August 28, 2025 • 12 mins
Two pivotal moments almost made me quit playing guitar – These challenges taught me valuable lessons about persistence, plateaus, and reconnecting with passion after difficult times.
• Progress isn't linear – plateaus are normal and require persistence
• Practice consistently but efficiently – "practice on the days that you eat"
• Balance learning new challenging skills with things you can already do well
• Life circumstances like grief can temporarily disconnect you from playing
• Think of your guitar as a friend you want to talk to daily
• Set realistic, progressive goals to move forward efficiently with your playing
• At 55, I'm mindful of making the most of my time with guitar
If you're struggling with your guitar journey and need guidance, check out the GuitarZoom Academy. We can help you move from where you are to where you want to go.
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.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right.
So today we're going to betalking about the day I almost
quit playing guitar, and there'sactually two days I'm going to
talk about, or two lifeinstances, if you will.
One was a skill and one was alife situation, and so let's
start with the skill one.
So I'm hoping that this willkind of identify with some of
you in terms of, a frustrationsyou have in your life and, b how
(00:25):
to continue, even though thestruggle sometimes seems really
really frustrating and at timeseven overwhelming.
So number one was when I was akid, learning how to play again,
born in 1970.
So I started playing in theearly 80s.
Growing up in Fargo, northDakota, there wasn't a lot of
guitar instruction.
You know people you could go tothat sort of thing.
(00:45):
So basically and this was rightbefore guitar magazines started
becoming really popular Now Idid use guitar magazines and
stuff like that later on to helpme kind of learn a little bit
as best you can with, you know,trying to read.
You know songs and whatever itmight be.
But in the early days, you know, I learned how to play some
(01:05):
chords out of a book.
I would go to my local guitarstore and you know they would
show me little things here andthere, whatever it was, but
mostly it was ear training, likeI would put on records and try
and learn the beginnings tosongs.
You know this was back wouldhave been like Back in Black
Diary of a Madman by Ozzy DefLeppard, high and Dry not High
(01:28):
Romania, but High and Dry, someof those albums.
That's where I started tryingto kind of cut my teeth on
learning how to play by ear.
Now how much of it was right, Ihave no idea.
I mean, I'm sure some of it wasin the ballpark, who knows.
But I do remember beingintroduced to bar chords and not
understanding major or minorand what major was or minor was
(01:50):
or anything of the sort, justtrying to get that stupid bar to
press across all six strings.
And you know I've learned G andC and different things like
that and I had some single notepicking skills and whatever.
But these bar chords were.
You know, I played power chordsbut bar chords were new to me
and I started trying to play thesix string bar chord.
Again, I can't remember if itwas major or minor, maybe it was
(02:12):
both, but I could not get thatbar to press on all six strings.
Now, when I teach bar chords topeople, there has never been a
student that I've had that takesas long as it did for me to
learn how to play bar chords.
Now I like to credit myself alittle bit that I'm involved in
that and maybe I can help them alittle bit more on, you know,
(02:32):
wrist placement and elbow andhow to bar and all that kind of
stuff where I didn't have anyguidance on that.
But I couldn't do it, like Icouldn't play it, and I got so
frustrated with guitar playing.
You know I could do these otherthings but I couldn't do the
bar and it made me want to quitplaying guitar, like I just I I
hit a wall and I couldn't breakthrough that wall with these
(02:55):
stupid bar chords and you know Istarted getting so frustrated
that I just wanted to be doneplaying guitar.
And the long and short of thestory is that I continued
playing these bar chords,practicing them, couldn't get
them, couldn't get them,couldn't get them, couldn't get
them.
And then all of a sudden oneday I grabbed the guitar.
(03:15):
I came home from school, Igrabbed the guitar and I could
do it and there it was, and itprobably took me two months.
I mean I don't know how long ittook me.
It was persistence.
Thank God I didn't stop playingbefore I actually got there.
But I often, you know, tellpeople when you're learning how
to play something like theguitar, it's not like every day
(03:38):
is better than the last day.
It's not always that way, maybeholistically, or, you know, in
your motivation, or somethinglike that.
But certain skills they justrequire repetition and time.
If you're doing it right, ifyou're doing it the most optimal
way.
Now I guarantee you that I wasnot doing the bar chord the most
optimal way, you know, movingmy elbow in a little bit,
(04:00):
turning my wrist a little bit,using more of the side of my
finger than the front of myfinger, all of those kind of
things.
You know, it wasn't a concept Iwas even thinking about.
