not learning anything about music or learning to play songs but playing an instrument
 

Any one see much wrong with this? I have been playing guitar for about half a year now and have pretty well only relied on learning things by myself and only play stuff I have made up. I am a little concerned though that once I run out of things to make up I could regress in my learning. I think I have made some decent progress from when I first started (I practice a few hours a day) and really enjoy learning this way and developing my own sound independent from other sources of influence but I was just wondering if any one else has had any experience like this. IF so how did it effect your long term motivation to keep with guitar?

Well, I gotta say that after a while of playing in that fashion, I stopped playing. [I still like to pick one up now and again, but I have more success and fun playing drums]. But I don't think I ever put more than one hour of playing in a sitting and I never owned my own guitar.

My buddy, though... he learned to play this way and he's an excellent outside-the-box player and doesn't understand how anyone can learn to play music by studying music theory, memorizing chords/scales alone.

i started out playing at 13 with an untuned guitar and just making stuff up

i think those days i made more interesting music than when i learnt proper theory

@MrDood Hmm well I can sit on really long sessions I am extremely motivated to play and am just really want to make sure I can preserve it.
Oh interesting about your friend how long has he been playing for?

@Il Duce I hope my music im creating is interesting I am already quite interested in making an album I have 12 basic songs already.
What did you find proper theory did for you?

only that I can play other people's songs

later i learnt jazz compositionn and theory which opened up new doors to explore

otherwise, the stuff I played from 13 to 17 sounded pretty much like Captain Beefheart circa Trout Mask Replica

Hahaha that sounds pretty cool I think ill pm you somethin of mine

I guess If Im satisfied I should really just keep with what im doing?

sure, but i suggest instead of trying for a melody or specific rhythm, you should just attack it randomly

I do do that sometimes. Very similar feeling to being possessed by demons. hehe chinese funerals gonna have to look up what that sounds like

Yes, keep doing what you're doing and study theory if you'd like, but down obsess on it.

And my buddy has been playing for 10 years now, and has only recorded 4 songs. But that's his fault for not recording epic jams.

Yeah I guess thats true about most things they are only as harmful as you let yourself obsess.
wow I make sure to make good use of my phone to remember things. I have hundreds of 1 minutes voice memos of music on it :)

I can't say that I have insightful advice for you, as I'm the exact opposite! I learned all the theory first before picking up the flute (and guitar a couple of years later), and after I learned to play all sorts of classical stuff on flute, I practised improvisation (if that makes any sense LOL!). I must say that learning to make up my own stuff, even simple tunes, has made me a more well rounded musician, which in turn helped improve my grades in university.

What I learned though is that because I already played and memorized different patterns from various classical and jazz pieces, I was able to put my own spin on different melodies and such, thus improving my improv technique.

If you learn to read tablature, other people's songs can provide a lot of inspiration for yor own made-up tunes. Does that make any sense?

Yeah that makes sense like variating things based on what you know thanks :) oooh btw I was born in toronto! :)

at one point, I learnt so many songs that when i composed, i found i was just an amalgam of all those people I learnt

i stopped playing for a few months, didn't listen to any music then only found my "voice"

I don't see anything wrong with it. It's what I did, too.
I guess, because of this, I never really understood why the majority of "guitar players" I've known play strictly other people's music. And all the cliche' songs, too.
When someone busts out a guitar and starts playing Enter Sandman, you can just walk away and not feel like you're going to miss out on anything special.

I guess there's some merit to learning guitar by using other people's tabs and all, but personally, I enjoyed picking up the guitar with no instruction and just doing everything by ear and by heart. Give it long enough, you develop your own style, songs and even if your technique isn't standard protocol, you still have something good and something you can call your own.

Sometimes I wish I had the opportunity to have learned guitar without any prior musical training. But most times I put that training to good use. It helps me to know what notes sound good together. When I started playing more jazz guitar and bass, I honed my improv skills based on what I already knew, and then from there I able to start making up more complex things.

Oh yeah thats one thing I have noticed since I have been pluggin away at creating music Is my desire to listen to music has been drastically reduced not sure why exactly.

I think that the key is an even mix of both. I have a pretty good array of musical compositions that I have memorised from years of practice and I truthfully believe that it is essential to memorize other people's music if you want to keep progressing and stay well rounded as a musician. However I write my own music and there are some days when I do nothing but improvise in the practice room for an hour and I belive that this also is essential in preventing the creative juices from stagnating. The best musicians (in my opinion) are well rounded, they know how to work hard and practice things that are tedious at times, but they play hard too and have the ability to jam out and create music and art themselves.

I do work diligently though how ever only on being able to play what I make. I mean since summer started ive been playing at the very least 2 hours a day. I understand what you are saying though I think its just not something I am worried about anymore atleast now. Although I totally can see myself in the future.

you have to unlearn what you have learned, young grasshopper

Theory is a tool. So is improvisation, and so is chance composition, and all sorts of other things that fall in and out of the bounds of 'theory' and 'feeling'.


If you can't do both, you're going to suck at one or other style of music, because different styles depend on knowledge of both to different degrees. If you don't know theory, you'll probably be great at rock and suck at jazz, because you won't be able to keep up with the changes.

On the same token, if your theory is great but you suck at feeling a groove, you'll never be able to play funk all that great because you'll sound robotic. Unless you want to make something funky but robotic, in which case you'll probably sound like daft punk or something.

Music is bigger than just "The right way and the wrong way", music is all about "This is the way I am going to do it"

People play other peoples songs because to a lot of people music is about playing to an audience.

And a lot of the time, the audience wants what they know. Nothing wrong with that. Disregarding your audience is the building block of self-indulgent wank, and while that has an audience in and of itself, its not a wide audience.

i already told Odyshape he's only gonna appeal to a niche audience

"Your guitar is a divining rod, use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over. A guitar is also a fishing rod, if you're good, you'll land a big one."

"Old delta blues players referred to amplifiers as 'the devil box', and they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you're bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts devils and demons. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Caspar the ghost, a mandolin attracts Wendy, but an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub."

"If your brain is part of the process, you're missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing."

"Don't wipe the sweat off your instrument. You need that stink on there, then you have to get that stink onto your music."

All quotes by the late, great, Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart)

i do have a quasi-mystical, quasi-religious approach to playing as well

i believe you need to meditate to grasp notes and chords from some Universal musical force flowing in the ether

To be honest Im not sure really sure if your right about that :O not that having a niche audience is bad or good but I never really thought about the song I showed you was wierd or strange I thought it was kind of poppy actually. I unno you guys hear it.

I do have some weirder things on my youtube channel but nothing crazy or anything.