I love music, and was able to earn money as a teenager doing it, instead of flipping burgers or bussing tables, like my friends. But hanging with all those older, professional players taught me that I didn’t have the talent to hang with the pros as an adult. Rather than delude myself, I realized that I loved records (it was the olden days) and steered my career and education toward Music History, with an eye on a career in the record biz. I did that for 30 years, until the record industry imploded around 2000.

Perhaps rather than break his heart and look unsupportive, teach him to be honest with himself, and then put him up against truly talented players so he can realize that he doesnt have what it takes. At the same time, encourage him to look at other options in the business, like coaching, administration, scouting, PR, announcing, etc. He can still be part of the sport he loves without being on the field.

People like to spew their opinions on the Internet, and celebrities are - shhh, dont tell anyone - literally people.

One of the only thing I miss about Reddit was their very active Guitar subs. So I Googled Lemmy Guitar to search for some active forums, and was disappointed that all I got were Lemmy Motorhead links.

If anybody knows any active guitar forums on Lemmy, please let me know. The only ones I found are extremely quiet, with days, weeks, or even months between posts. I can’t be the only guitarist on Lemmy, so where are they all hanging out?

Yeah, I get it, guitar is a really hard instrument. I wasn’t starting from scratch during Covid. I was a professional musician as a teen, playing other instruments, and picked up the basics of guitar. I put it aside when I went to college for music history, and then spent many years in the classical music biz.

So I have a very strong music background to draw from. When I picked it up again, it felt like Id never held a guitar before, but I still rembered the chord shapes, and I still had a good grip of music theory. I also have enough musical experience coaching professional musicians that I didn’t need a teacher, I knew what I needed to do to learn this.

On top of all that, the best teachers in the world are on YouTube, so anything I couldn’t figure out on my own, I had plenty of resources to consult.

Despite all of that, the real key was establishing a solid daily practice routine, something I couldn’t do when I was young, in school, working in a record store, partying with friends, and chasing girls. Here’s what I tell new players about practice:

Put your guitar on a stand next to your bed, so it’s the first and last thing you see every day. Play it for about 20 minutes when you first get up, and 20 minutes before going to bed. Then find another 20 minutes sometime during the day.

That will give you 60 minutes per day of sharply focused practice. If you were to practice once a day for an hour, you’d be focused for the first 20 minutes, then your mind starts to wander for the additional 40 minutes. By breaking it up, every minute is focused practice, and you’ll progress much faster. It also gives your fingertips a chance to rest after 20 minutes.

Also, if you miss a session, you only miss one, and you’ll still get 2 others that day. If you only do one long session per day, and you miss it, you miss an entire day of practice, not just 1/3.

If all you do is practice once a day, then you really only get one serious 20 minute practice block each day. So if you do three twenty minute sessions a day, its like jamming 3 days of practice in a single day. At the end of a week, you’ve had 21 days of practice instead of 7. Obviously, your progress will be much, much faster.

So give it a sixth try, but use my practice regimen, and hopefully it will stick this time. Good luck!

I’ve heard that there was a big guitar boom during Covid, but I’ll bet at least 75% moved on. We’re the survivors, and all the better for it. In a couple years, there will probably be a big used market of barely used Covid guitars.

I just wish Lemmy had one single decent guitar forum. Reddit had a bunch, and I was really active in them, but alas, now that they’ve gone MAGA and purged any dissenters, all I can do is lurk, which is frustrating.

We need to revive the sleepy guitar forums on Lemmy.

Cool! Thanks!

Do some mushrooms and go stare at it, and blow your mind.

BLACK socks.

I just wrote about it in a lengthy post, but music has been helping me cope. Find a hobby that can occupy your mind when you start ruminating about concentration camps.

Really? They usually heal pretty fast, you must have injured them badly.

I crack a rib or two about once a decade, just to remind myself I’m still alive. Had my break for the 2020s a few weeks ago, and I’m still feeling it with every deep breath or cough. It’ll go away soon, it always does.

Good luck, brother. Get the nastiest pitbull lawyer you can find, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to fuck over an evil insurance company, which is a very satisfying feeling, trust me.

During Covid, I picked up the guitar again, having given it up decades ago. I didnt expect to play gigs or anything, I just wanted to use the quarantine opportunity to do something positive, and I chose music, over writing a book, learning a language, etc.

