Circumstances

To find your way forward, first consider the circumstances that create the breaks you experience. Once you look at what’s really going on, it gets easier to resolve stagnation or setbacks.

If you’re experiencing breaks due to travel, the best thing you can do is to become accustomed and committed to practicing ear training, memorization, and visualization away from your guitar. Once you start seeing how much you can accomplish, you’ll be hooked!

Unavoidable events such as illness or injury, or those that disrupt your privacy or routines, like out-of-town company, require more patience and finesse. Those are the times you just need to do what you can, when you can, and then relax back into your old practice routine as soon as possible. It may require some will power to restart, though, so be prepared to self-motivate!

If your external environment is relatively stable and you’re missing practice due to a lack of motivation, there are solutions for that, too. You can get help with inspiration and motivation, along with a lot more in You & Your Guitar.

How to Retrieve Your Investments

When you get back to playing, you may find that some of your concerns about losing strength and memory have come true. Don’t panic. You can find your way back!

Start before you even pick up your guitar by committing to not worrying about it! Don’t let your mind take you places you don’t want to go.  You’ll discover what’s missing and what’s still there once you start playing. And believe it or not, you may find that some things actually improved while you were away!

Just start playing and when something refuses to come into your fingers, relax. Relaxation really is your biggest ally. If you fight to remember, you probably won’t succeed. You have to give the mind some space to work, so empty it out.

When you hit up against the problematic part, try skipping it and get rolling again on any part you can. By the time the mystery part comes around again, it may flow effortlessly, as long as you don’t tense up or overthink it. If it doesn’t, try playing something else and then return to it with the same relaxed approach. You’ll probably stumble into the lost portion, but if you don’t, you’ll need to look outside of your own memory for answers.

The easiest and most obvious solution is to refer to any music you can find—tabs or even notes you’ve written in the past. Add in your knowledge of theory to determine what would logically go in the gap. For example, what chords or melody notes are available in the key you’re playing in? Try them—and don’t forget to use your ear, even if you don’t have confidence in it!

Going Forward

Once you’ve made some progress on remembering the songs that are most important to you, decide on something new to work on. If you’ve kept notes on techniques, leads, or songs that interest you, choose from those. If you don’t have any notes or lists, start making them now! This is where the DAILY really shines. Pull it out, dust it off, and read about your goals, discoveries, and objects of inspiration. Then remember to record new ones!

When you’ve settled on a new project, spend at least 15 minutes on it—more is better. You’ll want to go deeply enough into it to be motivated to continue the next day. Begin your next practice session with the new material and make that your focus for the majority of your time. You’ll want to visit the old stuff, and that’s good to do—but don’t neglect moving forward. Just know that you can retrieve and improve upon anything you’ve correctly ingrained in the past and enjoy your guitar time!