Never felt so cr@p

[Jonny]

It's nothing to do with life or anything, well sort of.. :(

I, having arrived at Uni for.. 2 weeks or so. Did not have a guitar. My dad came over today from home and hooray, he got my guitar.

I spent a good 4 hours playing and my God, it just all hit me in the face that I was an absolute crock of shite on a stick. Then I thought to myself, for the first time ever, is there any point to buying guitar after guiatr, stuff after stuff if I'm going to be constantly $%&#ed over with this overwhelming feeling.. :(

I still love guitar in music, still love my metal.

I dunno, I guess I just wanted to spam with a topic on how shite I feeling right now. :(

Off to bed I guess.

[FernandoDuarte]

I got that feeling sometimes...
Well, I think you should try bloke... Try to make a band, jam with some guys and try to discover if it's really like that or it's just because you got a time without playing...
Also think in have a hobby band... You know, 90% of musicians can't get it as life job, try to use it as a way to brake the stress!
Hope you get better feeling! :D

[Roobubba]

When you've just arrived at Uni, you're exposed to so many bugs and viruses, and you tend to assault your body with alcohol (and/or other drugs), sleep deprivation and the stress of being in a new environment with a bunch of new people.
Unfortunately, the fact that you're not alone in feeling totally **** right now is probably not much solace, but you should be aware that it happens to pretty much everyone for pretty much the same reasons.

Don't let that stand in the way of doing the things you love to do, as it's those that will get you through Uni in the long run!!

Roo

[gwEm]

i agree with roo and fernando, i think they have good points.

i started playing in my 20s in 2002 and don't claim to be a great guitarist. never had any lessons or anything. but recently because i enjoy playing so much i've been practising quite, and alot of stuff has fallen into place - suddenly thought to myself that i'm not too bad after all. if you love music, you will practise and you will get better.

[Elliot]

Dude, all musicians get this feeling - plateau is a word often used.  You either give up or you take as an opportunity to analyse the reason why you are playing to a standard less than your satisfaction - A good way to do it is find one negative point, like poor bends, poor timing (always my weak point) or picking accuracy and work on that in isolation for a bit.  If you have to get through a wall, you may as well improve your skills.

[jibidy]

I hear you say you like your metal.

I love metal aswell and i had a rough spot on guitar a while back. I stopped playing for quite a while (week or so :lol:) I watched some great films and listened to the sound tracks, found some new bands to listen and alot of non metal music. After a while i felt inspired and picked up my guitar again, since then my playing has improved tenfold and ive been playing alot of different music and altering my sound often.

Playing guitar should make you feel really good not bad, so my advice is maybe put it down for a while and find something different and new to inspire you. Films are good and games can be.

Also on sunday @ 10:20 theres a TV programme about guitar. I would say watch that if you can its cool.

[Philosoful]

If you like your metal try practising some of the real hard stuff get your chops going! I listen to guys like Rusty Cooley and man, everrrrrrryone is miles away from that guys skill level but aspiring/finding inspiration in that is faaaar better than 'I will never be that good'. I appreciate your busy at Uni but well, in your spare time, YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO!

[Jamie]

I always feel like shite after band practice because our other guitarist blows me out of the water with his rhythm playing, and it is so hard to keep up with him sometimes but in the end it's only going to make me better because it makes me want to practice until i am at the same level as him. I know its different but i just think you need some inspiration.

[TwilightOdyssey]

I blame it all on the change in your avatar. PDT_008

[_tom_]

Sober at 1:41am in the first few weeks of uni in year 1 means somethings definitely wrong :? :P

[MrBump]

I kinda remember that feeling when I hit uni - that first week was rough.

I found that the guitar helped me through.

Maybe it's something about being guitarists, about being artists that mean we're prone to melancholy?  There are plenty of threads on here about being down, and about fueling that feeling with alcohol...

 :drink:

My wife just told me to put the laptop down, saying "come away from your hairy guitar playing friends".

Classic!  And appropriate.  I think that this forum is always a good place for a rant, for advice, to offload, or just to chat. 

Great bunch of guys and galls here.  Really.

Mark.

[Ted 'N' Leo]

Well said Mark.

To share my story with you, in my second year of uni i was living with a total bunch of arseholes, and the whole situation depressed me so much i was borderline giving up on guitar. It just wasn't doing anything for me anymore, I had become a mere jukebox, hitting out the same old riffs. So one day, i walked into Virgin cd store, and bought a load of random albums, and one of them (Dark Side of the Moon) totally changed my outlook on life at the time, and i stopped with metal, and started getting more into Floyd, SRV, Jimi and The Beatles.

This to me was a completely different way of playing guitar, and it completely rejuvinated my interest in it.

So maybe that might be all you need? Just a change of music style for a while, then if you want to, go back to metal, or do as i've done, and stay more in bluesy territory. Not that i've given up on metal, i still like some of it, i just realise now that it isn't the only genre of music out there.

[AndyR]

The only thing I can add to what others have said is this: don't let music control you, it's there for our enjoyment, not to enslave us :D

This includes the guitar. I guess it's happened to all of us to some extent. For some reason, because we start learning the guitar and find something in it, it becomes some sort of calling or vocation to us. I'm sure it happens to other people involved in other stuff, but guitar's the one we all know about. Several times over the years, I've found my entire idea of self-worth inexplicably tied up in whatever music I was trying to create - then when it doesn't go as well as I hoped, I've got nothing else to fall back on and I end up depressed.

A few years back I finally worked out that the guitar was my plaything - not the other way round. So now, whenever I feel down about what I'm playing or not playing, I just say to the guitar "you're not in charge here, you can just sit in the corner looking pretty until you behave properly...", and I get on with, or pay attention, to the rest of my life.

I always come back to it after a few days, I pick the thing up because I want to, and invariably my playing suddenly sounds loads better...

(Of course I don't actually have these conversations with the guitars - everyone would think I was crazy! :roll:)

[FELINEGUITARS]

(Of course I don't actually have these conversations with the guitars - everyone would think I was crazy! :roll:)

That's not what your Baja tele told me.......

[_tom_]

Several times over the years, I've found my entire idea of self-worth inexplicably tied up in whatever music I was trying to create - then when it doesn't go as well as I hoped, I've got nothing else to fall back on and I end up depressed.

Yep I always get like that when I try to write something new :lol: :oops: