Do you ever just get fed up of playing guitar ?

[p90rules]

I'm going through a bit of a down patch with my playing lately.
Been semi pro most of my 53 year old life.
I don't find myself going to music shops, guitar shows or gigs as much.
Still enjoy playing at the occasional jam & at home
Maybe it's because...

The gigs/gig goers aren't there like they used to be.
I don't feel I have to prove anything to anyone anymore.
I no longer enjoy being around complicated band 'mates'

I just enjoy other stuff more....Travel, learning other instruments.
Just got into Bluegrass Banjo

Anyone else relate to this ?

 

[Rich]

I can relate to some degree. I'm fortunate enough to be in a band with like minded players who also want to just get together once per week to play and write songs and play out once per month or so. We've all been down the "I want to be a rock star" road long ago and now just do it for the sake of enjoyment. We still get to do something we love to do, but nobody gets tired of it or feels burned out; nobody's lives revolve around the band as we all have other interests outside of it.

 

[TOMMYTHUNDERS]

no.

 

[kmk108]

Considering I've never gigged, your "down patch" sounds like my entire experience with playing guitar.

 

[The_Sentry]

Sometimes...but not so much.

Dude...I quit a job and relocated just so I COULD play guitar regularly. I'll never take the time I have with it for granted...ever again!

 

[Lungo]

I'll be fed up with eating before I'm fed up with playing guitar.

 

[TOMMYTHUNDERS]

i daydream about playing while i'm at work. i walk past my music room when i'm home and stick my head in the door just to admire my gear. playing guitar is fun.

 

[sonar1]

I love guitar playing and music more than ever in 50+ years of playing, whether or not I have a gig.

Right now I have three steady bands.



The only lulls in enthusiasm I've experienced were when I was depressed about other factors in my life and family.

 

[lazz]

No next question!

 

[Leendrix]

Fed up? No. Creatively frustrated or in a rut? Yes. What's the difference? Fed up sounds like I hate it. I don't. I love it.

Try new settings on your amp, or a different amp. I've been using my Roland Cube 30 recently and playing a lot of clean things. It's nearly pulled me out of the rut I've been in. It's something different, and it's improving my playing. Try finding your Cube 30 - rut solution.

 

[lunchbox]

Yes, happened to me too. I sold my guitars/gear and took a break for a couple of years. Then I bought an acoustic and started jamming Old Time and Bluegrass. It gave me a whole new perspective on the guitar and re-kindled my interest in it.

 

[DLChance]

I'm going through a bit of a down patch with my playing lately.
Been semi pro most of my 53 year old life.
I don't find myself going to music shops, guitar shows or gigs as much.
Still enjoy playing at the occasional jam & at home
Maybe it's because...

The gigs/gig goers aren't there like they used to be.
I don't feel I have to prove anything to anyone anymore.
I no longer enjoy being around complicated band 'mates'

I just enjoy other stuff more....Travel, learning other instruments.
Just got into Bluegrass Banjo

Anyone else relate to this ?

I went through that same thing a few years ago.

I got tired of the constant hustling it took to keep a conventional mainstream country band working every week in a declining economy; and when work for country bands is scarce in Texas, you KNOW there's something wrong. So I started writing more and building up my publishing credits, and reevaluating my musical direction.

I decided that I absolutely loathe what passes as country music these days, and made the decision that I was no longer going to play it. I was tempted to get into blues, but that would have put me right back into hustling for the fewer and fewer blues club gigs; different music but the same economic realities. What I realized I wanted to do was to go waaaay back to the all-acoustic stringband days, so I could play banjos (Scruggs-style and frailing), mandolin, fiddle and dobro in addition to 6- and 12-string guitars and the other acoustic instruments I've always loved to play, in a comfortable show setting; as opposed to regular bar band sets.

So the wife and I (she plays and sings with me) got with some good friends we sing with at church, and our 3rd son (an amazing guitarist and percussionist), and put together some great old songs; and we made some new songs we like fit in the same style. Then I got my oldest son, a website designer and video producer, to put together a home page emphasizing what I call my new/old "dirtroad" sound. I sent out a few notices to regional booking agents and local "opry" venues about it, and waited to see what would happen. While that was going on, I got with my son and we put together several videos and filmstrip productions for rear-projection multimedia presentations that would go with the old-fashioned "front parlor" stage set I designed. Period-appropriate costuming from the late '30s/early '40s rounded out the overall production.

