December 11, 2025 • 17 mins
We break down the hidden skills that make guitar progress stick: deep listening, patience, consistency, mindset, and confidence. Then we connect theory and fretboard knowledge to real musicality so you can play with certainty and stop getting lost in songs.
• multi‑level listening for chords, intervals, dynamics, and structure
• mapping songs mentally from intro to solo to breaks
• long‑term vs short‑term practice planning
• daily consistency over marathon sessions
• mindset choices when frustration hits
• building confidence pillars for different styles
• dropping harmful comparisons to online players
• linking theory and fretboard knowledge to real musicality
Check out the Guitar Zoom Academy and have a conversation with me or one of my other instructors. We can tell you all about this and how it works and what we can do for you and how we could work together
Links:
Check out the GuitarZoom Academy:
https://academy.guitarzoom.com/
- Steve’s Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/stinemus...
- GuitarZoom Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/guitarz0...
- Songs Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/GuitarSo... .
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steve (01:11):
Hey everybody, Steve Stine from Guitar Zoom Academy
here.
Today I thought it'd be nice totalk about a couple of
different things for you tothink about.
Some skills that I want you tothink about developing that have
nothing to do with technique.
Okay.
The first thing I want to talkto you about is learning how to
listen.
And this is multiple levels oflearning how to listen.
(01:31):
There's the obvious learninghow to train your ear to hear
chords, to hear major, minor,hear intervals, different kinds
of things like that.
Hear chord progressions, youknow, there's all kinds of
different things in thelistening environment in terms
of theory, in terms of, youknow, listening to somebody play
(01:54):
and then being able to identifywith what it is that they're
playing and uh anticipatethrough understanding music
theory and things like that,what might be the next chord.
You know, you're in the key ofG and you know one, two, you
know, one, four, five is majorand two, three, six is minor,
and that sort of thing.
But the other thing I want youto think about when it comes to
listening is understandingdynamics.
(02:16):
Listen for dynamics.
Listen for changes that youryour band might be giving you in
terms of the approach thatyou're gonna take to your
playing.
You know, maybe you're playinga little softer or something
like that.
Also think about listening interms of song structures.
Sometimes people struggle withplaying songs like memorizing
(02:37):
things, uh, you know, memorizingdifferent songs and stuff like
that.
And one of the things you gotto get used to is spending more
time on the front side listeningto the songs, thinking about
their structures, thinking abouthow a song moves from the intro
to the verse to the bridge, youknow, analyzing whether or not
there's anything about thatparticular song that might be
(02:59):
giving you any issues.
You know, you don't identifythose things when you're just
listening to the song.
Sometimes you do, but sometimesit's after you're done
listening to it and you thinkabout it and you're like, well,
if I was sitting here right nowand I wanted to think about that
song, kind of driving throughthat song, so to speak, can I
drive through it clearly?
Or are there certain partswhere I tend to get lost?
(03:21):
Oh, I forgot there's a there'sa break there, or I forgot um I
don't play here, or I forgotthere's a solo there, or
whatever it might be.
So there are so many aspects tolistening that you can work on
when you're not around yourguitar.
You know, oftentimes when I'mdriving, I'll spend, you know,
that's when I'll listen to songsand things like that and start
(03:42):
developing plans in my mind ofhow the song goes, how the
structure goes, not chords andall that sort of thing, just
kind of overarching what it whatis the song.
Then I can get to the thedetails of that song.
What am I hearing?
Am I hearing major chords orminor chords or a certain chord
progression or something likethat?
Or, you know, does the songrequire more melody in a solo,
(04:06):
or is it more of a groove thing?
There's so many things that youcan do on a listening level
that can be very beneficial toyou that don't just require you
to put your hands on the guitar.
Okay, another thing I want youto think about is developing
patience, patience with yourpractice, patience with you
know, yourself and grace, givingyourself a little bit of you
(04:30):
know, grace when you'repracticing and when you're
learning, and not just expectingthat things are going to move a
certain way when you'repracticing.
Sometimes things take time.
And so having patience inpractice, you know, when I when
I talk to people about theacademy, one of the things we
talk about is the importance ofunderstanding that we develop
(04:51):
long-term game plans, and thenwe have short-term kind of, it's
like slicing throughmulti-layers of long-term game
plans, long-term skilldevelopment, long-term theory,
long-term uh fretboarddevelopment, these sorts of
things.
