Well Dom, I don't think I have ever heard it expressed exactly that way LOL, but I get it!!! I know what you mean and I feel the same.
I think the key is finding that contentment and even happiness in these pursuits. Thanks for the interesting analogy
@ethen75gmail-com Something I do to keep a good healthy balance of keeping guitar playing fun and continually upping my skillset is to mix it up with playing some easy songs that I love and can sing while playing. Some easy ones to sing and play are Luke Combs that have G,C,D and A Chords. A lot of his songs have that same group of chords and to me are really fun/easy to play and sing. I do that 50% of the time and the other 50% I focus on hybrid picking, speed and learning something new. Some of the stuff I see Devin do I get overwhelmed and say man... I’ll never get there but as I unpack the lessons, take my time with it and put in the work I start to see that it’s attainable. My take on it is the guitar should always be something you love to play and for me that’s I how I maintain that healthy balance, put in the work and have fun with it.
@rgt. Totally agree!
@rg
Nicely put, but I do wonder whether there's such a thing as an easy song. If I'm playing simple chords and not changing much there's added pressure to maintain consistency and a more pronounced phrasing of the notes. That quickly becomes a major challenge in itself. After all, It's not so much what you play, but how you play it, and sometimes I think the "simple" songs leave you more exposed.
@dom Yeah, good point Dom.
I hear you. Focusing on just singing the song and letting that drive everything the guitar will then catch up after you work through it a bit. I always let the guitar take secondary and vocals dominate. Playing songs you absolutely love are good building blocks for building up your skillset seeing that you already know the song and can sing it the last step is to just learn to play your guitar to keep up with how your singing it which will come the more and more you play it.
I know it can be a little discouraging at times but the hard work will pay off.
There’s some lessons on here that I just have to constantly loop because I haven’t got it yet
and you know what I probably wont get it perfect but I don’t care too much about that honestly.
I just care about having fun with playing and the little I learn here and there on this journey for me is great.
Just keep it simple and have fun with it.
I agree with you about not caring about getting it perfect. To me the whole point is to have fun doing it and not turn it into a chore. When playing guitar stops being fun I'll take a break, but so far this year I'm just really enjoying learning and trying out new things.
Also trying out mandolin which shakes things up a bit. Don't spend anywhere near as much time on the mando as I do on the guitar, but it's still entertaining.
@rg
If i'm singing I steer well clear of tricky chords, or venture beyond the third fret. I was trying to integrate one my favorite songs, Hickory Wind by Gram Parsons into one of Devin's DAG pieces, but the sliding lick part kept tripping me up. In the end I couldn't sing it or play it!😅
I've noticed that many of the licks are very similar, and after a while i find myself just doing my own thing with them. They don't sound much like the originals, but that's a good thing. I think if you got ten different people to play these licks they would sound very different each time.
Lots of practice will not make you a bad player.
