Hey guys, hope you’re all doing well.
Today I want to talk hobbies. You know, those things we do to procrastinate from uni work, or cleaning our rooms, or whatever it might be. The things that we claim make us talented and cultured when in reality we’re just mediocre at a couple of things, instead of being very skilled at one thing.
Amongst many failed attempts at hobbies, my main ones have always been music related; namely guitar. I had dabbled in other instruments, reaching grade 2 on the saxophone until giving up on my Lisa Simpson dreams. I can’t speak for the education system now, but I felt generally quite discouraged in pursuing an instrument in my secondary school. When leaving half way through an academic lesson to go to a saxophone lesson (timetabled in a way I had no control over), my teachers would always be exasperated and annoyed at me leaving. This was a huge factor in me wanting to quit saxophone - something I feel was a regrettable decision, and poor behaviour from my teachers.
However, guitar was something I stuck to for a huge portion of my life. Guitar lessons were introduced to me in primary school, first with a female teacher and then she was replaced by the man who would come to teach me right up until I was 18 before I left Liverpool for uni; John.
Whilst it was all very basic teaching when I was younger, after leaving primary school, I saw John for private lessons on a weekly basis and worked my way through classical examinations, up until grade 5. Unlike saxophone lessons, these took place on Saturdays, outside of school and away from discouraging teachers. I value this time to a great degree as I learnt, in a very candid and friendly manner, very essential theory and skills that are helpful in playing just about any genre to this day.
Unfortunately, my interest in guitar at this age wasn’t much of a priority. Whilst I found it new and exciting when I first started lessons, the novelty wore off. I wasn’t aware at this time that it was probably the nature of the music that I was unenthusiastic about; classical music not really being my forte as a young teen. What’s more, my music taste was still very much steered by charts and general popular music, nothing guitar based that would really be worth learning.
I also have to take into account that being a teenager is very difficult, and pressures come from all angles of life. Whether it be peer pressure to fit in and act a certain way, academic pressure from school to achieve, parental pressure, hormones going crazy, etc etc. Therefore, my mind was often wondering to a million other things in my lessons, and even more so at home when I was supposed to be practising. I’m sure that people with a multitude of different hobbies can relate to the difficulty of maintaining hobbies at this age, whilst still feeling obligated to keep them up.
My interest in guitar began to spark again at around 15 or 16 years old, when my music taste became far more guitar heavy. I discovered the wonders of Led Zeppelin and Nirvana for the first time and realised that I had the power to learn and sound (somewhat) like the music I was growing to love more and more each day. It was on my 16th birthday, after months and months of convincing my parents, that I received a gorgeous white Les Paul Junior. It quickly became my pride and joy, and it was with this purchase that my guitar teacher finally said that I should abandon classical guitar and instead be examined in rock guitar. This was no doubt the peak of my skill.
What I learnt in this period of my life was that passion is the only thing that can really help you to maintain a hobby. If you have genuine passion for something, outside distractions will not be able to penetrate your brain and distract you; because passion gives you focus focus focus. I definitely felt a high amount of passion at this stage in my guitar hobby journey.
I was entered into rock guitar grade 6 after getting my Les Paul, and was to be examined on songs by Pink Floyd, Kings of Leon and Green Day, as well as an improvised piece. No stuffy classical music that I had no passion for, no boring scales that were long and arduous to learn. FINALLY I felt like this was the kind of music I was born to learn.
Unfortunately, after this honeymoon period of loving guitar, practising regularly and filled with all that passion, as well as being successful with my examination, life came at me far too fast. A Levels A Levels A Levels oh my.
Like I said previously, it is outside distractions that impact the passion you have for your hobby that make it more difficult to maintain it. My life became completely encompassed by A Levels to the point that dedicating any time at all to anything else was an unimaginable idea to me. It goes without saying that guitar went out the window once again. This was such a big mistake looking back.
A hobby to distract me would have been absolutely ideal to control my stress and help me calm down, but all I could see it as was a huge, negative distraction. This is something that 100% conditioned me to leave behind guitar, almost completely for good. Why oh why did A Levels have to ruin my life in so many ways! It was this dip in interest that detrimentally affected my beloved hobby of guitar; something I am still trying to recover to this day.
