Welcome to a new Monday post with 3 random thoughts on all things guitar, music, and life, including a story of David Gilmour and his wife, the attractiveness of guitarists, and the love/hate relationship with guitar.
For a bit of fun, here’s a Valentine’s Day special…
#1 – David Gilmour and his wife
Many musicians out there use music as a tool for communication and sharing emotions.
You know, through the power of music, we can share how we feel in so many ways.
Love, frustration, anger, pain, fear, joy, happiness – it’s all there and musicians have done this since the beginning of time.
In fact, there’s a quote from David Gilmour where he said this:
“I think a guitar solo is how my emotion is most freely released, because verbal articulation isn’t my strongest communication strength. My wife thinks that I should do interviews by listening to the questions and playing the answer on guitar.”
It’s a pretty funny quote and very true for many musicians I imagine!
Sometimes it’s great to purge away negative emotions by playing the guitar.
Sometimes we can share how happy and joyous we feel.
It’s pretty epic when you think about it just how powerful music and the guitar are for sharing emotions.
It’s a good idea to see where you can add even more passion and emotion to your playing.
Try occasionally playing louder and softer, faster or slower, and using vibrato, phrasing, embellishments – all of these things can add up to make your playing more passionate and emotive.
It takes time to build up these skills, of course…
…But you don’t have to be David Gilmour to share emotion and communicate with the guitar like that.
We can all do this.
#2 – It’s official – we’re more attractive than non-musicians!
Here’s something interesting:
A recent study showed that us musicians are scientifically proven to be more attractive to the opposite sex than non-musicians.
I know, I know, Led Zeppelin discovered this 50 years ago, but it’s pretty cool to hear it officially.
Researchers found that both men and women rated the faces of musicians as more desirable for long-term dating.
…And this is nothing new.
It even goes back to Charles Darwin.
He believed that music acts as a courtship display in our search for a reproductive partner.
Just by playing an instrument, we can signal good genes by displaying “advanced motor skills and cognitive ability” to potential partners.
Imagine saying that to someone on a first date.
Easier just to strum a few chords and give them a rendition of “Stand By Me” I reckon.
So, the next time you play, just know that your other half is probably more impressed with the fact you play guitar than you may realise.
#3 – The love/hate relationship with the guitar
Many of us have a love/hate relationship with the guitar.
In the early days of learning guitar, I’d spend many a night thinking:
“Why do I bother? I’m hopeless! Will I ever improve?”
I used to get jealous of others who were better than me.
…And, worse, some days I wished I played the bass!
(Kidding, I do love playing bass guitar too).
If you ever have a love/hate relationship to the guitar, or get these negative thoughts or maybe you’ve considered quitting the guitar, what should you do?
Well, the obvious advice out there is usually kind of cliché stuff like “keep practising”, it will get easier.
That is true, of course, but when you feel really downbeat about your playing, that doesn’t really help in the moment.
Instead, what I urge all frustrated students to do is to learn a really simple piece of enjoyable music.
Like a little recognisable one-string melody which you can play easily.
Simple songs can give us so many joyful moments.
Plus, as you perfect any simple piece of music, your technique and confidence will improve.
I often say most people complicate the heck out of guitar playing, but keeping things simple and working on the basics of good core technique is…
…One of the secrets to really loving playing the guitar.
You then build from there.
Anyway, so there’s a little Valentine’s Day special for you.
I hope you enjoyed it.
For more help with your playing, you might want to check out my course on fingerstyle songs.
They all range from very simple to more intricate and are ordered in levels of difficulty, so you know which will suit you right now.
The course is on sale until Thursday.
You can check it out below:
The Fingerstyle Collection – learn 18 beautiful arrangements
Have a great week!
Dan Thorpe
Guitar Domination
P.S. This post was originally taken from Dan Thorpe’s private email list. To get blog posts like this sent to you which are full of great tips to make fingerpicking, strumming, and learning guitar more enjoyable (especially if you are over 40) join Dan’s list. It’s 100% free, HERE.
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