Magic, mastery and motivation
Turns out getting really good at the guitar is quite hard work
You know you’ve been working in comms too long when you develop personal talking points and messaging to answer questions from friends and colleagues.
“How was your Xmas?” Approved answer: I tried eating myself into a coma but didn’t quite manage it, haha.
Or more pertinently for me at the moment, “How’s gardening leave?” Approved answer: It’s surprisingly easy to get into the habit of not working, ha.
Before I left, my most frequently asked question was, “What will you do with your six months off?”
It’s an opportunity I’m unlikely to enjoy again during my career, a significant amount of time away from the work I’ve been doing for over 20 years. What was I going to do with this opportunity?
First and foremost, as I mentioned in last week’s post, it’s an opportunity to spend quality time with my family - and it comes at a great time, as Ivy is two and is this little sponge of learning and development. But Ivy is in nursery in the mornings. My wife works flexibly but does most of her writing in the mornings. I have a chunk of time to myself.
I considered dedicating all my time to my writing - maybe a novel, maybe my memoirs.
I enjoy running; I could seriously train for that half marathon I’ve often considered but never pushed the button on. But writing is too much like work, and while I like running, I wouldn’t say I like it that much. So I turned to the thing that I’ve recently fallen back in love with, that there never usually seems to be enough time to enjoy - that’s my guitar(s).
Approved answer to “What will you do with your time off?”: Try to get really good at the guitar.
When I was testing the messaging, saying, “I’m going spend a lot of time with my guitars” didn’t land that well. It’s such a significant chunk of time that the friends, colleagues and contacts I spoke to wanted to hear a grand plan: travelling, a once-in-a-lifetime holiday, an extensive renovation, or the novel mentioned above. Adding the “get really good” part landed much better, with its overtones of self-improvement and semblance of a project.
And I can honestly say with six weeks of gardening leave completed, I’m loving my chosen project. I’ve learnt a whole bunch of new songs and made the first tentative steps into writing my own. But there is some tension and jeopardy at play here.
As a grunge/indie-obsessed teenager, I dreamed of being a guitar hero and touring the world. But, as anyone who’s tried to master an instrument knows, mastery is challenging. Teaching myself in my bedroom, I got frustrated when I hit the ‘simple chords’ ceiling many guitarists reach and gradually stopped playing.
But just before lockdown, I read an excellent book called “This Is Your Brain On Music”. In the opening chapter, author Daniel Levitin talks about the fact that, for most of human history, recorded music didn’t exist. So, if you wanted to listen to music, you had to make music. These days, we only need to reach for our phones to hear our favourite songs. Levitin highlights the correlation between the rise of recorded music and my slight shame at being a distinctly average guitarist. For Levitin, playing music should be about enjoyment, not technical ability.
It hit a nerve with me, and I dusted my guitar off and started building up the callouses on my fingers again (IYKYK). Then came lockdown, and I had ample time to play, plus a willing and encouraging audience in my wife and my then-unborn daughter. I rediscovered the joy of playing songs and found that 40-year-old me wasn’t bored by repeatedly playing the same simple songs. In fact they got more fun to play the more you played them.
And that joy has sustained even as my time to play has dwindled with Ivy’s arrival. But that joy, that love of playing, is at odds with my stated mission of “getting really good”. Because getting really good requires practice. Stretching yourself. Mastering new techniques. Tackling new songs that don’t use the same three chords you know and love. And that shit is hard. It inevitably leads to frustration and then (for me) feelings of “Why do I bother, I’m a rubbish guitarist, I’m never going to be good, I should stop wasting my time and just give up”.
Of course, it’s not just learning an instrument or any other new skill that comes with these same challenges and potential pitfalls. Nobody ever got good at anything by luck. Raw talent can only take you so far. As magician Teller (one half of Penn & Teller) says, what looks effortless, what looks like magic (and is magic in Teller’s case) is “just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect”. Regular readers of the Farnam Street newsletter and/or blog will be familiar with Shane Parrish’s discipline and hard work maxims. “Anyone can do it once. The best do it consistently.” My favourite was the idea of forcing yourself to practice even when - in fact, especially when - you don’t feel like it.
But what if trying to conjure up that magical feeling of effortlessness conversely means diluting your enjoyment of the process? What if trying to conjure magic ends up sucking all the magic away? Like me with my guitar. Or an interminable pitch process that got you super-excited when you received the brief but became a slog you couldn’t wait to be over. How can you navigate the bum notes and bad ideas without diluting the satisfaction you get from the process?
I can suggest a few ideas based on my six weeks of enhanced guitar practice. First and foremost, barely anyone has completely mastered their area of expertise. That’s one of the joys (and frustrations) of creative pursuits. There’s always something new to try, something you’d like to explore. Everyone sometimes feels like they suck.
Take the time to look beyond your specific challenge. Listen to other guitarists speak and play. Even better, get out and play with other musicians - playing with my friend James (Hi James!) has done wonders for my confidence and self-belief. Do the same with your planning and creative challenges. Look at how other brands and businesses have tackled your challenge. Seek out your peers and see if they’ll meet for coffee. That blend of a shared experience but a slightly different approach can help provide a fresh perspective that unblocks a problem.
Also, try to mix up your approaches and practice routines. Don’t just jump into trying to tackle your most significant challenge uninterrupted for hours on end. Take breaks from that tricky solo or impossible naming challenge to do things you like. Play a favourite song, read around your subject, develop some simple tactical ideas.
Also, never underestimate the power of a break and (even better) a good night’s sleep. Where I was previously stumbling over the riff to All Apologies, some rest made it feel effortless.
Finally, sometimes you just have to remind yourself to enjoy it. It doesn’t matter if I suck at guitar. That’s not the point. I enjoy it. It doesn’t matter if your boss didn’t buy your strategic platform or creative idea. It’s just comms (PR, not ER etc.). There’ll be another brief, another challenge next week. Chalk that one up to experience and move on. This Charming Man was too hard for me to play; Cherub Rock, much more up my street. I’m not bitter. Although one day I’m coming back for you, Johnny Marr. It might take my remaining four months to master, but I’m determined to have fun while I do it.