String Love Guitar Lessons

I approach life as a continual opportunity to learn and grow.

We live in an extraordinary moment in which resources for learning and growing literally surround us. We’re drowning in positive powerful information that we can use to do almost anything.

I was recently re-listening to an audio program called The Maverick Mindset by Dr. John Eliot, who teaches performance psychology at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

In this program, Eliot describes a distinction that I’ve found very, very helpful in my pursuit of guitar excellence.

But First, A Middle School Band Story

I played trombone as a middle school student.

The trombone was my first exposure to playing an instrument.

I began playing the trombone when my family was living near Knoxville, Tennessee. But soon after I started playing the trombone, we moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

It was quite a huge change–the school I’d been in back in Tennessee was small and underfunded. Our band amounted to a couple local guys who taught a group of about 15 or 20 students a few times a week. We met in a room that doubled as a storage room for all kinds of out of place school equipment. It wasn’t exactly a symphony orchestra.

In Tulsa, we moved into a school district with plenty of funding and incredible facilities. So, there I was, a member of the Jenks East Middle School band, which was a massive outfit of musical middle schoolers banded together with a qualified music teacher. An honest-to-goodness middle school symphony orchestra.

In that band in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I had several profound musical experiences that planted the seeds that eventually led me to embrace the guitar as my focus.

I recall one particular experience I had while playing in that band in Tulsa that completely and permanently changed my experience of the world.

Now, my partner and I often joke about our lack of epiphany moments as we attempt to become more and more conscious and loving human beings.

However, this instance in middle school band class was really and truly an epiphany for me.

We were playing the theme song to The Magnificent Seven.

The trombone part was triumphant, and I played along with the seven or eight other trombonists in our section as the rest of the band swelled powerfully all around. The percussionists pounded out the driving rhythms while the trumpets, flutes and violins traced the melody over the top of the rhythm instruments–the drummers, the tubas, the cellos, and we the trombones.

We’d been learning to play this piece for a few weeks, so by now all the parts were moving together.

And as we soared through this piece of music together as a symphonic unit, a surge of energy poured through me and for the first time, I met music as a living breathing experience through the whole of my body.

My mind was gone–I was somehow more aware than ever before, no longer identified with just my body or my thinking or my feelings. It was as if the music was playing me instead of the way it usually felt, where I was playing the music.

It was a holy awakening brought on by a 1960′s cinematic western theme song.

And So, We Return To The Training Vs. Trusting Mindset

Ever since that moment in middle school band, I’ve been in hot pursuit of that musical Flow experience.

If you’re drawn to playing the guitar, then my guess is you have had some musical epiphanies of your own. Whether they came through listening to your favorite music or playing your instrument, surely you’ve connected with music in that way that all musicians must if they are to persevere through the many difficulties that arise in the process of learning to play music with relaxed precision.

Here at String Love Guitar, I talk a lot about guitar PRACTICE. I talk about how to practice, how to structure your practice time, how to approach the time you spend practicing the guitar.

What I haven’t talked much about yet is how to throw all that practice crap out the window and surrender to the love of music that led you to start practicing in the first place.

In The Maverick Mindset, Dr. Eliot elucidates the crucial distinction between what he calls the Training Mindset and the Trusting Mindset.

The Training Mindset is what we’re in when we’re practicing the guitar. We’re working hard on the details. We’re using our analytical razor blades to pick apart everything we do on the guitar so that we can put it back together in a better and more efficient way.

We’re mastering the details of music theory, we’re engaging in slow methodical practice, we’re using a metronome to perfect our sense of rhythm, we’re practicing drills and finger meditations over and over and over again.

And all of that absolutely helps you become a better guitar player (and human being, if you’re up for that as well).

However, none of that work matters if, in the process of doing it, you lose touch with your love of playing the guitar.

Nothing will reconnect you more with your love of playing than that state of pure beautiful flow, like the experience I had back in Tulsa, Oklahoma playing the trombone part to the theme song from The Magnificent Seven.

The Trusting Mindset is your key to flow.

How the Trusting Mindset Works

If you’re trying to become a better guitar player through diligent focused practice, I commend you. Perfect Practice will definitely lead you forward into greater guitar glory.

