***Beginner's Mental Block: Get Out of Your Own Head!!!***

[Jak Angelescu]

WOW, like I mean, WOW.
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed my “Tell me a random fact about yourself” post on my story. Some of the responses I got were really funny, and some were like “Whoa.”
I don’t get it. I am trying SO hard to get more people active on this school, and it’s just not working! I got SEVERAL responses about beginners feeling down about their playing, saying they suck, they’ll never be able to do (fill in the blank) and so on. Unfortunately, I didn’t start with this mindframe, BUT my environment I grew up in quickly put me there. It killed my confidence that I didn’t get back until this school. I get so many messages about people saying what they need help with, and I honestly don’t know why they don’t engage more here. I keep redirecting people here and it’s just not cutting it. So here is some tough love. And I mean…TOUGH.
This is mostly targeted at beginners. Get out of your own head. Now. Right now. I mean like, before you even finish reading this. Stop saying you suck. Stop doubting yourself. It’s not going to get you anywhere, and no one, I mean NO one can come along and fix this for you. You have to take it upon yourself to do the necessary things to improve. I had to learn the REALLY hard way that crying over my guitar didn’t help me learn Hail to the King:
Focusing, practicing, and getting out of my own head helped me improve. When you set yourself up with a mindframe like that, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Period. End of story. EVERYONE sucks in the beginning. No one is born good. No one is gifted! And it’s a journey, not a destination. I’ll never forget when Syn responded to me on his #AMA and says he STILL faces self doubt everyday. It never gets easier. It just gets funner if you get out of your own mind.
Learning guitar is hard. It’s emotionally hard. It’s mentally frustrating. And learning ANY craft is the ultimate, easiest way to start hating yourself because you feel how ‘crappy’ you are and how far you have to go. I hate to say this, but my singer gave me a HUGE reality check years ago. She said, “When you pick up that guitar, check your ego at the door.” What she meant, is stop placing so much of a perfectionist, godly expectation on yourself. Don’t let your ego or your pride be bruised because it’s hard. Nothing in this life worth working for is easy.
Don’t you DARE give up. You obviously feel passionate about the instrument, or you wouldn’t be so hard on yourself. Take the expectations out, and learn because it’s fun, not because you need to prove something to yourself, or to others.
I love this community VERY much. And it bothers me that so many people aren’t milking it for all its worth. If you read this and you are having issues, PLEASE post your riffs. Syn and Papa put SO much (I can’t even begin to tell you) SOOO much into this school JUST for you to finally feel worthwhile. Please take the opportunity.
Engage here. Write your frustrations here. Get out your anger and let us all support you. Ask for help, post your riffs. Hell, it’s the ONLY reason I freaking improved to begin with. I was posting forums, comments, videos almost DAILY. And it paid off. Don’t be embarrassed to post your progress or your work. Believe me, every video Syn and Papa (and myself) see, it makes us smile. And it should make you smile too.
Get out of your own head, stop doubting yourself. You CAN DO ANYTHING you set your mind too. I mean it.
In all love,
GuitarNinjaCat

 

[Syn Gates]

Fuck, mind blown Jak! As an influencer, I feel like this is the most difficult thing to say to someone that is so down on themselves. Idols look so perfect from a far. Their story so predestined. Their path so perfectly paved. BUT, nothing could be further from the truth. The COLD HARD FACT is that the only person that can help you the most is yourself. You have to find your inner strength ESPECIALLY when life is at it’s darkest. Even if you have a great inner circle of friends and family, which most don’t, they can’t carry you to ultimate happiness and success. ONLY YOU have the power to make it through the tough times.
NOW, after saying that, I don’t want anybody to think that I’m including mental illness or clinical depression into this evaluation, I am only speaking about the much overlooked but brilliant inner art form of accountability. If you do feel like you have held yourself accountable, and you don’t sit around blaming others for your problems and you still feel a deep sense of depression or even worse, suicidal thoughts, please tell someone NOW. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. We are all here to help you!
In closing, I truly appreciate your insight Jak, you can clearly see your authenticity and experience in this manner. Trust and belief in one’s self is the ultimate pathway to happiness. It’s the hardest thing to achieve for so many but I promise I’ve been there and you can pull through.
Thanks so much for this Jak, this is by far my favorite forum thread to date. I truly hope that it will resonate with others in need. Happy Holidays everyone!

