to take on, and necessarily that means there's always something new to be frustrated about.

So, how do you manage your emotions and not let the frustration get out of control?

The first way is that you have to have some means by which to measure your progress, and in using that measurement, you have to learn to celebrate the small victories.  So, let's say you're a beginning level player, and you're practicing very simple pentatonic scale to a metronome.   And let's say that you're able to play it pretty well, pretty accurately just playing quarter notes at 80 beats per minute.   Well, if with a couple of weeks of diligent practice you're able to move the metronome up to 88 beats per minute, that's a measurable improvement.   It may not seem like much, but again, you have to learn to recognize and really appreciate the small victories.

Learning anything, whether it's learning guitar, or a new language, or anything else, involves not one big breakthrough, but smaller breakthroughs over time.  There is no Eureka! moment.   There's never a momentous breakthrough;  again, it's a series of small victories over time.

But as guitar players, we tend to look for that big breakthrough, that big thing that's going to change our playing overnight.   But it's not there; it doesn't exist. There are no shortcuts.  Yes, absolutely there is a direct path, but there are no shortcuts and you need to embrace small victories over a period of time.

The second thing I recommend is that you actually to learn to enjoy the *struggle*.  And I know that seems a little strange, because who enjoys being frustrated?   But I want you to consider this. Maybe you've seen a movie called The Matrix. The plot is that the whole world is a computer simulation.  And in the movie, because the world is all a computer simulation, you can learn any skill by downloading it directly into your brain. And when you think about that, I bet it sounds really exciting. Maybe find yourself wishing, "yeah if only it were that easy."

But actually, if it were that easy, it wouldn't be meaningful, and you wouldn't enjoy it.  If it were that easy, picking up an instrument and playing it would be no more rewarding than going over to your music player and pressing the play button.   You might enjoy the sound, but there wouldn't be any deeper reward or any emotional payoff.

Here's my point.  Think of the struggle, the frustration, as a necessary part of the overall learning experience. Embrace the idea that it's the struggle and the frustration that actually makes it as emotionally rewarding as it is when you do make progress.  You think about any kind of art whether it's music or sculpture or anything else.   Art basically is human beings reaching for something that's just beyond their fingertips.  And if everything is so easily in your grasp, it's just not meaningful.  (And remember the old saying, "if it were easy, then everyone would do it.")

So again, the struggle is what makes it all worthwhile, that you can play something, even if it's something fairly simple, and you can say, "yeah, I'm playing that. I had to reach beyond myself in order to create that sound."  That's what makes it all meaningful.  So when you're feeling that that frustration, embrace it.  It is an absolutely necessary component of being an artist.

The last bit of advice is so simple, such a cliche, but it’s still worth mentioning: be patient.   If you have a good, structured curriculum, you're measuring your progress, whether it's with a metronome or by some other means, and you're continually challenging yourself with material that is appropriate to your level, then maybe you just need to be a bit patient, and let your skills develop over time.

Think of it this way. You're baking a cake, and you've done everything right.   You greased the pan, you measured all the ingredients precisely and you blended them very carefully.  What do you need to do now?   The answer is you need to put the baking dish into the oven, and let it cook for 35 minutes.

And no matter how much you beat your head against the wall, no matter how frustrated you are, no matter how many shortcuts you might want to take, and all the ways that you're trying to progress extra quickly, the fact of the matter is that that cake batter needs to be in the oven for 35 minutes.   And you just can't get around that.

So, if you're doing everything right, following a structured guitar curriculum, practicing consistently, working on level-appropriate pieces and exercises, you do need to be patient and allow the process to unfold.

I have a wonderful student who has been with me for several years.  He's 83 years old, and he's still improving, still challenging himself.  He has a saying that I’d like you to embrace.  "Enjoy where you are on the way to where you're going." And that's true about learning music - it's true about learning anything - and it's true about life.

Best,

Damian

Damian offers affordable, private online guitar lessons in musical styles ranging from rock to blues to folk to country, featuring a structured yet highly personalized curriculum.

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