However, the key takeaway from the idea of the Training and Trusting Mindset is that the two approaches need to be in balance. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself in a live performance situation without the ability to let go of all that fine-detail work and just play your heart out.

Where the Training Mindset involves intense focus on the details, the Trusting Mindset involves a state of emptiness–you let all that focus work you’ve done rest in the background, and you simply play. Be present and play–that’s the Trusting Mindset.

Don’t Make the Mistake of Practicing All the Time

Practice is fantastic. If you know how to do it, you have a means of continually improving at your instrument.

However, practice isn’t everything. It’s all just preparation for the Real Deal.

One of the greatest things that ever happened in my guitar development was when I encountered a body of music that I absolutely had to learn how to play. I came upon all this music suddenly, and it lit a fire under me that led me to completely change my entire approach to the guitar. I went from playing most of the time with a pick to playing almost exclusively fingerstyle. I went from playing mostly folk, bluegrass and acoustic rock to playing classical, Brazilian jazz and world guitar music.

You need to discover what that music is for you–the music that will keep you up nights and wake you up early to dive into it and immerse your fingers in its challenges and joys.

The point is for you to have a batch of songs and pieces that you can play at the drop of a hat with total command and confidence.

The Trusting Mindset is all about feeing calm, assured and in complete control of everything you’re playing.

A Few More Specifics of the Trusting Mindset

Just so we’re clear, here are the attributes of the Trusting Mindset: simplicity, clarity, “right-brained,” open, empty, present, aware, engaged, absorbed.

Those moments when you’re completely immersed in your music and almost erased as a separate identity? Pure Trusting Mindset.

Those moments when you’re totally “in the zone” with your music and flowing right along on that amazing wave of harmony? Trusting Mindset.

Those epiphanic instants when you suddenly lose yourself and come to your senses within the open-hearted power of musical beauty? Trusting Mindset.

So, be aware of the possibility of finding your way into the Trusting Mindset. Those amazing flow moments don’t have to be haphazard–you can cultivate them and invite them into your life.

Practice your heart out when you’re practicing. Master those details and hone your playing with total precision.

And then, when it’s time to play, let all that practice stuff go and give everything you’ve got to the moment and your performance.

Don’t expect yourself to be able to just go right into the Trusting Mindset at the drop of a hat unless you’ve spent a lot of time inhabiting it. So, in preparation for your performances, be sure to spend a nice chunk of your time with the guitar actually expressing and exploring all the new capacities you’ve cultivated through your practice time.

I just wanted to be sure you and I are clear about this: no matter how much I discuss the ins and outs of practice here at String Love Guitar, you must make sure you spend plenty of time on your guitar just playing. Enjoying. Being. Trusting.

Last week, I looked at how playing the guitar can help heal depression.

That, alas, was only one side of the story.

The other side of the story involves how the guitar can actually tip human beings over the edge into frustration, despair and madness.

If you want to cultivate your guitar playing as an avenue for feeling worse about yourself, here’s how:

1. Compare Yourself to Others

Your journey with the guitar is unique and distinct. Never before in all of human history has someone exactly like you tried to learn to play the guitar exactly like you’re playing it.

But if you want to forget all that and, instead, compare yourself to all those who are playing better than you, then welcome to a world of continual disappointment.

Comparisons are odious, and guitar comparisons in particular trip up many a would-be guitar player.

So many factors contribute to a person’s experience in learning to play the guitar. From the amount of time available for practice to how to use that practice time, the many factors that influence a person’s guitar playing ability render comparisons not only ineffective, but downright destructive.

To some extent, we’re all in this together. But we’re also all in this alone.

There’s a fine line between looking to the greater players for inspiration and comparing yourself to them and quitting the guitar because you’ll never be like them.

Discard comparisons and get on with your own particular journey of guitar development.

Unless, that is, you feel like feeling depressed.

2. Neglect Your Progress and Focus on Guitar Perfection Instead

I’m pulling from Dan Sullivan’s amazing work with this point.