That was about a year ago. The dates started trickling in at first, and now I get more booking offers than we can play. And an hour-and-a-half show pays at least four times more than the 4-hour nightclub bookings!

I could just write novels and short stories, maybe sell the occasional story as a movie treatment, and make a good living. In fact, I include "readings" (they're really memorized) from some of my fiction in my show, and offer books for sale along with the other merch. But after 30 years as a working musician, I found I'm not ready to give it up after all. I just needed a different direction.

Sounds like you've found a new direction for yourself. Great! I hope it rejuvenates your desire to play again!

I know my new direction has worked out really well for me.

 

[PeteK]

Fed up with playing? No. Fed up with sucking at it? Everyday!

 

[bscenefilms]

I can get into a rut but that's about it.

 

[Bluesky]

I'm going through a bit of a down patch with my playing lately.
Been semi pro most of my 53 year old life.
I don't find myself going to music shops, guitar shows or gigs as much.
Still enjoy playing at the occasional jam & at home
Maybe it's because...

The gigs/gig goers aren't there like they used to be.
I don't feel I have to prove anything to anyone anymore.
I no longer enjoy being around complicated band 'mates'

I just enjoy other stuff more....Travel, learning other instruments.
Just got into Bluegrass Banjo

Anyone else relate to this ?

Yep. I also Play the drums over 30 yrs. I build Partscasters , and I love to watch Porn.

 

[Skintaster]

The only extended period of time that I didn't pick up a guitar followed and was caused by an extreme personal tragedy.

If I'm at home, I'm never more than ten feet from one... Not that my blazing leads would indicate any great proficiency.

If you're feeling "burned out", maybe you would benefit from trying to play stuff outside of your normal interests, or try finding some other way to shake loose the old creative juices. Make playing guitar fun for yourself again.

 

[Username1]

Oh yeah, that's what piano is for!

 

[Strato]

Nope. I may have a day where things don't come together like I want but I never get fed up with playing.

 

[EasyAce]

When my blues group broke up in April by mutual consent, I was actually to a point where I was considering breaking up the group anyway---I was tired of the band's reluctance to try original blues material (we were, I thought, lucky to have three originals in the book as it was), I was tired of the lack of dynamics in the band (they didn't seem to have a clue about not drowning out singer or soloists), and I was tired of being pushed (as one or two were trying to do) toward playing louder and away from the blues, as one or two were trying to do. That wasn't why I put the band together.

I took some time to work on material I'd shelved earlier because the band was so reluctant about original material, and thought I'd just go to some jams to keep sharp. Well, now. I've since cut back my jam forays to one or two select jams which I know don't let things get so chaotic in the volume department---why the hell does everything have to be so damn loud?---and don't turn into just another round of the same old beaten-to-death junk with no nuance or groove.

(In fairness, I figured out one reason why it usually goes that way: most of the so-called blues players in my town being too goddam lazy to learn that there's more than one variation to the basic blues forms----you tell some of these people that, say, "As the Years Go Passing By" goes up half a step in the tenth bar on the V line, and they look at you like you stepped out of a Tolkein nightmare; hell, some of them look stuck for an answer when you ask them if they know what I mean by the tenth bar!---so they don't bother going beyond the usual "Hoochie Coochie Man"/"Crossroads"/"Pride and Joy"/"Stormy Monday" boxes. I have an instrumental blues I came up with for jamming, and I shaped its basic form so that, in the closing chorus, there'd be a stop on the eleventh bar instead of the usual tenth-bar stop, and these knuckleheads had no idea what I was talking about, never mind missing my hand signal for the stop where I'd play the final theme line on that stop and then end on a rolling chord . . . and it's a jam number any idiot can play, really, that's what I wrote it for . . .)

I've since met a bassist who also likes to write his own blues songs, and he's got some good ones. And he's also more amenable to material that leave plenty of improvisational room than the old band really was. We've been working in steps for about a month, now, and we may have a keyboard candidate who can also blow a little harmonica, not to mention a solid drummer in the wings who's waiting for us to pull some more material together. If we can get a solid repertoire together---we want to have it 70 percent original material at least, with plenty of room to stretch and improvise, and limit our covers to songs that haven't even been touched much, never mind haven't been beaten to death and back---I'd like to think we'll be ready to start playing out come November or December.

So I didn't get fed up with playing qua playing, but I did get fed up with too many of the situations in which I did play . . .

 

[Lurko]

I'm fed up right now. Disengaged. It sucks.