Self
Reliance
By
Mike Philippov
In
my previous articles I have discussed some of the reasons why
so many people fail to get results from their efforts to learn
guitar. In this essay I would like to address another rather subtle
issue that is a reason why some people do not reach their goals.
And that reason is lack of self reliance when it comes to learning
and practicing.
As
I mentioned in my earlier articles, the need for a teacher is
obvious and finding a good one is very important. However it is
also equally important to learn to rely on oneself when it comes
to learning and getting better on the guitar. It is important
to understand that even though having a great teacher will definitely
speed up your progress in many ways, no teacher in the world is
going to be more interested in you reaching your goals than you
are! What I mean by being self-reliant in your practice is that
no matter how many educational resources you choose to get your
musical knowledge from (the more the better) the majority of the
drive, energy, motivation and WORK must come from within yourself.
The resources you use to obtain knowledge (a great teacher, various
instructional books/videos, going to school for music etc) are
there to help you but ONLY if YOU put forth the effort to extract
the knowledge and apply it to your playing.
This
seems obvious, however you would be surprised at how many students
do not think or act in this way. Instead they choose to whine
and blame their lack of progress on not having certain specific
things or tools. For example a student will think things like:
“I wish I could study with this teacher, or I wish I could
go to college to learn music, or I wish I had this book to learn
from”. It is great to want to acquire more resources to
draw upon for knowledge and you should be doing that of course,
however it is not productive to think that your musical future
depends on acquiring the next book or going to a certain place
to study. Rather focus on thinking about what you can start doing
NOW with the resources you ALREADY have (and it is more than you
think) to get results while you are waiting to acquire other resources
to learn from.
The
reason I am saying this is because often students will think that
the “key” to reaching their goals lies in acquiring
the next miracle book or video that will lead them to their goals.
It does not work like that. Pretty soon many students end up with
dozens of instructional books (or end up taking lessons with many
different teachers) but they fail to actually sit down and focus
on extracting the information presented to them in books or lessons.
It is common to simply buy a book and skim through it and be disappointed
in not having found the “miracle solution” to your
guitar playing problems. The student then turns to searching for
the next miracle solution and fails once again. Such student thinks
that having this book or video will give them all the knowledge
and skills they need if they merely buy it. This is not true.
Any product is only as good as the person using it. We cannot
be passive and lazy when learning something as complex as a musical
instrument (especially one as complex as the guitar).
Perhaps
you are wondering how I know this or why I chose to write about
this topic. This very problem used to limit my own learning dramatically.
I was looking for a quick fix to my playing problems and that
led me to buy many books and other instructional products. Yet
I found that I still was not making the progress I desired. Eventually
I realized that the key to progress still comes down to me putting
in the time and the work required. So I decided to not buy any
more instructional resources (for awhile) and instead focused
my energy on mastering the ones I already had. Guess what? My
progress, my musical knowledge and playing ability increased dramatically.
I have observed many of my friends trying to learn to play guitar
and I have also seen their frustration with lack of progress.
However only a few chose to take my advice that I described above
and their playing improved considerably as well.
So
the bottom line is: keep acquiring more resources for building
your musical skills, BUT do not forget that YOU are responsible
for your own learning. No matter how great a book is or how awesome
your teacher may be, you will not become a better player by just
reading a book or passively attending lessons. You must become
OBSESSED with getting as much information and knowledge out of
your teacher or instructional materials as possible and learning
to apply it to your playing right away. You must become this aggressive
in your learning. The only way to do that is to have a great love
for guitar and music. If you have that then you will find the
discipline within yourself to go through the work required to
reach your goals.
You
can contact me at mikephilippov@yahoo.com
I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. I reply
to all e-mails.
Visit
Mike’s sites:
www.enigmatheband.com
www.myspace.com/grimthesweeper
Mike Philippov All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