Almost five years later, my guitar playing has gotten pretty good, upper intermediate level, and I am good enough to entertain myself, which is all I ever wanted.

What I hadn’t expected was how much of an improvement it would make on my mental health. After being energized by my improving skills, I realized that my mood and self-esteem and confidence were significantly elevated. I am proud of my progress, even if nobody else hears it.

I also realized that I think I’ve been operating under a low-grade depression for a long time, perhaps my entire life. I’ve never addressed it because I thought that was just what life felt like. Once I had a closer look at how much better I could feel, i realized that I haven’t felt “right” for a long time, maybe never. I’m still not sure I know what “right” really feels like.

Now that America has officially gone to Hell, I’m extremely worried about the future (I have a history degree, and am very knowledgeable about politics and history, and know where all of this is leading), but daily, sometimes hourly, doses of music are helping me cope.

I’m a real dummy about modern video games. I was an OG gamer from the 80s, who spent the equivalent of a down payment on a house in quarters, playing Centipede at mall arcades. Later, I got into the early PC shoot-em up games like Quake, Quake 2, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, etc.

But I never got a game console, because I had recognized that I could have a serious problem with video game addiction. Eventually, I stopped playing altogether, especially after I started a business, and had to carve out time in my schedule, and video games and sports had to go. I didnt follow either for about 25 years.

Now I’m semi-retired, and would love to play those old games again, but I don’t really know how to do it on a modern PC. I actually have all my old CD-ROMs, but my computer hasn’t had a CD-ROM drive for years, and Im not going to buy a console.

Is there a way to download Quake and Quake 2, and my other favorites? Where do I go for that?

I know, I’m a gaming idiot, I just spent the last few decades focusing on other stuff.

Supposedly Lincoln said something like “We are as happy as we make up our minds to be,” and whether he said it or not, I’ve adopted that philosophy. I’m not always happy, but even when times are tough, like they are right now, it allows me to still remain optimistic, and not surrender to despair, and give up.

Generally, my tactic is to not engage directly, but address the rest of the audience, essentially pointing at the subject and mocking him (“Can you believe this MAGA Traitor?..”). When he tries to respond, again ignore him, and just point and laugh.

They get really frustrated being made fun of, without having the satisfaction of creating liberal outrage.

I’d prefer America prove it’s strength by doing humanitarian work around the globe rather than crashing the world economy.

Except when it’s true.

That was then, this is now. The Nazis don’t respect the law, nor court decisions, and do whatever the fuck they want. The law no longer exists, and states can do anything they want. If the serial killing insurance companies want to sue over interstate commerce, then the states can simply prohibit them from doing business in the state - problem solved.

Besides, who cares if they sue? Ignore them, ignore the decisions (unless its a win), and do what serves the PEOPLE, not the corporations. Then raise the state corprate taxes to 100% of revenues.

Fuck the corporations, fuck the Sociopathic Oligarchs who own them, and any MAGA Nazi traitor that supports them. They are the enemy, and we have no obligation to do anything that serves their interests in the slightest way.

One way to fight the corporations is to stop worshipping at the altar of blind consumerism, and embrace the concept of “Reuse, Repair, Recycle.”

Stop buying stuff you dont need. Keep using what you have, sell/buy used items, repair things, and if it cant be fixed or repurposed, then recycle it.

Repairing things is a big one. Often repairs are remarkably easy. My wife has been ready to replace numerous appliances over the years, and I figured it was worth taking a shot at fixing it, if I can save a few hundred bucks, and successfully extended the life by years.

Very satisfying, and it forces your wife to rethink her conclusion that you are an incompetent dolt.

Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too. The Nazis have killed USAID, and we are locked in a Civil War at home. The rest of the world is going to have to excuse us for the next few years.

Just being “alive.” We become alive, some sort of “spark of life” pulses through us, and at some point, that “spark” leaves us, and we are nothing more than a rock. What is that “spark?”

Everything is either animate of inanimate, so how did things become animate? At some point, something had to get that “spark,” and become alive, then spread that life around. How did/does that happen?

Is this “spark” unique to Earth, or is is possible to exist elsewhere? Did some nearly impossible combination of factors all happen to line up and cause “life” to emerge, like a room full of monkeys randomly typing Hamlet, or do those factors exist in other places?

Of course, many people would assign a religious explanation to that “spark,” our Soul or whatever, but that’s just making up a silly story to explain something we don’t understand.