When it comes to your own development on and off the guitar, you have a clear choice: do you compare yourself relative to some ideal of guitar playing way out there ahead of you, or do you notice where you started and appreciate how far you’ve come to get where you are now?

If you are intellectually honest with yourself, you will be able to see all kinds of things that you can now make happen on the guitar that you couldn’t do just a few short months or years ago.

Appreciate the leap that took you from rank beginner to everything you’re now able to do on the guitar.

Or, if you’re in the mood for misery, continually hold your current playing up against an ideal version of your guitar playing self that you may never actually be able to match.

Your happiness is a direct result of how you choose to think of the things that make up your life.

Focus on how far you’ve come, and you’ll likely feel energized, excited and bolstered to keep at it and see how far you can still go.

Focus on how far you have to go in order to reach your illusory ideal, and you’ll be more likely to collapse back into frustration and quitting.

3. Don’t Believe In Your Ability to Learn How to Play Guitar

In the personal development sphere, there’s a lot of discussion of beliefs.

The experts say our beliefs play a major role in the lives we create.

If we believe we can do something, our chances of actually doing it rise.

And if you don’t believe you can do something, you won’t put out the same level of effort, and your likelihood of success will fall.

I know many of the least helpful beliefs you can hold regarding learning to play the guitar intimately.

There’s the fact that I was too old when I started to play—16 instead of 12 or 8 or 3.

So, I carried around a belief that I wouldn’t be able to play the guitar as well as I’d like because I started too late.

Then there’s the fact that I didn’t study music formally in any sort of university program.

So, since I didn’t have an early formal education in music, I wouldn’t be able to create incredible music.

What about the fact that when I really got serious about leaping massively forward in my guitar playing, I was in my late 20’s?

Too old! Too late! Too bad!

I’ve encountered tons of beliefs holding me back from full expression of my talents on the guitar, and I’ve noticed many friends, students and family members held down by the ridiculous weight of negative beliefs around learning to play the guitar.

Do yourself a favor—lighten your load, discard the negative beliefs and get on with the adventure of finding out just what you’re capable of on the guitar.

…

Those are just three excellent ways you can sabotage your guitar playing progress.

There are others, of course, but I’ve found those to be the most effective.

So, what do you do when the frustration and despair about ever being able to actually play the guitar sets in?

Here are a few pointers that have helped me when I’ve wanted to give up and forget I ever tried to play the guitar:

1. Get back to basics.

Listen to the music that inspired you to play the guitar in the first place. Play through the simple songs that still make you smile.

Set aside the psychological potholes that keep tripping you up and just be a body strumming a guitar. Folk music is great for reconnecting us with the simple pleasure of being alive and having a guitar in hand.

2. Slow down.

I am a broken record. Why resist it?

S-L-O-W D-O-W-N.

A few days of slow practice will precipitate a leap in playing ability. If you’re still bent on ignoring the progress you’re making, no amount of progress will help you.

But if you actually want to reach the space where you feel like you can actually play some stuff on the guitar, slow practice is your ticket.

3. Take a break.

Maybe you’re going about learning to play the guitar the wrong way. Maybe your thinking has gotten so twisted and confused that you’re actually heading in the opposite direction of your heart as you force yourself to master the physical demands of guitar playing.

So, chill out. Take a breather. Go on a hike. Play with dogs and children. Have a good time.

The guitar isn’t a race. Enjoy the march up Guitar Mountain, and know that it’s okay to set the guitar down and take in some wide open vistas every now and again.

…

Respect the Six-String

If you treat music with respect, it can teach you things that might take a million years to learn otherwise. It can help you learn to feel and share and express and live with courage and confidence in the world.

If you disrespect music by indulging in all manner of mental confusions and attempting to force music to reveal its secrets, get ready for a brutal ride.

Ultimately, I don’t know what Music is. But after 15 years of fighting tooth and nail to learn how to play it, I’m quite clear that Music is still just patiently waiting for humanity to mature a bit so that it can reveal the full force of its hidden treasures.

Enjoy your musical ride, and if you ever find yourself plateauing and in need of a coach to help you cross a current guitar obstacle, I do indeed teach Nashville guitar lessons and guitar webcam lessons via Skype.