You know, things that are goingto take time.
And then being able to slicethrough all that, kind of like
(05:12):
just taking a piece of cake out,and then developing these
things in a short term so we canactually use them to learn how
to develop confidence and skillsets that we can use right now
to jam with other people orwhatever it might be.
But all of these things thatwe're talking about, you've got
to give yourself a level ofgrace and you've got to give
(05:33):
yourself the ability of havingpatience with the development of
these things.
Some things take time, somethings we can bat out really
quick, and that's great, butsome things take time, and
that's what that's somethingthat we got to get used to.
Another thing to think about isconsistency.
Okay, I always tell peoplepractice on the days that you
eat.
And the reason I say that isnot just to be funny, but
(05:55):
because that consistency is whatgets you where you want to go.
Practicing two or three times aweek is great, but in all
honesty, in my personal opinion,I'd rather have you practice a
little less every day andpractice every day instead of
just practicing, you know, likethree hours one day and then you
take four days off.
It's that consistency that'svery important.
(06:16):
You need to keep your thoughtprocesses fresh.
You need to keep rethinkingabout that.
When you go to bed, you know,things kind of reset in your
mind.
You know, you need to be ableto get up and hit that again and
re-remind yourself, oh, this iswhat I was doing, or this is
how this goes, or this is howthis feels, or whatever that
that might be.
And so the consistency of notonly the practice, but the
(06:38):
consistency of the thoughtprocess and thinking through
things, right?
How something goes, whatsomething looks like, what
something sounds like.
Again, that listening thing wewere talking about, but coming
back to that on a regular basisis very important.
The other thing I want you tothink about is just proper
mindset.
Okay.
Not every day is great.
(07:01):
Some days suck.
You know, some days when youpractice, you get really
frustrated.
You have to be okay with that.
You have to have a positivemindset that even on those
frustrating days, you'remotivated, you're excited.
Okay.
It doesn't mean that it's it'suh emotions sometimes have less
to do with productivity thanthan you might think.
(07:24):
And so, you know, just becauseyou're having a frustrating day
doesn't mean that it can't bemotivating to you.
Sometimes when I'm frustrated,I have a better day.
It's just I, in terms of itsproductivity, maybe I don't feel
like something is comingtogether, but I'm in the
trenches, I'm in the in the mud,and I'm doing the work.
And sometimes that's reallyimportant, even though I, you
(07:47):
know, I'm frustrated that daysomething isn't working the way
that I want it to.
The goal is I don't give up.
I have a couple of options.
Either I dive deeper into thatto figure out what I need to do
or how to develop something, orI might need to step away from
it and take another approach.
Maybe that day is a good day todo this instead of this.
(08:07):
You know, I always tell peoplethat there's a significant
difference between being smartwith your time and being lazy.
Lazy says I don't want to dothis, so I'm not gonna do it.
Smart means I really want to dothis, but it's not productive
today.
I'm it I'm not feeling it.
It's not working today.
So instead of just going to warwith it, what I'd rather do is
(08:28):
sidestep it for today and workon something else that I am
feeling.
These are the two options youalways have.
You either don't say that andyou go in head first because you
need to attack this thing andyou need to develop it.
You see, that's where thathaving that proper mindset is
really important.
Um, but the other thing isthere's days when it might be
(08:48):
more productive to move awayfrom that and try something
else.
I always think like some daysare more technically, you know,
the some days are better for meto attack my technique and
things like that.
A, I'm in the right mindset, B,it's really necessary.
Like all those things are areare true.
But there are some days when Imight decide that today isn't a
(09:14):
good technique day, even thoughI wish it was.
Today is going to be a creativeday, or today I'm gonna explore
my fretboard more, or today I'mgonna study more theory, or you
know, whatever it might be.
There's there's a there's a tonof different kinds of
approaches that I can take.
But I think what happens a lotof times is when people think
about practice, it's veryone-dimensional.
Like, you know, I wake up andI, you know, practice this
(09:35):
exercise and I do this.
Again, nothing wrong with that.
I'm not saying that that'sright or wrong.