Even at uni, I was so uninspired by the concept of guitar (still dulled in spirit by wretched A Levels no doubt), that I didn’t even really think to bring any of my three to London, lowering the chance even further of me ever getting my passion and skill back. Again, the stressful uni environment is bad enough, and having a pastime that wasn’t essay writing or crying probably would have done me the world of good, similar to A Levels. Again, I can’t get this time back and that really is a sad thing.
So, in a rash, expensive, and possibly silly decision, I have ordered a brand new guitar, amp, and stand for my bedroom in London. A brand new Fender Jazzmaster in buttercream is something I’ve been admiring since the new collection was released, plus my amp at the moment is old and broken, and why bother lugging it back from Liverpool right? This is a very spontaneous thing to do, but I am so excited to pursue my hobby again, with new equipment and hopefully a new found passion too. I am going to keep the stuff in my uni home in London, where I will be spending most of my time come September, meaning I will (hopefully) reach for it far more and officially have my hobby back, to relieve the upcoming stress of third year. If anybody feels uninspired about a particular hobby, if you have the means to purchase or even lend some new equipment, I believe it is the perfect way to ignite some interest again, as it takes away the mundane and repetitive aspect attached to equipment you already own.
Though this is a personal tale of hobby struggles, I’m sure at least one or two of my readers can relate to the struggles of life getting in the way of our downtime, and if any of you have have any tips on keeping things interesting hobby-wise, I’d be more than happy to hear them. What I have realised on this journey of hobby reminiscing is that they really are a great thing to pursue and keep at; my writing here reveals that my darkest and most stressful moments where when I was not reaching for my guitar as a distraction, and it only brought me grief in the process.
I will keep my blog updated on how I find my new equipment, and this will hopefully tailor my content to be a little more specialist music-wise. Who knows, this could be a flop and a waste of money, but if all goes well, I will finally get my skill back, and realise that hobbies are my friend, useful, and calming when I get stressed. I am more than excited to see what the future of me and guitar playing could hold!
Thanks for readinggggg
H x
Today I want to talk hobbies. You know, those things we do to procrastinate from uni work, or cleaning our rooms, or whatever it might be. The things that we claim make us talented and cultured when in reality we’re just mediocre at a couple of things, instead of being very skilled at one thing.
Amongst many failed attempts at hobbies, my main ones have always been music related; namely guitar. I had dabbled in other instruments, reaching grade 2 on the saxophone until giving up on my Lisa Simpson dreams. I can’t speak for the education system now, but I felt generally quite discouraged in pursuing an instrument in my secondary school. When leaving half way through an academic lesson to go to a saxophone lesson (timetabled in a way I had no control over), my teachers would always be exasperated and annoyed at me leaving. This was a huge factor in me wanting to quit saxophone - something I feel was a regrettable decision, and poor behaviour from my teachers.
However, guitar was something I stuck to for a huge portion of my life. Guitar lessons were introduced to me in primary school, first with a female teacher and then she was replaced by the man who would come to teach me right up until I was 18 before I left Liverpool for uni; John.
Whilst it was all very basic teaching when I was younger, after leaving primary school, I saw John for private lessons on a weekly basis and worked my way through classical examinations, up until grade 5. Unlike saxophone lessons, these took place on Saturdays, outside of school and away from discouraging teachers. I value this time to a great degree as I learnt, in a very candid and friendly manner, very essential theory and skills that are helpful in playing just about any genre to this day.
Unfortunately, my interest in guitar at this age wasn’t much of a priority. Whilst I found it new and exciting when I first started lessons, the novelty wore off. I wasn’t aware at this time that it was probably the nature of the music that I was unenthusiastic about; classical music not really being my forte as a young teen. What’s more, my music taste was still very much steered by charts and general popular music, nothing guitar based that would really be worth learning.
I also have to take into account that being a teenager is very difficult, and pressures come from all angles of life. Whether it be peer pressure to fit in and act a certain way, academic pressure from school to achieve, parental pressure, hormones going crazy, etc etc. Therefore, my mind was often wondering to a million other things in my lessons, and even more so at home when I was supposed to be practising. I’m sure that people with a multitude of different hobbies can relate to the difficulty of maintaining hobbies at this age, whilst still feeling obligated to keep them up.
