Compete Only With Yourself. Options

[Daniel Robinson]

I have seen alot of threads lately here and other places i go about people feeling discouraged when they compare themselves to others.

It seems these topics seem to come in waves...but i digress.


Playing guitar, or any instrument for that matter is a personal journey, we may share our experiences and try to gauge our playing against others. But its like comparing apples and oranges.

If every guitarist gave up because they heard someone they perceived to be better than them the world would have a handful of guitar players...boring.

Just because you don't have the technical skills you want doesnt mean you don't have something to contribute to music. Technical skills come with time and effort, but there are things that you do right now that cannot be duplicated by anyone, no matter how masterfully gifted they are.

I know especially here alot of people idolize Muris, we all love Muris and watching and hearing him play can you make you feel inadequate with your skills. Does that mean that you can't acheive success as a player? I certainly hope not. Muris is where he is because he spent alot of time behind the guitar. The reason for it sucks of course "War".

This doesnt take away from the fact though that the hours and hours that were spent everyday honing his skills.

Tony Macalpine in an interview pretty much said the same thing, it has to be a labor of love when he was younger he said he had to give up his social life, instead of going to the party on Friday night, or going to concerts and all that he gave all that up to spend more time honing his craft. You have to want it that bad that you shut down everything else and just dedicate yourself to music. In alot of ways playing guitar is a lifestyle, its not a 9 to 5 proposistion.

As far as your skills go, just because you aren't where you would like to be doesnt mean that you are inadequate to make a contribution to the world of music.

Let's say that you write a song, and Muris did a cover of it. Sure i bet he could play it note for note, emulate all the little nuiances in it etc. and so forth. But the fact of the matter is no matter how hard he tried, he would still sound like Muris. He wouldnt sound like Daniel, or Joe, or Ivan or anyone else here for that matter.

You have to learn to embrace the fact that you are a unique individual, technical skills are only part of the equation, there are in fact things you were never taught that just came naturally that no one can perfectly duplicate. It could be as simple as tone even.

A good example of this in my own experience, i was building a patch on my GNX, trying to get a specific sound i was looking for, my bass player/ keyboard player came by. He likes things to have a really bright sound, he was dogging me cause all my patches have a really dark quality to them. So i decided to let him try and fix it the way he wanted cause i was curious.

He picked up my guitar and started to play on the same patch with the same settings etc....as soon as he sounded a few notes it was actually too bright sounding. Something about his fingers, how he picks who knows. It was my patch and it still sounded like him. The patch i made was already "Bright" but the way i play has a darker sound to it.

You are unique, don't forget that, it could be tone, it could be vibrato, it could be note choice it could be alot of things. Just don't give up because you perceive something is wrong with it, bringing your technical skills to where you want them is just time and effort. But the "What" that makes you you has always been there just refine it and let the world enjoy You!


Daniel

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!