I'm just I'm just sayingsometimes it doesn't fit in the
box, and you have to thinkoutside that box and go, what do
I need to work on today thatwould be equally as productive,
but in a different way.
Okay.
Another thing would beconfidence, developing
confidence in yourself.
(09:56):
Okay oftentimes I tell studentsthat there's there's more value
in quality than there is inquantity.
Just because you know a lot oftheory or you know a lot of
skills or something, and again,all of that is good.
I'm not saying any of it is isbad.
I'm just saying if you had lessof those things, but when you
(10:18):
went to play, it you play withconfidence, you play with
absolution in your ability ofbeing able to do the things that
you're doing.
Maybe you don't know as much assomebody else, or maybe your
fingers don't move as fast assomebody else.
Again, those are personalthings, long-term, short-term,
all that kind of stuff that wewe develop.
(10:39):
But, you know, if we if wethink about a BB King or a David
Gilmore or an Eric Clapton orof again, it whatever it is you
like, it doesn't matter who itis.
Some people have a little moreof this skill than other people,
and some people have a littlebit more of this ability than
somebody else, whatever it mightbe.
(10:59):
It isn't a contest of just howsmart you are or how fast you
are or whatever these thingsare.
It's how how confident are youin the skills that you've got,
because you do have time tocontinue to develop more skills
or enhance the skills that youalready have.
But the goal is to developconfidence in yourself, develop
(11:21):
this absolute confidence inyourself.
So when you get around othermusicians or you jump up on
stage, you don't feel terrifiedbecause you you you you don't
have confidence in yourabilities.
You know, every day I wake up,there are a million things that
I could get better at as aguitar player, and I'm gonna do
that, okay?
But I can't just focus on thatand only that.
(11:43):
What I need to focus on is myability of being able to deal
with a particular situation,okay, and develop my confidence
in that particular situation.
So if I'm gonna jam with someguys that are, you know, or some
players that are gonna be morerock, what kind of skill set do
(12:03):
I have to work with that?
Or if I'm gonna develop, if I'mgonna go jam with some people
that are playing a little bitmore jazz, what what is my skill
set of being able to do that?
And so if I can build thesepillars of confidence, I can
work with that and I can go outand actually live in the real
world and play with otherpeople.
See, that's really important.
Again, the long-term plays, I'mgonna keep getting better at
(12:27):
these things.
But I always tell people, youknow, what I don't want you to
do is wait until you develop allof these long-term plays before
you finally get out in the realworld and start making music
with other musicians becauseyou're gonna be dead by then.
The guitar is a never-endingstream of information and
opportunity.
It just never ends.
There's so many things we coulddo on the guitar.
(12:48):
We can't wait until all of thatis done before we go, okay, now
I'm ready.
Now I know everything.
You can't do that.
You see, that's why thatlong-term and short-term thing
is so important.
Okay.
The other thing that I want youto think about is just being
careful with letting go ofcomparisons.
Okay.
To live in a world where you'reconstantly comparing yourself
(13:11):
to 50 billion people on YouTubeand all this sort of thing is
not productive.
If you find that it'smotivating to you to do certain
things like that, I think that'swonderful.
But if you're just alwaysthinking you're not good enough,
you always have to remindyourself some of these people
that you're seeing A, have beenplaying forever, right?
Or had opportunities where theycould practice way more than
(13:32):
you ever could, um, or were in asituation where, you know,
their family or theirsurroundings or their financial
means or a million other thingscould make this more viable for
them.
Again, I have no idea.
I'm just saying the problem isthe comparison thing can be very
detrimental to you becauseyou're always thinking you're
not good enough.
And being someone who hasposted a lot of social media
(13:55):
stuff myself, I know, you know,you're seeing the best of what
we have when we post things.
We're not posting our terriblepractices.
We're not posting our terribleperformances, right?
We don't want you to see allthat stuff.
We want you to see the best ofthe stuff.
So you, you know, you might bewatching take number 18, where
(14:15):
the first 17 were terrible,right?
So now you're thinking, oh man,it's just, you know, that guy
can just whatever.
Again, I'm not saying thatsometimes, you know, wonderful
things don't happenspontaneously the first time.
I'm just saying in the realworld, everybody practices, even
the people that you look up to.