I was just trying to make thestupid thing.
But once I was able to make it,I was able to go back and start
thinking about why it was thatI was able to do it versus not
being able to do it before.
And, to be completely honestwith you, that was a pivotal
(04:23):
moment in me wanting to learnhow to teach guitar.
Down the road is because I hadthis analysis revelation in my
mind of how I was able to do itfrom a point of not being able
to do it prior.
My earlier point was thisplateau thing.
So sometimes what happens withguitar playing?
You know you're using ametronome, you're trying to work
(04:45):
on a particular technique andit doesn't feel like it's going
anywhere.
It's just sitting there doingthe same thing over and over and
over and over and you'regetting really, really
frustrated and then all of asudden you can do it, but you
gotta outlast the plateau.
And again, if you think thatevery time you grab the guitar
today's gonna be better thanyesterday, today is not always
gonna be better than yesterday.
(05:06):
Sometimes you're gonna strugglewith that and you have to get
used to that.
Now you don't want every singlething that you're doing on the
guitar to be that much of astruggle every single day,
because then it would probablyget overwhelming.
You know this is why you wantto build small things and then
bring in new things, so youmight be building these chords.
Therefore, you're playing thesesongs and you're feeling the
(05:28):
forward motion in these songs.
You know, maybe they're notperfect, all that kind of stuff,
but you can feel that there'sforward motion.
And then there's something elseover here that you're working
on, that you're not feeling thatforward motion like my bar
chords were, and that's okay.
Again, you're going to bepersistent and you're going to
be consistent on it and continueto try and develop that until
you can get past that.
(05:49):
So, long-term, short-term, it'svery important to think about
that and organize what it isthat you're working on.
Are you working on the bestthings that you could be doing
at this moment to get to whereyou want to be, right, or are
you just kind of working onrandom things all over the place
?
You know, because you watchthis video and somebody showed
you this thing, and so youreally don't have any sort of
(06:10):
game plan, you really don't haveany sort of direction, you're
just all over the place.
Well, that can get reallyfrustrating too.
So the next thing for me andthis has happened a couple of
times in my life is just you,life situations that happen and
you, you wind up getting veryoverwhelmed by stress, um, you
(06:31):
know, anxiety or work orwhatever it might be, and for me
, work has never been a bigissue, simply because I was
always able to fit in time.
I always tell people practice onthe days that you eat.
Yeah, I'd rather have youpracticing 10 or 15 minutes a
day than none.
You know, some people have anall or nothing attitude.
I try not to allow people to dothat.
(06:53):
I would rather you pick it upevery single day for a little
while and make actual progress,work on things that you actually
need to be working on, asopposed to just grabbing it and
kind of noodling on the guitaror something like that or
practicing things that aren'tnecessary.
It's hard to make progress thatway.
It's hard to see forward motionwhen you do that.
But sometimes life is biggerthan that.
(07:14):
Sometimes you get intosituations where you're dealing
with life struggles.
You know my dad passing away.
There was a while there when mydad was sick and before he
passed away then I didn't pickup the guitar for a while and
then when he did pass away, Iwas actually there when he
passed away.
It was a pretty traumaticsituation and I did not go
(07:36):
straight to my guitar.
That is not what I did, and soit took a while to build that
relationship back.
And there's been othersituations in my life where
that's happened, where you knowthey're just profound situations
that happen in your life, butyou've got to find a way back to
the things that you love.
When something you know bad ishappening in your life, you've
got to find a way back to thepeople, back to the, you know,
(07:58):
situations that that make youconnect, reconnect with, uh, the
things that made you feel good.
And so for me, you know, aftermy dad passed away, it was
definitely something that I hadto come back to, obviously, but
it's not like that was on theforefront of my mind was well, I
got to get my 15 minutes in.
That was the last thing on mymind.
And so, you know, after timepassed and I came back, of
(08:21):
course everything was fine, andit's not like I lost all my
skills or anything like that.
I did not.
I just reconnected and startedworking again.
And there's been other times inmy life that that's happened,
and this probably happened toyou too.
I'm just saying don't, you know,put the bike in the shed and
forget that it exists, like ifyou got to get off the bike for
a while and do something else,that's fine, but then jump back
(08:42):
on and if you're in a good space, try and stay on that.
You know I always tell peoplelike the guitar, think of the
guitar as being like your friend.
You know you want to developthat relationship to where you
want to talk to that that friendon a daily basis, because it
makes you feel good.
Even when it's frustrating, itstill makes you feel good.
