Bored?
If you’ve experienced boredom with playing guitar at some time, you’re not alone. It’s one of the most common complaints that guitar players have.
You can find plenty of help online—including some from me—for lighting a spark or getting things moving again. But there’s another approach to the dissatisfaction boredom brings that too many people neglect, and it’s one that’s critical for creativity and expression. That approach is to go deeper into the boredom.
That might sound crazy but let me explain.
What’s Going On
If you feel bored, it means you’re either bored when you play or bored when you listen to yourself play— or both. You only need to address the boredom you feel when you play, because when you resolve that, your music will no longer sound boring. So how do you become more creative and inspired when you play?
Begin by recognizing that boredom doesn’t describe a situation or experience. It describes your reaction or response to that experience. You judge it to be boring. And as long as you continue to invest in the judgment and the feeling it evokes, you will have a hard time moving into territory that’s more interesting. That’s because the act of judging requires you to stand outside the music and you can only find the solution from being fully inside of it.
If you want to get inside the music, you’ll need to detach from all mental distractions, including judgments. You’ll have to be completely present. When you engage fully with the music, it can’t be boring anymore, because it’s no longer the same music. You will have transformed it merely by your presence. And the longer you stay engaged, the more you will transform the sound.
How to Do It
Let’s say you like a particular song that you play, but you’re using a strumming pattern that has become monotonous and dull. To solve your problem, begin playing the song in your usual way, but in a loop. Play it over and over at a steady tempo and non-stop. Step out of thinking or feeling anything at all about it and just play. At some point you will, without struggle, begin creating new ways to play it. It will happen—but only if you play it long enough and without judgment.
The new things that emerge probably won’t be totally new—they will be parts of things you’ve heard or played before. But those things will take on their own flavor and combine in a way that is totally new for your song.
Of course, you need to have some skills to draw upon before you begin trying to create something new. If you don’t already have at least a small collection of skills, acquire some! Depending on your level, you might learn a new strumming or picking pattern, explore bass lines, or experiment with 3-string chords. (You can get all of these skills and a lot more in the Virtual Studio.) But don’t get sidelined by thinking that more skills alone will provide a permanent fix for boredom. If you want to tap into creativity, you’ll need to add in relaxation, patience, and a commitment to a quiet, open mind.
