How to Solve the "I Have no Practice Motivation" Problem
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- Опубликовано: 4 авг 2024
- It is very difficult to keep motivated and figure out how to practice guitar so that you feel like staying with it. This is especially true if you practice and learn something complicated like Jazz Guitar. But you also know that you have to be consistent and dedicated to book improvements in your playing and develop you skills. If you don't practice you probably will just end up in a vicious circle that will stop you playing all together.
In this video I am going to go over 5 things that helps me keep motivated and inspired to practice. Things that are coming from my own experience but also from having taught a lot of students and been around a lot of jazz musicians in general.
This video will give you some ideas to keep inspired and working and also some other perspective on what playing an instrument and playing music is about. Not all of these tips are really about the practice situation but about what else you do.
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Content of the video:
0:00 Intro - Staying Motivated Why it is important
1:17 #1 Is You Practice Session Fun? How To Improve it!
2:24 #2 Check out Live Music - Get Inspired!
3:43 #3 Track You Progress and Keep Track of Your Work
4:56 #4 Play With Other People
6:28 #5 Taking Lessons
7:06 What Keeps You Motivated? Leave a Comment!
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What is your best tip for staying motivated and having fun playing? 🙂
Jens Larsen , listening and seeing other musicians inspires me to achieve my best and pursue my craft seriously
So solid advice Legrand!
I Thing plaY and Play .. better results is coming :D
These are great tips. The biggest motivation for me is that when I've been keeping up with my practice regimen, my playing improves. I always spend part of my practice time "goofing around" and just playing along with tunes I enjoy listening to, and at the same time listening to what I'm playing. I can tell if I'm playing better things over those tunes, and not just "bettter things" but I will usually hear the things I've been practicing cropping up in my playing. Also, it helps me figure out what my practice routine is missing and what I need to work on more. This might be seem little counterintuitive, but one thing that I find for myself, is that it's good to take a day or two off every now and then, and just come back with renewed vigor. I typically don't practice when I'm on vacation for instance. One thing I don't do enough is record myself playing accompaniment, and then soloing over it, if you find you don't like playing over your own accompaniment, it can be a great motivation to improve in that area. Obviously, playing with other people helps tremendously in that department too, because you can tell when people are enjoying what you are playing, and the interaction can spur you to play new things, and also think about what you need to improve on. Finally, this may also sound like a weird motivational tip, but I really enjoy playing guitar. If you enjoy playing guitar, why wouldn't you want to practice ? When you practice, you get to play guitar !
Great tips Paul 👍🙂 I think allowing yourself to goof around is having a fun part of your practice and indeed a great place to find things to work on
Thanks Jens, like your style, !
Thanks, Jens I needed to think about this at my age and situation.
I think we all do, you hear stories about this as well from famous people like Rosenwinkel and Abercrombie
Thanks it's always a joy to have a guitar companion as yourself , your an awesomely great guy, it's nothing short of amazement.Hope you are well. You sounded great in that jam in the video ☮️
Thank you Brad! I am glad you can use the videos as a motivation! 👍🙂
Thanks Jens,
A pitfall to avoid... I am self employed and at times find myself running out of daylight with work related tasks. The music gets put off to a time of night after everything else is done, I'm tired and the session becomes a therapy mode instead of a practice mode. Not necessarily a bad thing but important to understand and recognize the difference otherwise it can have an impact on positive progress... Great advice Jens, thanks as usual!
Very true Donald! I have that as well at times when it comes to practicing things that are not for gigs or work 👍
Great stuff Jens. Motivation can be so complex. I agree with all your points. One big picture thing that I tell students is that they don't have to play music, they don't have to improve as musicians, and they don't have to sound any certain way, so it's always just up to them whether they want to keep moving forward or not, and if so, in which direction. I think for a lot of people they can have an awakening at some point and realize they want to focus on a different style of music, or different instrument, or different element of music making (production/songwriting/composition/etc etc) and I don't see it as a negative thing to simply stop playing music or to take a break for a while. I think a lot of people find that terrifying or unacceptable but I think it's kind of freeing , and gets us really 'unlocked' into what we think we have to be doing with our music and our instrument. A lot of people live happy lives not playing an instrument, haha, and I think a musician that's finding it hard to stay motivated might enjoy a happy week or month or year or whatever not playing or not feeling like they have to play. Obviously a lot of asterisks and exceptions to this concept.
One less grandiose point: I think instagram is such a cool platform for sharing what we're working on, and I've personally been so much more motivated to finish ideas, get things up to a performance/recording level (more or less) since I started posting stuff on instagram. I think that's probably different for different people, but for me knowing that it's so easy and accessible to record and share practice ideas and then be able to interact with other people about the stuff, that's been super motivating.
