Learning to play an instrument

The best way to be sure that you always have viable, and affordable, entertainment options at your disposal is to be able to entertain yourself. In our technology-soaked culture, instant gratification seems to be the order of the day, and that can lead to people never having the focus to live up to their full potential and accomplish things that are very rewarding, but that take a good bit of time and patience to achieve. Playing a musical instrument is one of these things.

Now there is nothing wrong with playing video games, and like most things they are fine when used in moderation. But as a guitar player and someone who knows how rewarding it is to play an instrument, it is a bit maddening to consider how many hours are spent by people playing games like Guitar Hero when they could be learning to play the guitar in their own right. You have to assume that the ready and ubiquitous availability of these tools of instant gratification cuts into the numbers of people who would otherwise take the time and put in the effort to learn how to play.

In any event, the suggestion here is to identify the instrument that you would really enjoy learning and dive right in. You can take lessons from someone in person, but if that isn’t for you, there is a vast store of information online, including virtually unlimited lessons from people most of us have heard of, and from those that we haven’t who are excellent teachers all the same. A lot of people see a musician play and say, man, you are a good player…I just don’t have the talent. Trust me when I tell you that just about everyone who ever played an instrument found it very hard to get a decent sound out of the thing when they first started. It takes practice and a commitment, but when you stick to it, you will eventually find that you can entertain yourself and you just keep on getting better for the rest of your life.