Your time away HAS caused you to get “worse.” I might be one of the worst cases of that. I played heavily for about 17 years before life got in the way and I was playing less and less. Eventually, it got to where I’d pick up an axe and play once every 4-6 weeks, and every time, I was worse than the last, and getting more and more discouraged. Finally, I woke up after 7-8 years and realized I didn’t want to be a guy who “used to play guitar,” so I accepted that I’d lost a ton of ground and would, in many ways, need to start over. I got back to basics and built exercises. I re-learned old songs I knew, worked on my improv, learned new songs I wanted to know, and most importantly, I committed myself to playing every single day, even if I could only manage 10 minutes.
There are things I used to be able to do that I will probably never be able to do again. It is what it is – I’m in my late 40s now and learning new techniques is a lot harder than it was when I was younger. But I’m taking what I do know and working on expanding it, working on becoming more tasteful – something I felt I lacked in my younger years.
The most important thing is to put in time every day and not get discouraged when you have a bad day.