And so for me that's what theguitar is and hopefully for you
(09:04):
it's the same thing.
You're going to get frustratedwith certain skills or certain
things that you're learning onthe guitar.
Don't get that to be soconsuming that you don't work on
anything else, because then itcould become very overwhelming
and then life itself oftentimescan become overwhelming and you
might have to take a little timeoff and that's okay.
Just ease back into it, get toknow your friend again.
You know, reach out to yourguitar and start.
(09:25):
You know maybe you don't justjump right back on technique and
theory and modes.
Maybe you just start playingsome stuff or get together with
a buddy or go see a band orwhatever it might be, to kind of
get you reconnected and movefrom there.
So for me, guitar playing hasalways been not just about the
physical and comprehension ofplaying a guitar, but it's a
psychological thing where youreally have to want to play.
(09:48):
You have to love to play, evenon the bad days.
You got to love to play and youhave to develop that
relationship.
That that's what's going tokeep you playing for the rest of
your life.
You want to develop those goals, understand what you're doing
and why you're doing it, to getto where you want to go, so
you're not wasting time.
You know, at the recording ofthis thing I'm now 55 years old.
I hope I'm around for a longtime yet.
(10:10):
I would.
I would love that to be true,but I also have to face the fact
that there's I mean, there's anexpiration date.
So at some I want to achievethose goals.
I want to get to where I wantto get to, not because I'm
pretending, not because I wantto.
You know be, you know, anastronaut.
Okay, I can already play guitar.
What are the realistic goalsthat I can set for myself?
(10:30):
To get to the next level andthen make a choice from there to
the next level and then make achoice from there to the next
level.
That's how you keep efficientlymoving forward with the guitar.
So, anyway, just wanted to letyou know that, hopefully, if
you're struggling with anything,whether it's something within
the guitar, something outsidethe guitar, something in your
life.
You can find a way to balancethose, but don't ever give up
(10:51):
playing your guitar.
Don't do that.
And finally, if you do needsome sort of help, if you're
really struggling with yourguitar and it's just driving you
crazy, you can always head overto GuitarZoom, check out the
GuitarZoom Academy.
You can set up a call with meor one of the other instructors
and we can talk about theAcademy, see if it's something
that fits you.
You know it's a financialcommitment, it's a time
(11:12):
commitment.
There's no, you know, shortcuts.
We work together to get youfrom where you are to where you
want to go.
And if that's something whereyou're like, man, I'm just sick
of spinning my wheels and I wantto make a change, then reach
out to us.
Let's have a conversation andsee if it's something that would
work for you.
So, take care, stay positiveand I'll talk to you soon, okay.
All right.
So today we're going to betalking about the day I almost
quit playing guitar, and there'sactually two days I'm going to
talk about, or two lifeinstances, if you will.
One was a skill and one was alife situation, and so let's
start with the skill one.
So I'm hoping that this willkind of identify with some of
you in terms of, a frustrationsyou have in your life and, b how
(00:25):
to continue, even though thestruggle sometimes seems really
really frustrating and at timeseven overwhelming.
So number one was when I was akid, learning how to play again,
born in 1970.
So I started playing in theearly 80s.
Growing up in Fargo, northDakota, there wasn't a lot of
guitar instruction.
You know people you could go tothat sort of thing.
(00:45):
So basically and this was rightbefore guitar magazines started
becoming really popular Now Idid use guitar magazines and
stuff like that later on to helpme kind of learn a little bit
as best you can with, you know,trying to read.
You know songs and whatever itmight be.
But in the early days, you know, I learned how to play some
(01:05):
chords out of a book.
I would go to my local guitarstore and you know they would
show me little things here andthere, whatever it was, but
mostly it was ear training, likeI would put on records and try
and learn the beginnings tosongs.
You know this was back wouldhave been like Back in Black
Diary of a Madman by Ozzy DefLeppard, high and Dry not High
(01:28):
Romania, but High and Dry, someof those albums.
That's where I started tryingto kind of cut my teeth on
learning how to play by ear.
Now how much of it was right, Ihave no idea.
I mean, I'm sure some of it wasin the ballpark, who knows.
But I do remember beingintroduced to bar chords and not
understanding major or minorand what major was or minor was
(01:50):
or anything of the sort, justtrying to get that stupid bar to
press across all six strings.
And you know I've learned G andC and different things like
that and I had some single notepicking skills and whatever.
But these bar chords were.
You know, I played power chordsbut bar chords were new to me
and I started trying to play thesix string bar chord.