You got to spend time with it,you got to keep working on these
(14:37):
things, and they need to do thesame thing as well.
So give yourself a girl somegrace again.
You know, don't worry aboutthat comparison so much.
So, anyway, I just wanted tokind of get you in the right
mindset of some other things tothink about when it comes to
practice, when it comes to uhpreparing yourself for practice,
or even maybe practice.
This is the practice, right?
(14:57):
It isn't just grabbing yourguitar, but it's it's all these
other things that you could bedoing to get yourself ready.
Um, you know, think of guitaras layers, like there's the
skill set, the actual executionof things on the guitar that
requires your fingers on thefretboard.
That's what it is.
But then there's fretboarddevelopment and fretboard
(15:18):
comprehension.
How do things work?
How do things connect?
All that kind of stuff.
And then there's theory.
How do things work?
How, what, what, what is this?
How does this relate to this?
What are these things?
And for me, most importantly,from there is how does that
stuff relate to me and what I doon the fretboard?
(15:38):
Not just theory is theory, so Iunderstand this stuff and so
I'm smart and all that sort ofthing.
That's great.
But if it's not feeding yourguitar playing, if it's not
feeding your journey, what is itdoing?
Is it just information out herethat makes us smart?
And again, that's okay ifthat's true, but wouldn't it be
(16:00):
great if that information wasactually practical and it
actually made us make, you know,comprehend what we're doing
more?
Wouldn't that be even morebeneficial?
I call it real world theory,practical, real things that we
can use.
Whether we're playing overblues or rock or country or
metal or jazz or major or minoror whatever it might be, what's
(16:21):
some things that we can do touse that theory in a real way?
See, those are multi-layers.
And then for me, the the finallayer is musicality, creativity.
Okay, not just scales and solosand triads and arpeggios and
intervals and again, all goodstuff.
But the music isn't there.
Those are those are vehicles toget us to the music, but the
(16:43):
music inherently isn't there.
It's our ability to take all ofthis stuff and squeeze music
out of these opportunities.
That's a that's a thing youhave to learn as well.
You know, just because you'regetting smarter and you're
learning more skills doesn'tmean you have more musicality.
It just means you have a lot ofopportunities for musicality
because you understand thesethings, but you still got to
(17:04):
figure out how to actuallycreate the music.
So these are things I just wantyou to think about.
All right.
If you would be interested inexploring this stuff more, you
can always check out the GuitarZoom Academy and have a
conversation with me or one ofmy other instructors.
We can tell you all about thisand how it works and what we can
do for you and how we couldwork together.
All right.
So stay positive, keeppracticing, and I'll talk to you
(17:25):
soon.
Hey everybody, Steve Stine from Guitar Zoom Academy
here.
Today I thought it'd be nice totalk about a couple of
different things for you tothink about.
Some skills that I want you tothink about developing that have
nothing to do with technique.
Okay.
The first thing I want to talkto you about is learning how to
listen.
And this is multiple levels oflearning how to listen.
(01:31):
There's the obvious learninghow to train your ear to hear
chords, to hear major, minor,hear intervals, different kinds
of things like that.
Hear chord progressions, youknow, there's all kinds of
different things in thelistening environment in terms
of theory, in terms of, youknow, listening to somebody play
(01:54):
and then being able to identifywith what it is that they're
playing and uh anticipatethrough understanding music
theory and things like that,what might be the next chord.
You know, you're in the key ofG and you know one, two, you
know, one, four, five is majorand two, three, six is minor,
and that sort of thing.
But the other thing I want youto think about when it comes to
listening is understandingdynamics.
(02:16):
Listen for dynamics.
Listen for changes that youryour band might be giving you in
terms of the approach thatyou're gonna take to your
playing.
You know, maybe you're playinga little softer or something
like that.
Also think about listening interms of song structures.
Sometimes people struggle withplaying songs like memorizing
(02:37):
things, uh, you know, memorizingdifferent songs and stuff like
that.
And one of the things you gotto get used to is spending more
time on the front side listeningto the songs, thinking about
their structures, thinking abouthow a song moves from the intro
to the verse to the bridge, youknow, analyzing whether or not
there's anything about thatparticular song that might be
(02:59):
giving you any issues.
You know, you don't identifythose things when you're just
listening to the song.