My interest in guitar began to spark again at around 15 or 16 years old, when my music taste became far more guitar heavy. I discovered the wonders of Led Zeppelin and Nirvana for the first time and realised that I had the power to learn and sound (somewhat) like the music I was growing to love more and more each day. It was on my 16th birthday, after months and months of convincing my parents, that I received a gorgeous white Les Paul Junior. It quickly became my pride and joy, and it was with this purchase that my guitar teacher finally said that I should abandon classical guitar and instead be examined in rock guitar. This was no doubt the peak of my skill.
What I learnt in this period of my life was that passion is the only thing that can really help you to maintain a hobby. If you have genuine passion for something, outside distractions will not be able to penetrate your brain and distract you; because passion gives you focus focus focus. I definitely felt a high amount of passion at this stage in my guitar hobby journey.
I was entered into rock guitar grade 6 after getting my Les Paul, and was to be examined on songs by Pink Floyd, Kings of Leon and Green Day, as well as an improvised piece. No stuffy classical music that I had no passion for, no boring scales that were long and arduous to learn. FINALLY I felt like this was the kind of music I was born to learn.
Unfortunately, after this honeymoon period of loving guitar, practising regularly and filled with all that passion, as well as being successful with my examination, life came at me far too fast. A Levels A Levels A Levels oh my.
Like I said previously, it is outside distractions that impact the passion you have for your hobby that make it more difficult to maintain it. My life became completely encompassed by A Levels to the point that dedicating any time at all to anything else was an unimaginable idea to me. It goes without saying that guitar went out the window once again. This was such a big mistake looking back.
A hobby to distract me would have been absolutely ideal to control my stress and help me calm down, but all I could see it as was a huge, negative distraction. This is something that 100% conditioned me to leave behind guitar, almost completely for good. Why oh why did A Levels have to ruin my life in so many ways! It was this dip in interest that detrimentally affected my beloved hobby of guitar; something I am still trying to recover to this day.
Even at uni, I was so uninspired by the concept of guitar (still dulled in spirit by wretched A Levels no doubt), that I didn’t even really think to bring any of my three to London, lowering the chance even further of me ever getting my passion and skill back. Again, the stressful uni environment is bad enough, and having a pastime that wasn’t essay writing or crying probably would have done me the world of good, similar to A Levels. Again, I can’t get this time back and that really is a sad thing.
So, in a rash, expensive, and possibly silly decision, I have ordered a brand new guitar, amp, and stand for my bedroom in London. A brand new Fender Jazzmaster in buttercream is something I’ve been admiring since the new collection was released, plus my amp at the moment is old and broken, and why bother lugging it back from Liverpool right? This is a very spontaneous thing to do, but I am so excited to pursue my hobby again, with new equipment and hopefully a new found passion too. I am going to keep the stuff in my uni home in London, where I will be spending most of my time come September, meaning I will (hopefully) reach for it far more and officially have my hobby back, to relieve the upcoming stress of third year. If anybody feels uninspired about a particular hobby, if you have the means to purchase or even lend some new equipment, I believe it is the perfect way to ignite some interest again, as it takes away the mundane and repetitive aspect attached to equipment you already own.
Though this is a personal tale of hobby struggles, I’m sure at least one or two of my readers can relate to the struggles of life getting in the way of our downtime, and if any of you have have any tips on keeping things interesting hobby-wise, I’d be more than happy to hear them. What I have realised on this journey of hobby reminiscing is that they really are a great thing to pursue and keep at; my writing here reveals that my darkest and most stressful moments where when I was not reaching for my guitar as a distraction, and it only brought me grief in the process.
I will keep my blog updated on how I find my new equipment, and this will hopefully tailor my content to be a little more specialist music-wise. Who knows, this could be a flop and a waste of money, but if all goes well, I will finally get my skill back, and realise that hobbies are my friend, useful, and calming when I get stressed. I am more than excited to see what the future of me and guitar playing could hold!
Thanks for readinggggg
H x
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