 

[Jak Angelescu]

I am so incredibly glad that you liked this post because I was really nervous that it could have triggered some people very wrongly. And that wasn’t my intention at all. And I agree with you one billion Percent about those who suffer from mental illness. It’s not fun at all. I’ve been fortunate enough to never really suffer from that, but I have been around those who do. And that’s all another person who I’d like to reach out to. This forum topic is for those people as well. That there is help here. And that we all truly care about one another far beyond the extent of music. Depression is an absolutely ugly and terrible thing and nobody should face it alone. And I mean nobody. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment on this my dear friend! Sometimes the people that write me on Instagram tell me that they don’t post here because they are absolutely terrified of being judged. And that there are people that see these posts but they just don’t engage. I just hope that some of them see this and get inspired to push past their fears.
It’s truly the most relieving and satisfying feeling in the world to let go of all self doubt and fear of judgment.

 

[Rod Azeite]

Wow… I’ve gotten so caught up with school that I had to take a bit of a break (sorry to everyone counting on me to make the vids i promised, ill get back on it asap) and I’ve been keeping an eye on the school from afar, but I saw this and I just had to say something!
First of all, to everyone scared of posting videos, dont be! I used to be just like you guys, and most of anything I did was just shadowing Jak’s progress and giving her feedback on her vids. I do admit it took a lot of courage to be able to film, and my perfectionist side was so loud it ended up taking over and I left behind some five minutes of me speaking about useful things that I’d researched just to fit the video into the 1 minute time frame. But man, oh man was it worth it. I can’t thank the people of the school enough for what theyve done for me. They took me in as one of their own and soon I was buzzing about the forums and posting and coming up with new ideas for videos, all the while talking to all the greatest people in this school that we all look up to and having a few close run-ins with Mr. Syn himself! It doesn’t take perfection to be able to post here, you just gotta be able to take that leap of faith, and rest assured that when you do, we’ll be here to catch you. I look forward to seeing some of your guys’ vids when I get back on next week!
Secondly, about the depression, Syn and Jak are right, you should talk to someone. My dad, for example is a psychiatrist, and I’d much rather you gusy work up enough courage to talk about your problems than to let them take over. We’re all here for you guys!
Lastly, for Jak in specific, I can’t thank you enough for posting this! I was already considering cutting off a bit of guitar from my schedule to have time for everything and this made me remember that, if anything, I should be doing the exact opposite. Guitar is a part of my life, I’ve made it so and it hasn’t always been easy. And let me tell you it’s really humbling be reminded that there’s a new generation of guitarrists on the brink of success, so I should definitely not take any progress that I’ve made for granted.

 

[Andrew Saunders]

Okay because of this post I’m going to upload my first video in the riffs section,I learned the So Far Away interlude and 2 weeks ago my fingerpicking skills were very poor, stay posted.
Also Jak, as cliche as it sounds, I have no clue what this community would be like without you here. I’ve watched your Buried Alive tutorial quite a bit and I’m still struggling with it a bit but bc of all the practise I put in with buried alive, i was able to learn So Far Away a lot easier and had it perfect within 2 days. Thanks for being here, and i hope you stick around for a long time.

 

[idssdi]

I love this!
Personally I’ve always had the mindset ‘he/she is human and I’m human so if I practice enough I can do that’ but I get where people come From but I am horribly unqualified to give any qualitative advice on this matter and you(and Syn) just did it so well!

 

[Dominik Gräber]

Awesome Motivation Post!
I think a huge Problem of a beginner joining the school and Posting a Riff is that you Join an existing Community.
You might feel Like ‘oh they know each Other, what am I doing Here, I don’t want to be judged by Strangers’. And this is exactly why I think it’s important to Stress how unique this Community is. There is No such Thing as ‘strangers’, there will never be Bad or negative Feedback. No one should fear to get active in the SGS.

 

[Kevin Kwasneski]

I don’t know you very well yet, but thank you for posting this Jak!! I’ve played for 16 years and sill feel like this a lot of the time. For me getting in my head is a problem I have in general (translates over to mountain biking as well, why I land on my face more than I do my wheels lol).
“This is mostly targeted at beginners. Get out of your own head. Now. Right now. I mean like, before you even finish reading this. Stop saying you suck. Stop doubting yourself. It’s not going to get you anywhere, and no one, I mean NO one can come along and fix this for you. You have to take it upon yourself to do the necessary things to improve.” This spoke to me a lot. I don’t consider myself a beginner, but even now if there is a solo or technique I’m having an issue with those thoughts can creep back in.
But when I started out when I was 14 people in my highschool told me I sucked, should play a dif instrument, etc. I’ve found some of those people on facebook, they are married now, have kids, and who knows if they still play. But for me guitar has been a life long journey for me, not just learning highschool punk rock, but getting into metal, learning how to wire and build guitars, and connecting with the music community in my city.
And I was scared to post too. As far as playing live I think the biggest crowd I’ve played for is 5 people. And youtube 10 or 11 years ago was a nice community, but not so much any more, with the rise of fake videos, trolls and other things that allow people to hide behind a screen and spew hatred.
And just on a personal level it is cool to record yourself, because when you watch the videos in another 5 years, 10 years, you can see how far you have come! My last thing is something my previous employer would say, “giving up is not an option.”