Again, I can't remember if itwas major or minor, maybe it was
(02:12):
both, but I could not get thatbar to press on all six strings.
Now, when I teach bar chords topeople, there has never been a
student that I've had that takesas long as it did for me to
learn how to play bar chords.
Now I like to credit myself alittle bit that I'm involved in
that and maybe I can help them alittle bit more on, you know,
(02:32):
wrist placement and elbow andhow to bar and all that kind of
stuff where I didn't have anyguidance on that.
But I couldn't do it, like Icouldn't play it, and I got so
frustrated with guitar playing.
You know I could do these otherthings but I couldn't do the
bar and it made me want to quitplaying guitar, like I just I I
hit a wall and I couldn't breakthrough that wall with these
(02:55):
stupid bar chords and you know Istarted getting so frustrated
that I just wanted to be doneplaying guitar.
And the long and short of thestory is that I continued
playing these bar chords,practicing them, couldn't get
them, couldn't get them,couldn't get them, couldn't get
them.
And then all of a sudden oneday I grabbed the guitar.
(03:15):
I came home from school, Igrabbed the guitar and I could
do it and there it was, and itprobably took me two months.
I mean I don't know how long ittook me.
It was persistence.
Thank God I didn't stop playingbefore I actually got there.
But I often, you know, tellpeople when you're learning how
to play something like theguitar, it's not like every day
(03:38):
is better than the last day.
It's not always that way, maybeholistically, or, you know, in
your motivation, or somethinglike that.
But certain skills they justrequire repetition and time.
If you're doing it right, ifyou're doing it the most optimal
way.
Now I guarantee you that I wasnot doing the bar chord the most
optimal way, you know, movingmy elbow in a little bit,
(04:00):
turning my wrist a little bit,using more of the side of my
finger than the front of myfinger, all of those kind of
things.
You know, it wasn't a concept Iwas even thinking about.
I was just trying to make thestupid thing.
But once I was able to make it,I was able to go back and start
thinking about why it was thatI was able to do it versus not
being able to do it before.
And, to be completely honestwith you, that was a pivotal
(04:23):
moment in me wanting to learnhow to teach guitar.
Down the road is because I hadthis analysis revelation in my
mind of how I was able to do itfrom a point of not being able
to do it prior.
My earlier point was thisplateau thing.
So sometimes what happens withguitar playing?
You know you're using ametronome, you're trying to work
(04:45):
on a particular technique andit doesn't feel like it's going
anywhere.
It's just sitting there doingthe same thing over and over and
over and over and you'regetting really, really
frustrated and then all of asudden you can do it, but you
gotta outlast the plateau.
And again, if you think thatevery time you grab the guitar
today's gonna be better thanyesterday, today is not always
gonna be better than yesterday.
(05:06):
Sometimes you're gonna strugglewith that and you have to get
used to that.
Now you don't want every singlething that you're doing on the
guitar to be that much of astruggle every single day,
because then it would probablyget overwhelming.
You know this is why you wantto build small things and then
bring in new things, so youmight be building these chords.
Therefore, you're playing thesesongs and you're feeling the
(05:28):
forward motion in these songs.
You know, maybe they're notperfect, all that kind of stuff,
but you can feel that there'sforward motion.
And then there's something elseover here that you're working
on, that you're not feeling thatforward motion like my bar
chords were, and that's okay.
Again, you're going to bepersistent and you're going to
be consistent on it and continueto try and develop that until
you can get past that.
(05:49):
So, long-term, short-term, it'svery important to think about
that and organize what it isthat you're working on.
Are you working on the bestthings that you could be doing
at this moment to get to whereyou want to be, right, or are
you just kind of working onrandom things all over the place
?
You know, because you watchthis video and somebody showed
you this thing, and so youreally don't have any sort of
(06:10):
game plan, you really don't haveany sort of direction, you're
just all over the place.
Well, that can get reallyfrustrating too.
So the next thing for me andthis has happened a couple of
times in my life is just you,life situations that happen and
you, you wind up getting veryoverwhelmed by stress, um, you
(06:31):
know, anxiety or work orwhatever it might be, and for me
, work has never been a bigissue, simply because I was
always able to fit in time.
I always tell people practice onthe days that you eat.
Yeah, I'd rather have youpracticing 10 or 15 minutes a
day than none.
You know, some people have anall or nothing attitude.
I try not to allow people to dothat.