Sometimes you do, but sometimesit's after you're done
listening to it and you thinkabout it and you're like, well,
if I was sitting here right nowand I wanted to think about that
song, kind of driving throughthat song, so to speak, can I
drive through it clearly?
Or are there certain partswhere I tend to get lost?
(03:21):
Oh, I forgot there's a there'sa break there, or I forgot um I
don't play here, or I forgotthere's a solo there, or
whatever it might be.
So there are so many aspects tolistening that you can work on
when you're not around yourguitar.
You know, oftentimes when I'mdriving, I'll spend, you know,
that's when I'll listen to songsand things like that and start
(03:42):
developing plans in my mind ofhow the song goes, how the
structure goes, not chords andall that sort of thing, just
kind of overarching what it whatis the song.
Then I can get to the thedetails of that song.
What am I hearing?
Am I hearing major chords orminor chords or a certain chord
progression or something likethat?
Or, you know, does the songrequire more melody in a solo,
(04:06):
or is it more of a groove thing?
There's so many things that youcan do on a listening level
that can be very beneficial toyou that don't just require you
to put your hands on the guitar.
Okay, another thing I want youto think about is developing
patience, patience with yourpractice, patience with you
know, yourself and grace, givingyourself a little bit of you
(04:30):
know, grace when you'repracticing and when you're
learning, and not just expectingthat things are going to move a
certain way when you'repracticing.
Sometimes things take time.
And so having patience inpractice, you know, when I when
I talk to people about theacademy, one of the things we
talk about is the importance ofunderstanding that we develop
(04:51):
long-term game plans, and thenwe have short-term kind of, it's
like slicing throughmulti-layers of long-term game
plans, long-term skilldevelopment, long-term theory,
long-term uh fretboarddevelopment, these sorts of
things.
You know, things that are goingto take time.
And then being able to slicethrough all that, kind of like
(05:12):
just taking a piece of cake out,and then developing these
things in a short term so we canactually use them to learn how
to develop confidence and skillsets that we can use right now
to jam with other people orwhatever it might be.
But all of these things thatwe're talking about, you've got
to give yourself a level ofgrace and you've got to give
(05:33):
yourself the ability of havingpatience with the development of
these things.
Some things take time, somethings we can bat out really
quick, and that's great, butsome things take time, and
that's what that's somethingthat we got to get used to.
Another thing to think about isconsistency.
Okay, I always tell peoplepractice on the days that you
eat.
And the reason I say that isnot just to be funny, but
(05:55):
because that consistency is whatgets you where you want to go.
Practicing two or three times aweek is great, but in all
honesty, in my personal opinion,I'd rather have you practice a
little less every day andpractice every day instead of
just practicing, you know, likethree hours one day and then you
take four days off.
It's that consistency that'svery important.
(06:16):
You need to keep your thoughtprocesses fresh.
You need to keep rethinkingabout that.
When you go to bed, you know,things kind of reset in your
mind.
You know, you need to be ableto get up and hit that again and
re-remind yourself, oh, this iswhat I was doing, or this is
how this goes, or this is howthis feels, or whatever that
that might be.
And so the consistency of notonly the practice, but the
(06:38):
consistency of the thoughtprocess and thinking through
things, right?
How something goes, whatsomething looks like, what
something sounds like.
Again, that listening thing wewere talking about, but coming
back to that on a regular basisis very important.
The other thing I want you tothink about is just proper
mindset.
Okay.
Not every day is great.
(07:01):
Some days suck.
You know, some days when youpractice, you get really
frustrated.
You have to be okay with that.
You have to have a positivemindset that even on those
frustrating days, you'remotivated, you're excited.
Okay.
It doesn't mean that it's it'suh emotions sometimes have less
to do with productivity thanthan you might think.
(07:24):
And so, you know, just becauseyou're having a frustrating day
doesn't mean that it can't bemotivating to you.
Sometimes when I'm frustrated,I have a better day.
It's just I, in terms of itsproductivity, maybe I don't feel
like something is comingtogether, but I'm in the
trenches, I'm in the in the mud,and I'm doing the work.
And sometimes that's reallyimportant, even though I, you
(07:47):
know, I'm frustrated that daysomething isn't working the way
that I want it to.
The goal is I don't give up.
