Powerful advice from 10 Professional Musicians you need to hear

[Music] don't take yourself so seriously yeah don't take yourself too seriously because um at a young age you're and this was my experience for sure but in general i feel like it's very easy to be influenced by other people's goals and other people's sense of not ego but just other people's standards that rub off on you before forming your own so if you're around people that are imposing this grand vision for themselves and for others and you're not quite ready for that i feel like you could be infused with this sense of you know everything has to be so epic and uh especially with the environments that i've grown up in and and been in school and um i feel like that was a big part of my experience and it wasn't until i got older where i started to realize you know it's really don't take yourself so seriously it's not that it's not that um grand everything in life and music and um yeah i would i would definitely say that to myself it's not so much musical advice more like life advice would be just like it's gonna work out man because i always told myself it will there was always that thing that was like okay we're gonna do this i'm going to find a way to get to the to where i want to get but there's always that little bit of doubt that i was like maybe this just doesn't work out maybe i'm putting all this effort into something that's going to lead me to a place where i don't want to be but i think if i look at the darkest or lowest points i had musically and there have been a couple of those along the way we're like i was ready to just uh go do something else there's a couple times where like to the point where like i was looking to see if my um my music school credits could be applied to getting into law school like i was calling the university in winnipeg to go down that route like i was ready basically to do it um but i think it would have just been if me from the future right now could go back and tell me from the past it's going to be okay stick with it you'll figure it out and moments where i saw friends succeeding and i was having like a lot of not positive emotions about that seeing them succeed and that thing that i want so bad was being achieved by people who were like had put no more effort into it than i had when they were getting what i wanted so deeply like a deep sense of jealousy was like what's brewing there and it was something where i just would push it down and say don't act on this don't do anything with this but if me from the future just could have reminded me it's gonna be okay stay on this path i think i would have had a lot more happiness for seeing other people succeed in the past whereas like now when i see my friend succeed it brings me a lot of happiness because i've also got what i wanted but i wish i could have had that same emotion about their success in the past i i don't feel overly guilty about it because i i believe that you should never feel bad about the about how you feel it's what you do with your emotions that defines the character of a person if you feel jealous if you feel disgusted by something it's okay to feel things because for the most part you don't control your emotions it's what you do with those emotions and i never let those things come out on the surface but i wish i could have enjoyed their success in the way that i would have now and i think that being able to tell myself along the way reminding myself it's going to be okay it would have smoothed out a lot of those those those dark times whatever they happen to be seeing other people succeed and not having that myself being put off by music being feeling like it wasn't going anywhere i feel like it would have smoothed out a lot of those things so that the ride would have been a bit more enjoyable throughout i would go back to when i was 15 and i just got my first guitar and i took my first guitar lesson um from a guy in fargo where i grew up and he told me i remember the the exact moment i was like uh i i want to learn more about scales i want to learn more about you know sort of i didn't say music theory because i don't think i totally understood that at the time but i wanted to basically i wanted to learn how to play lead guitar and that's that's what i was trying to convey to him and he said well you write music what you really need to know are chords so learn how to play the chords become a rhythm guitar player write music and i i did that and if i could go back to when i was 15 i would say uh the lead guitar side of things is for everybody it's not just for young boys um if you are interested in it pursue it and do it at the earliest stage possible right now is the perfect time because it's a lot harder to go back later in life and un unlearn a lot of the habits that you pick up from just just being cool with like learning how to play chords and accompany yourself i would just go back in time and tell myself to uh to be better at that and this is something i finally realized in the last couple of years like you know i i'm gonna have to undo a lot of the learning i've already done to become a better guitar player and i just think it's like easier when when you start out that way tony was six years old when she picked up the guitar and she wanted from the very beginning to be like a rock star lead guitar player and that's what she became so um that's probably what i would i would say i would go back and i would say find a different guitar teacher and uh you know go for it god there's so many there's so many but i'll say the the first one that popped into my mind uh is dude don't underestimate the pentatonic you're not gonna find the holy grail memorizing every mode and jazz skill you're you want to play music not scales and there's so much to get out of the pentatonic so don't feel like you have to keep leaving the pentatonic to get fancier you know when you're younger it's all about fancy impressive