Tired of playing guitar?

[DaveyO]

Did you ever have those days where you wanna play guitar but you pick it up and nothing really comes out?
You ever get tired of playing the same stuff?
What do you do when you know you should practice but you don't feel like it?
Do you stay away from it for a couple of days or do you muddle through?

[B0WIE]

I believe that forcing yourself to have fun never really works. My guitar time is one of peace and enjoyment so turning that into a labor would defeat the purpose. I take breaks whenever I'm not feeling it. Might be a day, might be months. Whatever it takes to keep my love of guitar strong.

I've found that playing new guitars and new songs/styles makes it so I don't really need breaks often. Though strumming songs on an acoustic is fun, it's not challenging for me so I'll always have a few complex classical or jazz licks I'm working on. Those challenges are what gives me a reason to pick up a guitar on days when I'm not feeling particularly musical. They're coordination games. So, playing guitar for me is part musical enjoyment, part gaming.

[William2]

I've never had days where I didn't want to play guitar. I have days when it isn't going so well as on other days. I have maybe two hours of memorized pieces I can play. On days when I not in the mood to run through them, look at new music for a change of pace. And periodically I will look at the pieces I know and review them to see if I've changes some notes or isolate a rough sounding passage and see how I can fix it. And I think having more than one guitar helps. Some days I'm in a mahogany mood, others a rosewood mood, and then there is a 12-fret or a 14-fret day LOL.

[Silence Dogood]

Yes.

The solution: get a mandolin (or a mandola, the road even less traveled!). 

I played mandolin solid for about ten years and it enriched my guitar playing a lot.  I plateaued on it and put it down for a few seasons, but I always go back to it.  Just this AM I was playing some old Irish tunes and fiddle tunes and had myself a blast. 

Highly recommended!

[Queequeg]

I'm working on three new pieces now. That makes for a total of six which are not quite ready for prime time yet but it keeps me focused and interested and I never want or need to take a break from guitar.
To the contrary, I am driven to pick it up each day.

[jazzereh]

As far as guitar is concerned, I've not had any issues with feeling motivated to play.  While I work on my 'usual' repertoire I mostly work on composing tunes these days.  Instrumentals, not vocals as I'm lousy at lyrics.  That keeps me wanting to pick up a guitar and play every day. 

However, I have stopped playing sax.  Lost all motivation about a year ago.  Don't really know why but after playing for many years [I'm 78], having my own bands as well as playing in others' and composing lots of tunes, just ran out of gas.  Haven't picked up a sax for over a year and don't miss it so I guess it was the right thing to do at the time. 

While I won't get into more of the reasons for walking away from sax, this topic got me thinking about the reasons we play [whatever instrument] and why sometimes we lose the will to play.  The reason I continue to play guitar is that I need that kind of brain stimulation to get me through each day.  If I didn't have music, in some capacity, my brain would turn to mush.  Sure, there are a few other things that keep me active mentally, but music is, by far, the most compelling activity for me.

So I get a lot of enjoyment from picking up a guitar, hearing the sound of the notes which can just be a zen thing sometimes, seeing the wonderful woods, and looking forward to my next one - the FVII. 
Ralph

[Queequeg]

So I get a lot of enjoyment from picking up a guitar, hearing the sound of the notes which can just be a zen thing sometimes, seeing the wonderful woods, and looking forward to my next one - the FVII. 
Ralph

That describes my ongoing interest and enthusiasm for guitar.
It's therapeutic and meditative. The chaos in the rest of the world is shut out when I have a guitar in my hands.

[B0WIE]

 "Sound of the notes" is a big thing with me. It took me a long time to learn that, in addition to the scales we use to make music, there is a harmonic order to each note on a stringed instrument and the "tone" of the guitar is mostly just the strength or weakness of the overtones in this mathematical order. I love finding the sweet spots on a guitar and just playing different chords notes off each other in an ambient music kind of way. It feels like watching the sun rise as the rays peek over the horizon and then finally the sun emerges. 

[teh]

I never get tired of playing the guitar. Having said that, a couple of years ago, I bought a Kala Baritone ukelele online for $100 and I consider it a poor man's tenor guitar. I also have a custom 4 string dulcimer that was built for me in 1978. About 10 years ago, I finally switched out the friction pegs that it came with and installed geared tuners. It's nice to change things up one in a while.

