How do you stay motivated?

shimpiphany

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it all seemed to be coming together, i felt like i was making great progress, and then i videotaped myself playing and i sound like crap. it is very discouraging.

how do you stay motivated during those plateau times in the learning process, and more importantly, how do you break through?
 
it all seemed to be coming together, i felt like i was making great progress, and then i videotaped myself playing and i sound like crap. it is very discouraging.

Bingo! It happens to me quite a bit. Especially after hearing or seeing some phenomenal feat of music. It's so inspiring, but at the same time you think "How the heck am I going to get that good?" and it will seem like it's never going to happen.

It usually comes and goes. Depending on how inspired I feel, sometimes I play all week, sometimes not at all - I don't force myself.

Getting beyond is the hard part. Even if you are stuck, you might as well keep playing if you are enjoying it, because when you get out of the rut you will have not missed out on potential "fingerboard miles".

There is no right way to get out of a rut. Watch a video, go to a concert, put your 'ukulele down for a week, something is bound to lift you up.

To get beyond thinking about "boy I suck worse than I thought!" (we all have those moments) you should try and learn something. Instead of just watching a video, try and learn from it. If you can learn one thing from every musical piece you hear, that is a lot of knowledge. What don't you know? Try and learn it. If you look, you will find things to work on.

Life is a journey. If we arrive at the destination things are going to get really boring. Same for music. Practice, practice.

Good luck.
 
motivation comes from just wanting to be a better player. That's kind of how basketball was for me, I wanted to be good so I worked hard at it. Anything in life, what you give is what you get.

Jamming with everyone every night helps a lot too, my confidence has been boosted to just cut from a song and do some improv or just do it in a different way.

As far as what made me break through the plateau of getting better.. not really sure, just one day you play better the the last.. maybe a combo of different things that help you reach that point? not really sure on that one..
 
You want to feel good about your playing? Go play at an old folks home. Call ahead to arrange it, you might get to play for an audience in the rec room on a Sunday afternoon. Then you might be able to visit some of those who couldn't make it to the rec room because they're bedridden.

You will see faces absolutely light up. There is no better way to spread some joy with your music.
 
and don't take yourself too seriously, playing the 'ukulele is fun and most people know that and appreciate any effort to post videos. :)
 
I don't actually STAY motivated. Sometimes I am, sometimes I'm not. It's really just a matter of how much you want to improve. If you're happy with your playing(which it seems you're not) then you won't practice much. But if you always have a little further to go, you'll keep practicing. It helps that I have a brother who plays guitar, so we both like learning new things on our instruments.
 
Exactly!! My motivation is to have fun.. I look at others sometimes wishing I could be as good as them, but when I look back on how far I've gotten and just what I've accomplished, it makes me look at myself differently. I've already gotten to a skill level I never thought I'd reach, playing things I never thought I'd be able play.

You can't compare yourself to anyone else.. That's not what it's about.
It's about playing and enjoying yourself, whether it's jamming with friends, just messing around, passing the time, or simply playing to get better.

I tell myself, "Just keep doing what you're doing, and literallly before you know it, you'll be doing things you still wouldn't imagine."
Don't worry about HOW will I get that good. If you don't give up, the real question is WHEN.
Again.. have fun........ and think about it. :D
 
It is easy to get discouraged sometimes, especially if people are critical of your work. I've never been able to impress my father with my music, he just doesn't have a taste for uke at all. To me, when you come to those obstacles there's usually 2 options with a bunch of variations to it: Either try to surmount the obstacle, become better and build yourself up, or forget about it and find something where you feel you can make more progress.
I know I'm never going to get my father to like my uke music, but I've been able to find plenty of other people who love it, and I know I probably will never be as good as aldrine, shimabukuro, or the dominator, but I forget about trying to one up everybody and just try to learn from them and enjoy playing.

As for short term, non-philosophical ways to overcome those patches, I recommend branching out into something you've never thought about trying before, like a rap song, or some old 1930's song. It'll help you grow as a player and give you a new direction to try out.
 
Plateaus are part of the learning process. When that happens, whether its in athletics or in uku, you have to vary your practice routine. Stop doing the same thing over-and-over. In sports, if you run track, and your times plateau, its a good idea to get in the water and aqua-jog for an hour a few times a week. It works different muscles. In uku, same concept. Pick a new and interesting genre and explore that. You'll work new muscles with new chords, new strumming or picking patterns.

This may sound crazy, but "When you're about to hit the wall, SPEED UP!" You can quote me on that!:cheers:
 
My sole motivation is that I just simply love music and love making music. Yes, it's true, plateaus are part of the learning process.

So, when you reach that plateau, imagine yourself where you want to be musically, and after visualizing it, work toward playing the song you want or doing the technique you want and don't lose that vision. Just imagine it happening and keep that focus and you will get there. It worked for Olympians and cyclists.
 
Simple:
Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. And have a glass of wine.

If you get discouraged or disgruntled, repeat the last step until your mood improves.​
 
My sole motivation is that I just simply love music and love making music. Yes, it's true, plateaus are part of the learning process.

So, when you reach that plateau, imagine yourself where you want to be musically, and after visualizing it, work toward playing the song you want or doing the technique you want and don't lose that vision. Just imagine it happening and keep that focus and you will get there. It worked for Olympians and cyclists.

Pippin,
This is great advice. My natural inclination is to look for shortcuts when it comes to difficult chords. That famous video of George Harrison playing "Ain't She Sweet" on his uke showed me how good properly played chords make a song sound. He was also so relaxed and fluid making chord changes. I know I will never be that good but visualizing how fluid a great player is helped motivate me to put the extra effort into using all four fingers on the harder chords. Now it's becoming second nature to me.
 
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Pippin,
This is great advice. My natural inclination is to look for shortcuts when it comes to difficult chords. That famous video of George Harrison playing "Ain't She Sweet" on his uke showed me how good properly played chords make a song sound. He was also so relaxed and fluid making chord changes. I know I will never be that good but visualizing how fluid a great player is helped motivate me to put the extra effort into using all four fingers to on the harder chords. Now it's becoming second nature to me.

Thanks BrotherUke. My last book was called "Get Happy, Write Away" and was actually about visualization methods and achieving one's goals in life. I learned proper visualization techniques years ago in martial arts and have been using them ever since.
 
haha, this is my curse of ADHD since I dont stay motivated. I've learned to cope with it this way:

Pro- I've focused on becoming jack of all trades and rotating to a different instrument.
Con- I've become master of none...and my rotation is pretty extensive.
 
One of the things I do when I get fed up with sucking up a song is just switch to a different song. A few weeks later I'll eventually come back to it, and almost without fail, the practice on other songs has rubbed off a little, and I play the original song better than I was before. It may take me much longer to get songs down, but bouncing all over the place works for me. You just have to find out what works for you, but any way you approach it, you won't get better unless you're playing. :music:
 
I've been facing this same problem with my tennis playing.

I suck at tennis.

No, seriously... I'm the absolute worst. And this is a fact that is seemingly unaffected by how much I work at it.

And yeah, it gets frustrating. But you know what the key is? You have to be getting "something" out of the process that goes beyond being good at it.

In other words (and as others have mentioned already), you have to enjoy simply playing the ukulele (or hitting a fuzzy yellow ball back and forth, or whatever). Your primary reward has to come from the process itself--otherwise, why bother? This is true no matter what your skill level.

That's my opinion, anyway.

JJ
 
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