I have a couple of options.
Either I dive deeper into thatto figure out what I need to do
or how to develop something, orI might need to step away from
it and take another approach.
Maybe that day is a good day todo this instead of this.
(08:07):
You know, I always tell peoplethat there's a significant
difference between being smartwith your time and being lazy.
Lazy says I don't want to dothis, so I'm not gonna do it.
Smart means I really want to dothis, but it's not productive
today.
I'm it I'm not feeling it.
It's not working today.
So instead of just going to warwith it, what I'd rather do is
(08:28):
sidestep it for today and workon something else that I am
feeling.
These are the two options youalways have.
You either don't say that andyou go in head first because you
need to attack this thing andyou need to develop it.
You see, that's where thathaving that proper mindset is
really important.
Um, but the other thing isthere's days when it might be
(08:48):
more productive to move awayfrom that and try something
else.
I always think like some daysare more technically, you know,
the some days are better for meto attack my technique and
things like that.
A, I'm in the right mindset, B,it's really necessary.
Like all those things are areare true.
But there are some days when Imight decide that today isn't a
(09:14):
good technique day, even thoughI wish it was.
Today is going to be a creativeday, or today I'm gonna explore
my fretboard more, or today I'mgonna study more theory, or you
know, whatever it might be.
There's there's a there's a tonof different kinds of
approaches that I can take.
But I think what happens a lotof times is when people think
about practice, it's veryone-dimensional.
Like, you know, I wake up andI, you know, practice this
(09:35):
exercise and I do this.
Again, nothing wrong with that.
I'm not saying that that'sright or wrong.
I'm just I'm just sayingsometimes it doesn't fit in the
box, and you have to thinkoutside that box and go, what do
I need to work on today thatwould be equally as productive,
but in a different way.
Okay.
Another thing would beconfidence, developing
confidence in yourself.
(09:56):
Okay oftentimes I tell studentsthat there's there's more value
in quality than there is inquantity.
Just because you know a lot oftheory or you know a lot of
skills or something, and again,all of that is good.
I'm not saying any of it is isbad.
I'm just saying if you had lessof those things, but when you
(10:18):
went to play, it you play withconfidence, you play with
absolution in your ability ofbeing able to do the things that
you're doing.
Maybe you don't know as much assomebody else, or maybe your
fingers don't move as fast assomebody else.
Again, those are personalthings, long-term, short-term,
all that kind of stuff that wewe develop.
(10:39):
But, you know, if we if wethink about a BB King or a David
Gilmore or an Eric Clapton orof again, it whatever it is you
like, it doesn't matter who itis.
Some people have a little moreof this skill than other people,
and some people have a littlebit more of this ability than
somebody else, whatever it mightbe.
(10:59):
It isn't a contest of just howsmart you are or how fast you
are or whatever these thingsare.
It's how how confident are youin the skills that you've got,
because you do have time tocontinue to develop more skills
or enhance the skills that youalready have.
But the goal is to developconfidence in yourself, develop
(11:21):
this absolute confidence inyourself.
So when you get around othermusicians or you jump up on
stage, you don't feel terrifiedbecause you you you you don't
have confidence in yourabilities.
You know, every day I wake up,there are a million things that
I could get better at as aguitar player, and I'm gonna do
that, okay?
But I can't just focus on thatand only that.
(11:43):
What I need to focus on is myability of being able to deal
with a particular situation,okay, and develop my confidence
in that particular situation.
So if I'm gonna jam with someguys that are, you know, or some
players that are gonna be morerock, what kind of skill set do
(12:03):
I have to work with that?
Or if I'm gonna develop, if I'mgonna go jam with some people
that are playing a little bitmore jazz, what what is my skill
set of being able to do that?
And so if I can build thesepillars of confidence, I can
work with that and I can go outand actually live in the real
world and play with otherpeople.
See, that's really important.
Again, the long-term plays, I'mgonna keep getting better at
(12:27):
these things.
But I always tell people, youknow, what I don't want you to
do is wait until you develop allof these long-term plays before
you finally get out in the realworld and start making music
with other musicians becauseyou're gonna be dead by then.
The guitar is a never-endingstream of information and
opportunity.
It just never ends.
There's so many things we coulddo on the guitar.