(06:53):
I would rather you pick it upevery single day for a little
while and make actual progress,work on things that you actually
need to be working on, asopposed to just grabbing it and
kind of noodling on the guitaror something like that or
practicing things that aren'tnecessary.
It's hard to make progress thatway.
It's hard to see forward motionwhen you do that.
But sometimes life is biggerthan that.
(07:14):
Sometimes you get intosituations where you're dealing
with life struggles.
You know my dad passing away.
There was a while there when mydad was sick and before he
passed away then I didn't pickup the guitar for a while and
then when he did pass away, Iwas actually there when he
passed away.
It was a pretty traumaticsituation and I did not go
(07:36):
straight to my guitar.
That is not what I did, and soit took a while to build that
relationship back.
And there's been othersituations in my life where
that's happened, where you knowthey're just profound situations
that happen in your life, butyou've got to find a way back to
the things that you love.
When something you know bad ishappening in your life, you've
got to find a way back to thepeople, back to the, you know,
(07:58):
situations that that make youconnect, reconnect with, uh, the
things that made you feel good.
And so for me, you know, aftermy dad passed away, it was
definitely something that I hadto come back to, obviously, but
it's not like that was on theforefront of my mind was well, I
got to get my 15 minutes in.
That was the last thing on mymind.
And so, you know, after timepassed and I came back, of
(08:21):
course everything was fine, andit's not like I lost all my
skills or anything like that.
I did not.
I just reconnected and startedworking again.
And there's been other times inmy life that that's happened,
and this probably happened toyou too.
I'm just saying don't, you know,put the bike in the shed and
forget that it exists, like ifyou got to get off the bike for
a while and do something else,that's fine, but then jump back
(08:42):
on and if you're in a good space, try and stay on that.
You know I always tell peoplelike the guitar, think of the
guitar as being like your friend.
You know you want to developthat relationship to where you
want to talk to that that friendon a daily basis, because it
makes you feel good.
Even when it's frustrating, itstill makes you feel good.
And so for me that's what theguitar is and hopefully for you
(09:04):
it's the same thing.
You're going to get frustratedwith certain skills or certain
things that you're learning onthe guitar.
Don't get that to be soconsuming that you don't work on
anything else, because then itcould become very overwhelming
and then life itself oftentimescan become overwhelming and you
might have to take a little timeoff and that's okay.
Just ease back into it, get toknow your friend again.
You know, reach out to yourguitar and start.
(09:25):
You know maybe you don't justjump right back on technique and
theory and modes.
Maybe you just start playingsome stuff or get together with
a buddy or go see a band orwhatever it might be, to kind of
get you reconnected and movefrom there.
So for me, guitar playing hasalways been not just about the
physical and comprehension ofplaying a guitar, but it's a
psychological thing where youreally have to want to play.
(09:48):
You have to love to play, evenon the bad days.
You got to love to play and youhave to develop that
relationship.
That that's what's going tokeep you playing for the rest of
your life.
You want to develop those goals, understand what you're doing
and why you're doing it, to getto where you want to go, so
you're not wasting time.
You know, at the recording ofthis thing I'm now 55 years old.
I hope I'm around for a longtime yet.
(10:10):
I would.
I would love that to be true,but I also have to face the fact
that there's I mean, there's anexpiration date.
So at some I want to achievethose goals.
I want to get to where I wantto get to, not because I'm
pretending, not because I wantto.
You know be, you know, anastronaut.
Okay, I can already play guitar.
What are the realistic goalsthat I can set for myself?
(10:30):
To get to the next level andthen make a choice from there to
the next level and then make achoice from there to the next
level.
That's how you keep efficientlymoving forward with the guitar.
So, anyway, just wanted to letyou know that, hopefully, if
you're struggling with anything,whether it's something within
the guitar, something outsidethe guitar, something in your
life.
You can find a way to balancethose, but don't ever give up
(10:51):
playing your guitar.
Don't do that.
And finally, if you do needsome sort of help, if you're
really struggling with yourguitar and it's just driving you
crazy, you can always head overto GuitarZoom, check out the
GuitarZoom Academy.
You can set up a call with meor one of the other instructors
and we can talk about theAcademy, see if it's something
that fits you.
You know it's a financialcommitment, it's a time
(11:12):
commitment.
There's no, you know, shortcuts.
We work together to get youfrom where you are to where you
want to go.
And if that's something whereyou're like, man, I'm just sick
of spinning my wheels and I wantto make a change, then reach
out to us.
Let's have a conversation andsee if it's something that would
work for you.
So, take care, stay positiveand I'll talk to you soon, okay.
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