You are completely right, it is not an issue to take a break either or play for fun and not really have any goals.
I just find that most people I come in touch with do have goals and often need to deal with motivation, and let's face it: I mostly make videos for people who are actually playing an instrument 😄
Finding motivation on Instagram is indeed a funny turn (and perspective on all the "bad modern things with phones" ) but I guess that is very similar to my stuff on RUclips. It's mostly an excuse to nerd out on the things I find interesting..
Great tips! I write down everything I worked on every practice day to keep track of my progress. But after practicing I also write in advance what I want to practice the following day. That way I'm ready to go when I pick up the guitar again. Also, I never practice the same thing more than two days in a row so as to avoid getting bored with something that makes me not want to pick up the guitar afterwards.
That is a good way to change it up and keep track of what is happening 🙂
One thing that keeps me motivated is playing the songs that I really love. Many of us let others choose which songs to learn and play or we choose songs that we think we can pull off which leads to mediocrity imo. I say go for it and learn the songs that you really love. Maybe you're afraid if you unlock the secrets you'll no longer be interested. I say good then it's time to move on to something better and more challenging. It doesn't even need to be a jazz standard. Take any song you love and start applying voicings and techniques that you know and see what you come up with. And don't be afraid of something that seems too complicated. With the right tools you can make sense out of it. And if you still can't learn it the way it's supposed to be played, change it and create your own song. Many guitar players are notorious for this. Great video Jens.
Thanks Tom! That is indeed true go for it with the songs you want to work on 🙂
Great suggestions! I find that Tip #4 is essential to developing oneself and tapping into creativity. It's the one thing that I wish I'd done more of when I was a younger player. Even if someone cannot find a group to play with, finding opportunities to perform solo are critical to progress. I am constantly looking for opportunities to perform -- much of what I've done in recent years is singing and playing as a solo act. That is not a replacement for playing at a jam, open mic, causal gig or a working band, but I've found that the more you do, the better you get, the more relaxed you are.
Very good point! That is true as well, you need to perform. I guess I am more aiming at really using your skills when playing with other 🙂
Definitely no argument there, Jens!
To be straight up, wasnt there, but met those awesome players,!
All good advice Jens! Can I add one other thing? Have a good instrument to play on, I don’t mean a $6000 Gibson L5, just have a guitar that you like playing, that’s had a proper setup with a decent action, is well intonated, fresh(ish) strings, has a good tone - either through good pickups or acoustic tone, or a combination of the two - and a comfortable neck. You can get all of those things on relatively budget instruments and will ensure that at least you won’t have the excuse of having a bad instrument to stop you from practicing more!
Very true, you do need a decent instrument that is set up well.Though to be honest I never took people serious when they said they didn't practice because they had a bad instrument. 9 out of 10 times that is just an excuse
Heard guys from Uganda, and other places when I was just a kid, in 70s, very cool
Thks a lot Master Jens. _/\_
Glad you like it Andru! 🙂 If you are on Facebook you should Join us in the Facebook Jazz Guitar Group Community: bit.ly/InsidersFBGroup
Man. from Canada, met friends when they visited here, don't mean to be misleading.
Thank you ...I saved this...I lost the discipline I once had in my youth ..
Glad you like it!
Sounding like crap motivates me to keep practicing☺.
As usual great useful video, thanks.
There is that! Pain and Peril are good motivators 😄
How strange, you showed Gilad Henriksen as a example to keep motivated, I saw him 3 weeks ago and it really inspired me!
I had that in May 😄
Transcibing and writing down on sibelius the first solo of Jazz duets (Donna Lee video where you participated) took me 4 hours was really hard but after that real joy comes. I highly recommend transcribing interesting solos and learning how to play them(helps a lot understanding each tune)
That is indeed a great way to feel that you have achieved something with your practice 🙂
@@JensLarsen, do you have any tips for transcribing ? I do a fair amount of "figuring out" solos and melodies, but my reading and writing skills aren't the best. Feel free to chime in George, or anyone else. Thanks in advance.
Figuring out is ok, you don't need to write it down. Just learn to play it (in my opinion anyway..)
