I knew someone like this too. It’s mystifying to me how someone could practice for years without ever improving, I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t hear them practicing nearly every day lol
My violin teacher called it practicing without ambition. Every time you practice, you’re supposed to criticize yourself and constantly compare yourself to better players so that you can strive to master a specific part of playing. In a healthy way, of course. Otherwise, you can “practice” for fifty years and still never learn anything.
My violin teacher said the same. I didn’t say it out loud, but called it “I want to play my music, not your music”. Well, 20 years later it turned out my thumb metacarpophalangeal joint got pretty much fused in both hands, so I can barely hold a violin, or a guitar, or even play the piano, and can only play “my music” now…
Wait, this was about “practice”? Nah, good thing I didn’t waste too much time on it back then.
There’s a reason they start on the recorder. There are instruments that are far and away harder to learn than others, but there are also skills that are universal, or at least applicable to most instruments. Fine motor skills, breath control, learning to read music. If you try to jump right into a difficult instruments, especially if you try to self-guide your learning it can become something almost insurmountable.
With the Internet, though, now we have access to no limit of teaching and learning material. I’ve recently started picking up the ocarina, years separated from my time on the clarinet and the sax, and while parts of it are foreign there’s also a lot familiar, like riding a new style of bicycle.
If you’re still experiencing it, I would say try recommending they learn the basics on a more basic instrument, or seek out videos that teach the instrument they are interested in. Learning on your own is great, but all of our skills are built on the foundation of those that came before, so there’s no shame learning from someone more experienced
I agree! They weren’t open to recommendations however haha.
This is someone who simply refused to tune their guitar, for reference. They would get mad when I tuned it when I wanted to play it. “If it sounds fine, then what’s the point?”. It didn’t sound fine. It sounded like they accidentally caught the guitar while fishing one day.
They were also conceptually offended by the idea of practicing with a metronome. “I’ll play off you, and you play off me”. They simply couldn’t play in time. To an impressive extent, actually. Like if you were deliberately trying not to sync up you couldn’t do it in a more grating way.
Their repertoire consisted of avant-garde renditions of, well, if you guessed you would probably guess right. Wonderwall, time of your life, etc.
But no, I’m not still experiencing it. They dropped out of college to sell knives. I actually ordered a chef’s knife, paid in cash. It never arrived.
Ah, one of those types of musicians. Well, just like in every aspect of life you can’t help those who don’t want to be helped. Oh well, c’est la vie.
It’s like artists who put a red dot to paper, call it post modernism and try to sell it for exorbitant amounts of money.
Sorry to hear about your wasted cash. If it makes you feel better, chef knives are one of the hardest to make well, so even if you did get it, might not have even been worth the wait or the money. At least as it stands now it’s only not worth the money.
![Determined [MoringMark]](https://a.l3n.co/i/QSepXT.jpeg){kind=link}
I knew someone like this too. It’s mystifying to me how someone could practice for years without ever improving, I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t hear them practicing nearly every day lol
My violin teacher called it practicing without ambition. Every time you practice, you’re supposed to criticize yourself and constantly compare yourself to better players so that you can strive to master a specific part of playing. In a healthy way, of course. Otherwise, you can “practice” for fifty years and still never learn anything.
My violin teacher said the same. I didn’t say it out loud, but called it “I want to play my music, not your music”. Well, 20 years later it turned out my thumb metacarpophalangeal joint got pretty much fused in both hands, so I can barely hold a violin, or a guitar, or even play the piano, and can only play “my music” now…
Wait, this was about “practice”? Nah, good thing I didn’t waste too much time on it back then.
There’s a reason they start on the recorder. There are instruments that are far and away harder to learn than others, but there are also skills that are universal, or at least applicable to most instruments. Fine motor skills, breath control, learning to read music. If you try to jump right into a difficult instruments, especially if you try to self-guide your learning it can become something almost insurmountable.
With the Internet, though, now we have access to no limit of teaching and learning material. I’ve recently started picking up the ocarina, years separated from my time on the clarinet and the sax, and while parts of it are foreign there’s also a lot familiar, like riding a new style of bicycle.
If you’re still experiencing it, I would say try recommending they learn the basics on a more basic instrument, or seek out videos that teach the instrument they are interested in. Learning on your own is great, but all of our skills are built on the foundation of those that came before, so there’s no shame learning from someone more experienced
I agree! They weren’t open to recommendations however haha.
This is someone who simply refused to tune their guitar, for reference. They would get mad when I tuned it when I wanted to play it. “If it sounds fine, then what’s the point?”. It didn’t sound fine. It sounded like they accidentally caught the guitar while fishing one day.
They were also conceptually offended by the idea of practicing with a metronome. “I’ll play off you, and you play off me”. They simply couldn’t play in time. To an impressive extent, actually. Like if you were deliberately trying not to sync up you couldn’t do it in a more grating way.
Their repertoire consisted of avant-garde renditions of, well, if you guessed you would probably guess right. Wonderwall, time of your life, etc.
But no, I’m not still experiencing it. They dropped out of college to sell knives. I actually ordered a chef’s knife, paid in cash. It never arrived.
Ah, one of those types of musicians. Well, just like in every aspect of life you can’t help those who don’t want to be helped. Oh well, c’est la vie.
It’s like artists who put a red dot to paper, call it post modernism and try to sell it for exorbitant amounts of money.
Sorry to hear about your wasted cash. If it makes you feel better, chef knives are one of the hardest to make well, so even if you did get it, might not have even been worth the wait or the money. At least as it stands now it’s only not worth the money.