and fancy right but ultimately the goal is to make good music that like touches you or touches people and keep working on that pentatonic man get good with that let the other skills fall in naturally i would have liked to have like dived in a little bit more with some of the jazzy stuff like the modes and stuff like this now i'm just like nah nah because i never want to put that into my music but i wish that as like um i would have kind of learned a bit more about that when i was studying in college um but hang on give my younger self some musical advice oh gosh i don't know you know babes there's a few things i wish i would have learnt um which i'm not going to learn now because i'm too caught up in everything else i'm doing um but yeah i guess i would just say just be fearless and dive in and kind of never fear a piece of gear um it would be that it it will get better because um when i was starting it was like i didn't know what i was doing with music i just was just winging it doing all the covers that i knew i didn't have any strategy um and i felt really discouraged like i didn't know what i was doing and i would have told myself that just hold on keep doing what you're doing it will get better like there's no way to get better keep practicing keep doing what you're doing you will get better easier better likely get better generally and um you'll be fine start practicing now just just don't just start now don't wait until you're 20 but but take it serious now i took the whole um performing thing serious and the business thing and the booking and i took that part of it seriously but not the guitar i didn't take it seriously and i regret that so if i could i would go back and say stop what you're doing put on your guitar and actually spend four hours with it every day um and also i think i would say it's not it's gonna be okay just breathe it's okay to take a break it's okay to actually sleep uh just you know breathe don't be afraid to make artistic music so i grew up with a family of musicians and a lot of the time i was afraid like they they did well um like my mom said of the family they did well but they were very much working musicians and session musicians and i thought that that was basically what i wanted to do session music work and i was always like all right i gotta make sure that i have enough session music to survive so i'm gonna play all these sessions and teach all these lessons and do all that stuff um at the expense of trying to like work on my craft of like all right what is it that i really want to say and really want to do and i was i never thought that doing that sort of thing making art quote unquote or like making my own personal music was financially viable um and so i have always struggled with that and it's only been recently where i have like a youtube channel to support and patreon thank you so much patrons for supporting my channel it's patrons like you which make my channel possible um um not to be afraid i think that's the big thing don't like let go don't be afraid things are going to work out um you are the things that you project about your own life generally will come true and so if you are projection projecting this fear or projecting this uh small-mindedness i guess about like what you could do that's all that you will be able to do so i think that would be the thing that i would tell my younger self calm down yeah seriously yes i think back to 10 years ago when i was like getting out of music school and like trying to oh my god it was first of all calm down musically you don't have to play as hard and fast as you can at every single opportunity um calm down emotionally where you know every little thing that happened or every little gig that i got or didn't got was like didn't god didn't get was like the end of the world or you know i i went through a really hard time of looking at other players and being so envious and jealous of like oh they got this gig and you know well that's it they've made it that's their career and then looking back now it's like dude that's not at all how it plays out and understanding that um this is a a lifelong like the longest term game at the time i was looking at it on a month-by-month basis um yeah to calm down and really hone in on your skill set find your voice and settle in and just play the long game i mean that's that's really the thing you know i'll be 30 in a month on march 1st and you know i think the 20 and i think this is probably indicative of a lot of people in their 20s right you kind of you don't know what you're doing and feel like you're just spinning your wheels and everything and um just telling myself like that's normal and that's okay and that's where you're supposed to be you know do whatever i did that is what i like about you i feel you know it you get to a certain point with musicians of any age like my some of my friends are already talking about their teenage years being their heyday when really you don't want that to happen at all you want to be living in the present at all times and like being able to you know every bad decision you ever made makes up your story now so that's a very cool answer thank you yeah i'm i'm i i wouldn't change a thing [Music] thank you for sleeping with her for proving me right i need to trust myself more regarding never lies [Music]

Channel: Mary Spender

Views: 53,211

Keywords: Mary Spender, Rick Beato, Rhett Shull, Nahre Sol, Tora, Tora aagard, Rachel K Collier, Adam Neely, Marty Schwartz, Reina Del Cid, Helen Ibe, Samurai Guitarist, professional advice, motivational advice, music advice, how to be a pro musician, how to be a professional musician, professional musicians share advice, Family Friendly, Kid Friendly, Guitar advice, Guitarists share advice, 5 things I wish I knew, 12 tips for beginner guitarists, beginner guitarists, guitar tips

Id: tc2q5EG1tAQ

Length: 14min 15sec (855 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 13 2020