 

[Evan Cosman]

This is incredible!
I am a person who is inside their head a lot, I have found over the past few months i have been getting outside of my head much more frequently, and i can’t tell you how amazing it feels when you have no expectation of “what you should be able to play” and you just let go of the anxiety and all that self doubt, I have found that when you let go is when you play the best. If you are only focusing on the mistakes and the things that you think you are doing wrong (which I am very fond of) it will just discourage you, you need to acknowledge the progress or the things that you are doing correctly and acknowledge the things that you do incorrectly and work on those things but don’t beat yourself up over those things.
I have struggled with Clinical Depression and suicidal ideation for a while, please if you are struggling with it reach out it helps so much to have good people and a safe place to talk about it with and this is a very kind safe place
Rock on Guys!

 

[Steven Huth]

Learning an instrument is such a unique process because it is different for everyone. One lesson that is easy for one person could be insanely hard for another person to understand. Everybody goes through a different roadblock. And sometimes it is extremely hard to push through it yourself.
Great advice by everyone in here about reaching out and voicing those frustrations. Sometimes it takes a little encouragement to really pull us through those rough patches. There’s no better place than to do it here. I am proud to be a part of this community and I hope that everyone else that is here is proud too.
You all rock!

 

[Karen Dunson]

Ahhh, judgement, failure and self-doubt, my oldest friends. I won’t go into detail, but it’s been a strange life. I’ve clawed my way up from rock bottom, and I’m okay with who I became, but still I guard myself, and I’m very careful who I associate with or what I put out there for people to see. So careful, in fact, that I went through the whole forum all the way back to the beginning looking for red flags before I posted (neurotic much?) and here I am posting. I am really impressed with this community, and I agree with Evan. This is a very kind, safe place. I’m sure I will post videos eventually, but for now I just need to ask simple questions.
From a beginner perspective, though, it does seem like everyone in here is way ahead of me or has had years on the guitar. At first I felt like maybe this was a program for more serious guitar players, but I also see lots of encouragement for beginners to post. So thank you, Jak. I am going to get out of my own head and post my questions.

 

[Jak Angelescu]

@karen this site can definitely seem like it’s only for “extremely dedicated, virtually serious players” because unfortunately, that is the majority that posts The beginners feel like they have nothing to offer, and they easily feel intimidated by everyone else when they see their videos. There’s a forum post I have called, “I Have A Great Idea!” And what it is, is I decided to NOMINATE someone to post a riff, talk about it, and then they in turn nominate someone else to do the same. It was to specifically drag beginners out of the closet, make them overcome their fears, and collect wonderful feedback on their riff. And it worked! The one person who comes to mind is Rowan.
She is so sweet. She is shy humble, artistic, and a beginner. BUT… she actually has overcome her fears and she posted a video about something that helped HER out. And guess what? It actually helped ME out!! It was so difficult for me to play standing up. But she mentioned thumb positioning in a way I never looked at, and it was such a big leap for me I had to praise her both publicly and privately.
The thing about beginners NOT posting, is that eventually they can develop really bad habits that are difficult to fix if they don’t showcase what they’re doing. Take me with Papa Gates for example I’m not a beginner, but there was a huge block I couldn’t overcome and lo and behold, he said, ‘You really should reconsider how you hold your pick.’ Worst two months of my playing in my WHOLE life was trying to relearn the proper way. But if you watch my 2 month progression on the Hail to the King solo, it showcases just the BIGGEST leap of improvement EVER!!
I’m so glad you’re here! And i can’t wait until you post something up. Even if it’s just you saying, “This is what i learned in lesson 1-3” and show us how you hold your guitar. It’s so wonderful to see the growing process for everyone.
I would like to tell ALL beginners something though: There’s another reason why you shouldn’t be afraid to post something up. Because your profiles store your riff videos, you will LOVE looking back on your journey after a year and be proud at how far you’ve come. I know I am! It’s so rewarding and gratifying

 

[Matt Wildman]

Well said Jak. I wouldn’t feel sorry for posting this cause some people need this. It’s very important to be active here and motivate yourself to actually play and get better. No one can do that except yourself. So good post

 

[Jak Angelescu]

@matt thank you so much my friend! I can’t wait to see your work on Lost’s solo!

 

[Calvin Phillips]

Doesnt matter if its 30 seconds or 30 minutes. Love seeing everyone progress. Before the site went down temperarely we had a few newer posters. Was fun seeing their progress. And hearing their creativity. Doesnt have to “be good” to be creative. And thats really the magic of music.