Everything has a process.
This phrase actually came to me from my son. He made some tee shirts what that phrase printed on them and I bought some in support of him. But when I started wearing it, I actually started to think about that phrase.
We live in a instant gratification society in America. I, and maybe you too, see it all around us. From fast food to fast solutions. We want to (for whatever reason) avoid processes that we would benefit from. In music instant gratification has spilled over through technology. In particular what my wife calls “The School of YouTube.” I am certainly not bashing YouTube, in fact I am currently learning how to use it as a tool. It’s an awesome platform. The catch can be using YouTube to “skip” a step or steps in the process of what we are trying to accomplish as musicians. Skipping the process robs us of learning, learning our craft, our skill, even learning who we are, as musicians. As an example, I seen an advertisement that went something like this, “Learn to play guitar without practicing.” I thought to myself, as a musician, I always enjoyed practicing, in fact, I really never called it practice, I just called it playing.
At my last guitar teaching position, I noticed that a lot of students simply wanted to learn songs and not music. I get it, not every one is that into music. There were, however, some who were striving for that end result, and were simply frustrated because it was ever eluding them, due to skipping certain steps in the process. They were skipping the step of listening to music, imagining what they were hearing. Seeing in there mind how the music was being played. How the music made them feel. To really learn something such as guitar, it’s a process. You have to develop your ear, not just your fingers and everyone else’s songs. Let playing guitar be more than that. Enjoy the process and the places that it takes you to, not just physically, but emotionally.
In a nutshell, the process of learning guitar and music is one thing, but what I really want to say is, don’t avoid the process of life. It’s something I’m learning to embrace. Its where we learn, and remember, we are worth it.
Peace…