Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[scriver]

Everyone can play spoons.

[Superdorf]

I've been noodling around on a ukulele for a few months now. Is cheap, fairly easy to play... only so much can be done with it, but you learn to make pretty noises real fast.

[McTraveller]

It's US income tax filing season again.  For some reason it's weighing on me more this year than in previous years.

[Kagus]

I used to play a little bit of guitar. Never learned enough of a song to play it all the way through, but I knew the starts/riffs to a few and knew enough about scales to mess around a little bit. Also still wasn't very good about identifying keys offhand, but that's life.

That was over a decade ago. I've lost whatever I might've had before through years and years of not playing. Now to pick up or even look at my guitar makes me feel absolutely miserable to think about what I lost and how long it would take me to first get back to where I was, and then to get beyond that to somewhere near where I wanted to be; which was being able to actually play not just one but multiple songs.

And I'm now surrounded by musicians in my circle of acquaintances, people who spent 12-15 years actively playing and learning the instrument, and it makes me feel sick that I'll never get on their level because of my hang-ups.


Nowadays I just try to avoid any mention of it, because people always ask for a demonstration if I say anything related to having played before or even just owning a guitar, and I just... I can't. There's nothing to show.

[Quaksna]

What about singing? I know that singing also depends on your voice, but I think singing's not that difficult either. I wasn't singing till I started organ, so that's also two years or so.

Man, might be just me, but I don't really know what people have with this "learn this stuff when you're still child, oh, poor me, I lost that chance already" stuff. Because from my experience, I've been papercrafting, drawing, doing music pretty much my whole life. Yet when I was a child, improvement was minimal. Might also be affected by attitude, but still. It's now that I'm a lad that I can learn things properly, that is, if I want to. If everyone's getting at you won't have spare  time as adult, maybe that's the case.

Sorry if I invoked bad feelings in someone with this music topic. I just love to write, it makes me feel relevant. Shoot, guys, I'm such a broken person...

[Doomblade187]

Hey, Kagus. You'll get some of it back faster now, you know. And the goal of learning and instrument isn't to be as good as your idols necessarily. It's to learn, and make art with it, to have fun. It's literally never too late to start.

[Kagus]

It's to learn, and make art with it, to have fun.

Ah, and therein lies the rub! I have a pathological hatred of everything I am, do, or create! Even making it through the twisting pain of every mistake made when trying to attempt something, if I do end up accidentally making something of my own up I'll be physically sickened and repulsed by it within 1-24 hours! I've done it before, and I can do it again ha ha!

Extra fun now that I actually have friends who see the best in me and sincerely believe I'm capable of doing great things. Now I have the option of disappointing them by not trying, or disappointing them by doing something awful. And yes I do realize how outlandishly doomy that is... 8 years of medication and therapy has gotten me a long way, but I still have a hard time shaking some of the old thought patterns.

Sorry if I invoked bad feelings in someone with this music topic.

Oh no, please don't feel guilty... I'm perfectly capable of bringing bad feelings upon myself, I hardly need outside assistance for that.

[Doomblade187]

Ah, but you see, if you do something you consider awful, there's a good chance they'll consider it good anyways. :3

[Kagus]

Ah, but you see, if you do something you consider awful, there's a good chance they'll consider it good anyways. :3

Or might just act as such, out of pity/politeness! Which is definitely the internal narrative I'm gonna be opting for in the event of positive reactions.

[Doomblade187]

Ah, but you see, if you do something you consider awful, there's a good chance they'll consider it good anyways. :3

Or might just act as such, out of pity/politeness! Which is definitely the internal narrative I'm gonna be opting for in the event of positive reactions.

Ah, depression/anxiety really is a bitch. I do hope you get better yet at determining your unhealthy internal narratives. You've made a lot of progress over the years.

[Kagus]

Aye, s'truth... And thanks.

[scriver]

This is why spite is the only true motivator

[Kagus]

This is why spite is the only true motivator

You either become an hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain!

[Yoink]

Good discussion on music you guys, a lot of good points.
Unfortunately my mindset is somewhat similar to Kagus's, although it perhaps breaks down more into the main points of: lack of motivation, the ease with which I become frustrated at making mistakes, jealousy at the accomplishments and talents of others that can easily lead to a spiral of self-loathing and inferiority when dwelt upon, and finally, a deep, terrifying fear that perhaps I would turn out to not have the natural abilities to become good at an instrument even if I devoted years of practice to it.

Oh, and plain, simple shyness when it comes to the actual "making noise" part, but that loops back around to the second point, my unhelpful perfectionism.


...But, all that aside, I did end up enjoying myself despite my feelings of inferiority! As useless as I am, I'm actually kinda proud of myself for managing to hang around and appreciate the music happening in my kitchen rather than isolating myself from it and simply making myself feel worse.
It ended up being pretty fun. A good way to farewell one of my (now former) housemates, too.

Perhaps I'll be able to use my current, probably temporary living situation with my dad as an opportunity to try and overcome at least some of these hurdles and hang-ups I have re: playing music. Here's hoping.
I had new, unrelated Sads but this post is a bit of an essay already and I should be sleeping. If I haven't forgotten the nonsense in question by tomorrow I'm sure I will find time to whine about it then, haha.

[JoshuaFH]

I'm just having a little bit of my anxiety where I wish someone was around to beat me. Just whip the shit out of me, and I'm disappointed that there's noone to perform this service for me.

Just overall feeling like a shithead, an ingrate, an asshole, and worst of all, a pseudo-intellectual that thinks too highly of himself too often; and deserves to get punished for it.