Confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur

Three months in and I'm still going strong. Still learning, still improving (I hope) and still playing an hour or so every day unless circumstances prevent it.

One thing I have learned is playing the guitar is like everything else - you'll have good days and bad days. There will be no reasons why it happens, it just does - and there's nothing you can do about it, no way to explain it. It happens to everyone, anywhere - at the office, playing sport or trying to play music. It even happens to superstars like Rory McIlroy, which is why they occasionally do this...

 



Of course, for a guitar player the equivalent would be this...

Now, admittedly for me that isn't really an option. I'd have to buy myself a new guitar, plus I don't have matches. However, I can't say I wasn't feeling a bit like that last week.

Having done some work on the minor chords I've now been working on the C chord. The websites I'm using show lots of great songs at this level and I eventually gave into temptation to jump ahead. Brown Eyed Girl? We'll have some of that!



It seems there is a Korean band called Brown Eyed Girls. Who knew?



The chord changes seemed easy enough. The strumming pattern looked straightforward. And yet, for some reason, I couldn't get the rhythm right and couldn't play along to the song. It was an absolute nightmare. This, I decided, must be where I hit what runners call "the wall". I'd reached my plateau, found the limit of my abilities and wasn't going to be able to progress any further. The rest of my session that night wasn't particularly great and I could tell my interest would start to wane if that continued.

Move forward a night. I hadn't done any practice of Brown Eyed Girl in the interim. After having a decent bash at another new song - Sweet Home Alabama - I decided to try Brown Eyed Girl for fun, even though I felt I was wasting my time. Suddenly, inexplicably, I could play it almost perfectly. I couldn't believe it. My confidence shot up and the rest of my practice was superb. Parts of other songs that had been problematic were suddenly a breeze and I could even sing along fairly well (timing wise, not singing quality wise) to some tunes.

The cast of Sweet Home Alabama welcome the news my playing has improved.



What caused this improvement? No idea. Maybe it's because Sweet Home Alabama was quite fast paced and helped me out, thus proving I should do songs in order and not jump ahead. Maybe it's because my expectations were so low there was no pressure on me to do it well. Or maybe it was just because the planets aligned and I could play it fairly well - I haven't been able to play it as well in the few days since.

It just seems that it was one of those things - there was a bad day, then a good day. It also shows that, like lots of things in life, confidence makes a heck of a lot of difference. One day it was pretty low and I was worried just how much I could still develop, the next it was unbelievably high and I feel I can still improve and learn a heck of a lot more.

Now I just need to keep practicing to ensure the good days come along more often and my confidence remains high.