Which F Word Do You Think is More Important Than Talent
Have You ever doubted You have the talent to Play guitar?
Yes You have the desire,and You enjoy listening to Your Music, and yet maybe You have at least a level of doubt that You can progress on Guitar ?
Yet it’s one key thing, One F Word I have discovered recently,more important than Talent that seems to impact more beginners and near beginner Guitar players, that pick up the guitar only to have it later lying in a corner unused, and unplayed,
One Key Thing way more important than any idea of natural talent, which I will share with You in a moment
And Before that….So How Did I discover This One F Word that makes such a huge difference ?
Having had the privilege to share what I have learned and discovered with beginner to advanced students age 11 through 70+,
it was by listening to what was really happening, at least sometimes, with students who had already achieved a certain level of playing that led to the discovery and not by observing beginners and near beginner students.
Here’s How I Did Not Discover This…
The obvious thing would be to really focus on and observe beginner and early beginner students.
This makes complete sense doesn’t it? If Beginners and Near Beginners think they don;t have talent, then its completely logical to focus on , observe their playing..
And this would be to see if there is something else rather than a lack of talent that might perhaps be getting in the way of playing I did not
And Yet I did not discover this by observing beginner and those at the early stages of playing acoustic and playing electric guitar – because
infact it would be all too easy to confuse this one thing with a lack of talent, when in fact it is something completely different.
Because it was through actually observing and hearing the experiences of intermediate and more advanced students who sometimes struggled to play what they already know how to play, even those things that they did not learn with me.
This breakthrough this discovery, had nothing to do with talent and was all about this…..
- Intermediate and beyond students,
- Bringing their experiences, of what had happened during their day, to the Guitar,
- when it came time to play.
And if They happened to have had a not so good day ? You guessed it..
That would impact their playing, this wasn’t a question of lacking talent or even confidence, and it wasn;t a question of ” nothing can be done about it either” as You’ll discover in a moment
Now all well and good – when your day has gone well isn’t it? but what about if
- You’ve had to fight through traffic, before getting to your Guitar
- You sat through different meetings and now pick up the guitar and play?
- You’ve had a hard day of work or study and start playing and all of a sudden feel like it’s not happening?
Infact one conversation with an intermediate student went like this…
“I have been having a few tough days at work, and so has my partner and the house we were going to buy has fallen through… how much of this, do You think is affecting my playing? “ And my answer is …. all of it, unless You do this one thing, this first F.
And yet if I were only teaching beginners/ near beginners it would be all too easy to confuse the first F, with a lack of talent,
And yes Fun and Fascination are importnat – thiugh these are not the first key important F Word….
So What Is ?…. well
And the F Word is ……
A small start of the solution is to Focus (that’s the F Word) your mind before You start playing, in a very easy way – likely something You already may do when You listen to your favourite music.
And here’s why – Without focus You just stop playing – and music is in real time – as I tel some students, You can switch off in meetings and get away with it, as soon as You switch off, i.e stop focussing in music, even for a moment it shows up – and surprising how often it happen.
And How Do You start to develop Focus for Guitar Playing in particular…. Well You do that by…
by tapping along to the beat of whatever it is You are learning to Play – Your brain loves a beat,and Neuro-science is showing that Music uses more of Your Brain than anything else (Prof Koelsch’s book Brain and Music) – Guitar Playing is not only fun it is Good for you.
And the more You tap along the more You become focussed on the music – and this is even something You can do when You are away from Your Guitar – so you make full use of NET (Non essential time) before You even get to your guitar so You are fully aligned and ready to go with however much time You have to play.
- Depending on what specifically You are learning,
- and what happen to be Your particular transition points that You need to cross
- will determine what specfic ways and combinations of ways You use to actually focus Your mind
There’s too many to go through all the different combinations here, And yet often simply tapping along to the beat will
- allow You to graduallly align to what it is You are trying to play –
- which is often the key first step to re-focussing those intermediate students, away from what has happened during the day and
- gets them to be able to play those things they know how to play, but
- could not play because they had become distracted by what had happened during their day
It’s also by applying this also to beginners and near beginners who are not so far along in their guitar journeys, that they could get even more consistent results.. sometimes surprising results
- It was by following the specific steps in a structured way, not just with playing, but even before playing…
- to get focussed first and foremost that they were able to play
- that allows even beginners and near beginners to focus through their distractions
- this clearly showed in their playing..
the flip side of course is that everyone You know and that knows You will think You’re just talented and won’t believe any of this focus and fascination – that was even Beginner John’s experience who made his workshop and stage debut in his 70s, even though perhaps your beginner goals at the start of Your Guitar Journey may be a little more modest
Til Next Time
Andre
Being coached and learning how to really focus so You get the most out of Your Playing, is a part of the Immersion Lessons, Sessions and Workshops that I lead for Acoustic and Electric Guitar Students.
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