Published on February 2nd, 2024 | by Rebecca D. Walker
07 Ways to Keep Yourself Motivated to Learn the Guitar
Playing guitar is exciting. Picture yourself holding a guitar close to your body and strumming your favorite tunes. It’s nice to play a tune or two by yourself or in front of a crowd. You can even learn a guitar music theory course along with self-teaching to enhance your musical skills.
But just like any other skill, guitar playing takes time to master. And sometimes, you lose motivation along the way, even without you noticing.
Read on to learn tips for bringing back your passion for learning guitar.
Get Past Burn Out in Guitar Playing
Feel motivated to play guitar again with these strategies:
1. Set and Organize Your Goals
Photo by 42 North:- https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-playing-brown-guitar-1407322/
Setting achievable goals makes you feel accomplished and drives you to learn more. You can learn a new chord, memorize a new song, or learn a guitar technique that you didn’t bother looking up until now. Break your goals into smaller and simpler steps. Set a schedule for learning every bit of your goal and track your progress.
2. Give Yourself a Pat on the Back
As you monitor your progress with every goal you achieve, you’ll find some growth in between. That’s you doing a good job! Your progress motivates you to learn and do more.
Progress is different for everyone. Some progress faster, while others go slower. Still, there’s something to celebrate. You’re far from where you were since taking a break. Now give yourself a day off from practice sessions before you continue your track record.
3. Go Out of Your Comfort Zone
Strumming the same songs every single day is a huge factor in why you’re losing motivation. Switch it up and go beyond the limits of what you know! Try another music genre than your usual go-to pieces.
If you’re used to playing radio-friendly pop songs on guitar, give folk, jazz, country, or blues a chance. The new songs you play open doors to learning more techniques.
Try playing difficult pieces, too! This lets you learn advanced fingerpicking techniques and complicated chord progressions.
Play songs written on other instruments like piano and saxophone. Incorporate your own chords in an existing piece to give a song more flavor. And speaking of flavor, you can try new effects and pedals to give your playing more texture and a reverberating effect.
Welcome the opportunity of learning something new to bring back your motivation to practice guitar. You might find yourself learning more and more each day.
4. Have a Consistent Practice Routine
Photo by Pixabay:- https://www.pexels.com/photo/grayscale-photo-of-man-playing-guitar-210766/
Establish a schedule solely for a guitar practice session. Choose the most convenient days and times of the week for you. Stick to that schedule as much as possible to keep honing your skills. Determine your areas for improvement and analyze how you can improve.
Having a consistent schedule for practice builds your skills and knowledge little by little. It’s even better when you have a guitar teacher who can guide you well. It gives you more reasons to practice guitar every day.
5. Stop Playing and Step Away
It’s normal to feel frustrated when you think you’re not making any progress. When you start practicing guitar, it takes time, effort, and hard work to ace every note and chord.
Put the guitar aside and take some time to do other things. This helps you clear your mind and take your focus away from the guitar. Learn a new hobby, spend time with friends and family, or go on walks alone.
Do anything that gives you joy, so you’ll feel a new surge of motivation when you pick up the guitar again.
6. Connect with Other Musicians
Take some time to reach out to other guitar players and play music with them. You can join a band and work with them in making music. You’ll get fresh ideas, insights, and perspectives from your bandmates when you play with them in a casual jam session or a full-blown band performance.
7. Join a Guitar Community
Photo by Karolina Grabowska:- https://www.pexels.com/photo/happy-woman-playing-guitar-having-online-class-5902916/
Expand your connections by being a member of a guitar community. You’ll learn more from expert guitar players who have been playing for years. Get advice from these seniors to add your learnings. Work on projects with them to expand your horizons musically. Once you feel like you belong to the community, you will have the motivation to learn more about playing guitar.
Conclusion
Losing motivation for a hobby, like playing the guitar, is pretty normal. You get burnt out with playing the same tunes at some point. The tips mentioned above help in bringing back the motivation you lost and picking up where you left off.
The goal of playing the guitar is to always be better than before. If you feel like your motivation is lost, have the will to get back up and start with a fresh and renewed mind.
Header photo credit:- https://www.pexels.com/photo/men-playing-the-guitars-and-smiling-4670182/
I love the information; i never thought about it; thank you so much