Negative Progress / Quitting

There are enough things in life that aren't necessarily fun, so music, as a as refuge from the dull day-to-day stuff, absolutely has to be be that. At least for me.

This hits the nail on the head for me, Mike. The reasons why we play vary from individual to individual - different ambitions and different feelings about what's the most enjoyable approach over the long haul. Horses for courses.

Breaks can freshen us up, but once you've learned to play an instrument I think it's a shame to let it go and lose the musical skills and knowledge. Trying other instruments is an option too. Unless life gets in the way, of course.
 
Lots of really great responses here that seem to really cut to the heart of the matter.

ANON LA PLY:
"Philippe (? sorry, bad memory :)"

Not even close :D

"Perfectionism is a destructive force that sucks the joy out of everything it touches. Sound familiar?"


Extremely familiar. I seem to have some perfectionist tendencies that have caused me real problems. I usually won't even attempt something unless I think that I can do really well at it, which pretty much ruined school for me. I guess I'm what you would call a "Lazy Perfectionist".

"So, from a non pro standpoint, just get with a bunch of people you like as human beings and try your best to make them sound good. If you do that you will most likely rediscover your joy of drumming."


This really hit one of my major problems square on the head and it gets a little personal. See, I really don't have any friends anymore (musicians or otherwise). That makes things challenging.

BOOMKA: As I said I don't "know" anything about if I'm actually getting worse. I think that it may be an increased ability to hear mistakes that is leading me into a vicious cycle. I'll hear a mistake and out of frustration I'll make more mistakes.
"You say yourself "I know it's not the best way to practice". If you know that, then why are you surprised and depressed when you aren't getting the results you want?"

That is an extraordinarily good point. The cycle will continue forever unless I do something to actually change it. I think WY YUNG said it best when he said:

"The player had found some excuse not to practice properly. Ignore basics, mistake fun for actual work, and then later complain and give up."


That's certainly the trap I've found myself in.

LARRY: "Adjust your mental approach. The one you're using now is about as detrimental as it gets."

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone has told me that. You're right and I know you're right, but it's a bit easier to say than do. It seems like my subconscious mind spends at least 2 or 3 solid hours of everyday telling me how useless I am. That's a very hard mental state to break out of.

Thank you to everybody who has posted here. It's very important to hear other perspectives and let those with far more experience share their hard earned wisdom.

It looks like I may have a lot of things to work on.
 
...my subconscious mind spends at least 2 or 3 solid hours of everyday telling me how useless I am. That's a very hard mental state to break out of....

Tell your subconscious mind, from my more-or-less conscious one, that apart from the few who are acshly paid to hit stuff, we're all useless to varying degrees.

If you're not being paid to hit stuff, then do whatever it takes to get the most enjoyment, fun and satisfaction that there is to get from this wonderful pursuit of ours, because that's all that there is to get. Technical perfection is not a pre-requisite to achieving this aim.

The next bit is well meant, so please take it in the spirit in which it is meant: you may do well to seek professional help to beat your subconscious into submission, let you take more pleasure from drumming and overcome whatever it is that is preventing you from maintaining friendships. Apologies if this treads on your toes.
 
I had to stop playing a couple times. Not because of self-loathing over negative progress, but just life forcing me to do other things. The first time, I went to Tech School in AZ for a little over a year. Came back and got a kit again, then moved up north. Ran broke up there, had to sell kit for money. Some time passed, got my old Slingy kit back, but had no cymbals or hardware. Somehow my mom lost her house, I had to move again, which meant giving up the drums again for awhile. I think I had a couple years away from the drums with no stable living situation, but I was playing guitar and that kept me happy.

I don't think I played in '94, and I didn't play in '95 because that was the year I lived in Yosemite. In '96 I moved back to So Cal and I've been here ever since. Somewhere during this time I gave the old Slingy back to my uncle, then some time in 1997 I bought his Tama Rockstar kit with cymbals and hardware because he had packed them away while being on his own drumming hiatus. So, I started playing again in 1997, found a band, and I've been playing as much as I can ever since. When I was married, my playing slowed down to just a few hours a week playing with a cover band. There was about a year I didn't have drums to play between March 2011 to March 2012, but I kept my cymbals and hardware.

I haven't been a serious drummer through all this time, just somebody who really likes drumming. I joined my current band in March 2012, and now I consider myself a serious drummer. I'm really putting my mind to learning and perfecting the art of drumming to my own capabilities. I've made a tremendous amount of progress the last couple of years just by finding the right band to play in to allow this kind of progress to occur.

What I am saying is, you never know when that serious love of drumming will really hit you. It hit me big time around the time I joined this forum. I was at a very low point in my life, and I realized what was truly important to me in my life, and drumming is and has always been right up there. Nowadays, I can't even imagine going an extended period of time without drumming, but that's just what I'm thinking today.
 