[Myopic Squirrel]

Have good days and better days (at my stage every day is a gift) but some are especially challenging. Especially remembering what used to be so easy to do on the neck, now results in major frustration. Mixing metaphors, Ralph's comment really struck a chord, especially now having "better" guitars. The escape noodling brings - listening to and getting lost in the notes, the sustain, the separation - is mesmerizing. And admiring the physical beauty of the guitar - especially the Larrivees with JCL's wood selection - for me the combination inspires. Easily entertained, can't believe the joy I'm getting out of learning scales.

[BlueBowman]

I'm as guilty as anyone of getting lost in noodling on my guitars. Sometimes it's just nice to hear that one note on that one string over and over again. And if you write, noodling can occasionally lead to new ground, but often times I think it's mostly unproductive. At least for myself.

The only time I lost interest in guitar was when I took a five year break. I was burned out from playing with bands and traveling. It was my rediscovery of the acoustic that fueled my comeback to guitar (I did play piano during those five years). Kicked off my playing and my creativity.

If you're ever in a rut, find something that challenges you. Nothing too insane, but try to level up. That could be a new piece of music, or a new style of music, or a new technique, or even the writing of an original piece.

I spend most of my time writing. I find it to be the most rewarding thing I do musically. But when it's just not there, I learn other pieces. Or, another favorite of mine is to work up a chord-melody arrangement of a familiar song from memory only. I get as far as I can before going back to the original recording. An example: the last piece I learned this way was the violin part from "Last of the Mohicans" soundtrack. So fun to play on guitar!  This is a great exercise for writers, or for those that play by ear.

But whatever you choose to do, try to do it with as much focus as you can. If you wanna improve, be efficient.

[StringPicker6]

Not trying to advertise anything, but during the pandemic I paid a subscription on Justinguitar.com and got pretty deep into his music theory course. It was really good and helped me understand the fretboard better.

[Silence Dogood]

I'm as guilty as anyone of getting lost in noodling on my guitars. Sometimes it's just nice to hear that one note on that one string over and over again. And if you write, noodling can occasionally lead to new ground, but often times I think it's mostly unproductive. At least for myself.

The only time I lost interest in guitar was when I took a five year break. I was burned out from playing with bands and traveling. It was my rediscovery of the acoustic that fueled my comeback to guitar (I did play piano during those five years). Kicked off my playing and my creativity.

If you're ever in a rut, find something that challenges you. Nothing too insane, but try to level up. That could be a new piece of music, or a new style of music, or a new technique, or even the writing of an original piece.

I spend most of my time writing. I find it to be the most rewarding thing I do musically. But when it's just not there, I learn other pieces. Or, another favorite of mine is to work up a chord-melody arrangement of a familiar song from memory only. I get as far as I can before going back to the original recording. An example: the last piece I learned this way was the violin part from "Last of the Mohicans" soundtrack. So fun to play on guitar!  This is a great exercise for writers, or for those that play by ear.

But whatever you choose to do, try to do it with as much focus as you can. If you wanna improve, be efficient.

Lots of great stuff in this post.  I bet that Last of the Mohicans theme does sound cool on guitar.

[BlueBowman]

Lots of great stuff in this post.  I bet that Last of the Mohicans theme does sound cool on guitar.

Thanks! I put the chords behind the melody. Lotta fun to play. Of course, it helps when you're playing something written so brilliantly like that movie's score. I'm a sucker for a good score, and the ones from the 90s are some of my faves.

[teh]

Guitar virtuoso Luca Stricagnoli has a nice version of Last of the Mohicans. Makes me think I should go back to the kazoo. Also check out Dougie Maclean (Referred to as the Scottish James Taylor) who wrote the music for Last of the Mohicans.

[BlueBowman]

Guitar virtuoso Luca Stricagnoli has a nice version of Last of the Mohicans. Makes me think I should go back to the kazoo. Also check out Dougie Maclean (Referred to as the Scottish James Taylor) who wrote the music for Last of the Mohicans.

That was killer! Three guitars?! I have a hard enough time playing one 

[John Lee Pettimore]

I have personally suffered 7 deaths of close friends and family members since 2020.  4 family members since 2022. These people represented a broad sampling of Americana.

In my times of grieving there have been periods where I could not play.  Yet, these lives lost are the impetus for much of my musical expression in recent years. 

So, yea.  I leave the guitars alone when I can't play. But when it's time for me to express, I frequently find the music that comes out of me to be profound.