(12:48):
We can't wait until all of thatis done before we go, okay, now
I'm ready.
Now I know everything.
You can't do that.
You see, that's why thatlong-term and short-term thing
is so important.
Okay.
The other thing that I want youto think about is just being
careful with letting go ofcomparisons.
Okay.
To live in a world where you'reconstantly comparing yourself
(13:11):
to 50 billion people on YouTubeand all this sort of thing is
not productive.
If you find that it'smotivating to you to do certain
things like that, I think that'swonderful.
But if you're just alwaysthinking you're not good enough,
you always have to remindyourself some of these people
that you're seeing A, have beenplaying forever, right?
Or had opportunities where theycould practice way more than
(13:32):
you ever could, um, or were in asituation where, you know,
their family or theirsurroundings or their financial
means or a million other thingscould make this more viable for
them.
Again, I have no idea.
I'm just saying the problem isthe comparison thing can be very
detrimental to you becauseyou're always thinking you're
not good enough.
And being someone who hasposted a lot of social media
(13:55):
stuff myself, I know, you know,you're seeing the best of what
we have when we post things.
We're not posting our terriblepractices.
We're not posting our terribleperformances, right?
We don't want you to see allthat stuff.
We want you to see the best ofthe stuff.
So you, you know, you might bewatching take number 18, where
(14:15):
the first 17 were terrible,right?
So now you're thinking, oh man,it's just, you know, that guy
can just whatever.
Again, I'm not saying thatsometimes, you know, wonderful
things don't happenspontaneously the first time.
I'm just saying in the realworld, everybody practices, even
the people that you look up to.
You got to spend time with it,you got to keep working on these
(14:37):
things, and they need to do thesame thing as well.
So give yourself a girl somegrace again.
You know, don't worry aboutthat comparison so much.
So, anyway, I just wanted tokind of get you in the right
mindset of some other things tothink about when it comes to
practice, when it comes to uhpreparing yourself for practice,
or even maybe practice.
This is the practice, right?
(14:57):
It isn't just grabbing yourguitar, but it's it's all these
other things that you could bedoing to get yourself ready.
Um, you know, think of guitaras layers, like there's the
skill set, the actual executionof things on the guitar that
requires your fingers on thefretboard.
That's what it is.
But then there's fretboarddevelopment and fretboard
(15:18):
comprehension.
How do things work?
How do things connect?
All that kind of stuff.
And then there's theory.
How do things work?
How, what, what, what is this?
How does this relate to this?
What are these things?
And for me, most importantly,from there is how does that
stuff relate to me and what I doon the fretboard?
(15:38):
Not just theory is theory, so Iunderstand this stuff and so
I'm smart and all that sort ofthing.
That's great.
But if it's not feeding yourguitar playing, if it's not
feeding your journey, what is itdoing?
Is it just information out herethat makes us smart?
And again, that's okay ifthat's true, but wouldn't it be
(16:00):
great if that information wasactually practical and it
actually made us make, you know,comprehend what we're doing
more?
Wouldn't that be even morebeneficial?
I call it real world theory,practical, real things that we
can use.
Whether we're playing overblues or rock or country or
metal or jazz or major or minoror whatever it might be, what's
(16:21):
some things that we can do touse that theory in a real way?
See, those are multi-layers.
And then for me, the the finallayer is musicality, creativity.
Okay, not just scales and solosand triads and arpeggios and
intervals and again, all goodstuff.
But the music isn't there.
Those are those are vehicles toget us to the music, but the
(16:43):
music inherently isn't there.
It's our ability to take all ofthis stuff and squeeze music
out of these opportunities.
That's a that's a thing youhave to learn as well.
You know, just because you'regetting smarter and you're
learning more skills doesn'tmean you have more musicality.
It just means you have a lot ofopportunities for musicality
because you understand thesethings, but you still got to
(17:04):
figure out how to actuallycreate the music.
So these are things I just wantyou to think about.
All right.
If you would be interested inexploring this stuff more, you
can always check out the GuitarZoom Academy and have a
conversation with me or one ofmy other instructors.
We can tell you all about thisand how it works and what we can
do for you and how we couldwork together.
All right.
So stay positive, keeppracticing, and I'll talk to you
(17:25):
soon.
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