@@paulpmanhowland7818 Most of the times i do the ''figuring out'' thing , but writing it down will help you get better with rythm, which i and most of people struggle with
@@JensLarsen I just remembered, Jeff Berlin did a couple of videos on the topic. I'll post a link to my search results on it. ruclips.net/user/results?search_query=jeff+berlin+transcribing
Great lesson! Luckily, I want to play/practice pretty much every day. Having a great resource like your playing and teaching is one key! Also, even though I'm very experienced and have a lot of knowledge, I still suck at some stuff, so that's motivating. I sometimes get bored with tech exercises, so I might re-write it until it's fun, or even usable on gigs. I sometimes take on a new style, and that's motivating. There's one extra thing too - my wife likes hearing me practice. This is rare, and is pure luck for me!
Sounds like you are very lucky! My girlfriend doesn't really like to hear me practice, but then again I also get tired of her practice 😄
Wow, a tricky issue for any player! What does she play? The toughest listen I can recall was a classical flute who practiced one passage for about an hour straight. :)
Haha, no it is all good. She is a double bass player 🙂
Great video!
Also i think it‘s really important that, if you sometimes are not that motivated, that you still practice further and further, that will make you better and more routined as an musician, automatically. :-)
While I think that is true there are also times where taking a break can be a good thing 🙂
indeed, then we can come up with new ideas and new power ✌🏽
Exactly!
Shooting small videos of yourself somtimes at the end of practice sessions with the computer webcam is an efficient and quick way to keep track too, plus you can go back in the past to Year/month/week or day ago, and watching yourself aswell can improve your posture our bad movements habits that you wouldn't notice just by audio recordings our by keeping written notes, although I used all those kind of memos to keep track, goals and motivation.
Videos can indeed be very useful! 🙂
Actually from Gambia, best music I ever heard.
Thanks Robert! I have listened quite a bit to African guitarists as well :)
One question I have is about practicing when travelling and away from the instrument. Things I try are to work on memorizing tunes, ear training and listening to great players. Also listening to your videos are inspiring too! Any other thoughts or suggestions?
Traveling is difficult, Analyzing solos and songs? I think there should be some rhythm exercises you can do as well?
Jens Larsen thanks!
Jens, how would I make a one off payment to give you a bit of help instead of the per week method? Do you have paypal for one off payments instead of the weekly patreon method?
Thanks for asking! There is a PayPal donate button on my website! 🙂
How many days a week do you recommend going to jams without getting burnt out. I am currently going to two local jams a week but was wondering if i should try for more?
I don't know. I guess that depends on how much time it costs you and how much you get to play. I would imagine twice is really godd though :)
Even if you achieve only a part of what you set out to do, it will show in your playing. On a different note: use a metronome. Jon Herington says that practicing without one will probably result in a bad timing.
Great that Jon Herington agrees with me :) (Maybe he saw my video on backing tracks? 😄)
@@JensLarsen Doubtless. My bass teacher often tells me my timing is off. Problem is, even with the metronome clicking away I can't sometimes hear the difference. I sometimes speed up things ever so slightly and when that happens it seems to me the metronome is slowing down! It's not so bad that I can't function in a group and most people don't hear it. In fact, I suspect many players have a similar 'problem'.
Put the metronome on something where you crash if you are not paying attention, like dotted quarter notes or only the 2. That helps :)
Also letting go of any mental deficiencies and realizing that anyone can do this who is willing to put in the work. No one is special, you can’t play what you don’t practice. Jeff Berlin used to say that everyday when I attended his music school for 3 years. Also the music principal must always come first for growth. Chops come and go but the the most sustainable lessons I ever grasped were rooted in music. Theory, Harmony, and ear training(transcribing). The later being probably the most important as it relates to the gig. One of the most powerful lessons you can sit though is figuring a tune by ear. It’s gets fun after awhile but in the beginning can be daunting
I think Jeff Berlin knows what he is taking about 🙂
Keep learning new tunes!
Is indeed a sense of achieving something 👍👍🙂
Met Framara, Pegay, And Sariff, I wonder if they remember me,
I don't have any secrets on practice, but I have never let a day go by that I don't go to my instrument and play something. Also, I do a lot of mental practice away from the instrument ( thinking about tunes, chord progressions I've heard, original melodies etc.). I don't think there is any magic formula for practice. Be the NIKE ad: just do it.
I think a lot of us are like that as well. Motivation is not the issue, time is 🙂
Its a small world.
Get out and run, listen to something incredibell...
Solid advice!
Please tone down all the animations in your next video's, it's kinda nauseating and distracting. The content of the video is great though!
I am already discussing it with my editor :)
@@JensLarsen Thanks! I myself edit video's a lot for my work, I'd be happy to give some further feedback if it would help you out.
I think that will be lost if it is through me to the editor. Too many interpretations, But thanks :)
@@JensLarsen Understandable! You're welcome!