Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
Life is far from easy right now, and I have noticed that it is putting my playing right off. Timekeeping iffy,can't remember pieces. CAn anyone offer any advise?
this might sound werid but. Dont forget to breath. and listen to your body. The times you forget this you always end up in places doing things you dont wanna do.
_____________________________
This is hard stuff! Don't give up... And don't make it a race. Enjoy the ray of sunshine that comes with every new step in knowledge.
I noticed a grey hair in one of my eyebrows the other day, which I removed with a tweezers. Is this normal? Will it grow back? Am I getting old? I cant play for worrying!!!
Ever heard of a book called Zen Guitar by Philip Toshio Sudo? At its heart it’s really no different than any of the thousands of other Zen books out there by Steve Hagen and Charlotte Beck or whoever, but it focuses on guitar playing in particular and offers a very approachable, straight forward, non-esoteric application of basic Zen practice. It’s short and simple and is definitely pertinent to the issues of distraction and focus that you’re encountering. Worth a look.
Martin Your energy is focused on other things. You can't do everything. Take you pleasures where you can, beit guitar or anything else. The hard times will pass. A friend of mine is busy reading this book at the moment. If you're open to the ideas it seems to contain, it might help.
I redited...i was leaving the house before, read in the hurry and i missunderstood
your guys advice great and Martin your courage is inspiering.
I can totaly relate to what u saying, sometimes things are just ugly, days u wished u didnt get out of bed or financial hardship or relationship problems..whatever
had all of it, we all had
sometimes guitar is a great escape from it and are able to put all that emotion and pain into music sometimes not.
i dont kno if this is any good or works but it is the way i look at things if i can help it, i know some situations just cant be helped.
perhaps u need to sitt and revaluate you priorities, find out whatever it is that its stressing u and figure out a way (if possible ) to not put yourself in that situation or to do it differently, perhaps you are taking on too much.
evalute the worst case scenario and if you can do without ot theres a better way of doing it..do that.
you owe yourself a happy life so if for any reason doing something is not making you happy or puting stress on you for no reason and you wont die if you dont do it, then eliminate it from your life...i know it sounds eazyer said then done and generalistic..but perhaps sometimes u need that simplistic approach.
its as complicated or as simple as you make it...if you really think about it
eitherway u not alone and u got plenty of friends here with the same intrests and perhaps problems that can relate to you..
It'll depend on what kind of problems you're facing, but it sounds to me like you've got too much nervous energy. Sleep, diet and exercise might be the first step to getting back to a more relaxed state. Stimulants like coffee, tea or tobacco in moderation get you through the day but in excess might be preventing you from sleeping well. A healthy diet includes drinking enough water and, in my case anyway, eating some fruit everyday. Also, diet and exercise contribute greatly to the quality of sleep.
All things pass. It might help to imagine a worst-case scenario because, whatever happens, you're probably going to be fine. I hope that's the case.
I like to think that happiness involves a three-part strategy, in this order: being happy with yourself, being happy with others and being happy with your relationship with others.
In any case, it's hard to make music when you're under stress, despite the romantic notions of artists pouring out their tragedy through the art form. Eastern cultures talk about the ripples on the surface of a pond preventing you from seeing the bottom (or the reflection of the moon, etc.) I'm not much into airy-fairy metaphors, but it makes a lot of sense to me. Good advice from duende and srshea about breathing and distractions, respectively.