I had to stop playing a couple times. Not because of self-loathing over negative progress, but just life forcing me to do other things.

This is exactly what happened / is happening... I've had numberless priorities which pushed the drums and music in the background, like moving countries, living somewhere where you cannot have a drumkit, sometimes it last for as long as 2 years, currently I haven't play my kit since June 2013 and it's not likely that I'll resume drumming in the forthcoming months... such is life :(

I do miss playing terribly every time this happen and every time my drumming takes some beating, things I was able to do comfortably sounds like crap, I'm all rusty everywhere, my time sucks and it takes months just to be back at a reasonable state of playing.

The good thing though, each time I'm returning to the kit a new perspective shines through, something about the approach has changed since I last played, it must be due to all the listening and the dormant drumming seeds in your brain which develop while you cannot play the kit.

Yes, I wish I could play the drums all the time, but life has decided otherwise, but my love for drumming never stop, even when I'm not playing, so when I can finally return to the kit, the love and fun of playing overcome easily my lack of progress, I'll never quit drumming, even if I have to wait 10 years before I can play again.

DSCRAPRE, you love drumming... that's all what matters, just keep at it, be inspired and the progress will come back :)
 
This is exactly what happened / is happening... I've had numberless priorities which pushed the drums and music in the background, like moving countries, living somewhere where you cannot have a drumkit, sometimes it last for as long as 2 years, currently I haven't play my kit since June 2013 and it's not likely that I'll resume drumming in the forthcoming months... such is life :(
Yes, it tends to take a toll on progress, but the drums are always in the back of our minds, eh?

I do miss playing terribly every time this happen and every time my drumming takes some beating, things I was able to do comfortably sounds like crap, I'm all rusty everywhere, my time sucks and it takes months just to be back at a reasonable state of playing.
Well yeah, that's the problem. We lose our sticking and the muscle memory that goes along with it. The fact is though, I could have been practicing on a pad the whole time I was away from a kit, but I didn't even think about getting a pad. Now I have two, but still don't utilize it as much as I should. I've always been a drum set player.

The good thing though, each time I'm returning to the kit a new perspective shines through, something about the approach has changed since I last played, it must be due to all the listening and the dormant drumming seeds in your brain which develop while you cannot play the kit.
I don't think we ever really stop drumming. even when I'm away from a kit I can go over a song mentally, beyond that, it's just muscle memory doing the playing. The brain is doing the drumming. We can still pick things up away from a kit and work out a way to play it without even having a stick or a kit to play it on.

Yes, I wish I could play the drums all the time, but life has decided otherwise, but my love for drumming never stop, even when I'm not playing, so when I can finally return to the kit, the love and fun of playing overcome easily my lack of progress, I'll never quit drumming, even if I have to wait 10 years before I can play again.

DSCRAPRE, you love drumming... that's all what matters, just keep at it, be inspired and the progress will come back :)

I'm with you Henri. I think it's that way for me too.
 
"Perfectionism is a destructive force that sucks the joy out of everything it touches. Sound familiar?"

Extremely familiar. I seem to have some perfectionist tendencies that have caused me real problems. I usually won't even attempt something unless I think that I can do really well at it, which pretty much ruined school for me. I guess I'm what you would call a "Lazy Perfectionist".

Non-Phillipe :) ... last night I was looking at a Zappa Plays Zappa live video and thought back to my comment to you and wished I said "unless you are operating at elite levels". Great artists are perfect because they followed the path of gifted people.

For the rest of us, I think we're better off getting the general vibe right. Tidy up any bits that bugged you.

This really hit one of my major problems square on the head and it gets a little personal. See, I really don't have any friends anymore (musicians or otherwise). That makes things challenging.

If life allows, maybe post an ad in for people to jam with? Some of my best friends are musos. Every jam with a new player - good, bad or indifferent - is a learning experience, both musically and personally.
 
I've always had a bare-minimum grasp of piano, and in the last year or so picked up the ukulele. I love it. Playing another instrument definitely helps you get a handle on your main instrument. Highly recommended!

I was thinking of this for advice too.... It also sounds like you're not real motivated to play drums or improve right now. I went through this with guitar... Played and took bluegrass lessons for years... guitar was always a struggle for me, and I couldn't figure out why others seem to fly over the strings and learn melodies after hearing a tune 1 time. I also had to force myself to sit down and play and it felt like work. I dreaded playing with other people because I felt soooooo inadequate and uptight. Then I found DRUMS... Now I have the instrument that I CAN sit down and play songs after hearing them just once, and sitting down and playing is fun and not such hard work (at least most of the time!). In addition, I LOVE playing with other people and am in 2 classic rock bands and am the drummer on our worship team at church! I LOVE jamming with people on drums, where I hated it with guitar (although I wanted to like it and forced myself to do it because I honestly thought I wanted to play guitar).
I'd take a break and see if enthusiasm, motivation, and opportunities come your way again.
 
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