Beginner Adult Students… It’s Okay to Suck 

To all you adult music students out there, you have my utmost respect. First off, you have found yourself in a financially viable spot where you can take private lessons without fear of being able to afford groceries. Second, you choose to do a really cool thing with your free time like learn an instrument. Third and most important, you are completely contradicting the evolutionary flow of aging and choosing to suck at something. If you’re brand new to music, I promise you, you really suck. Like really suck. But that’s okay and you need to let yourself suck. Every day we are trying to become more capable adults: have more money, say the right things, eat the right food, be the right person. Cyborgs! All you adult beginner psychos have the audacity to pick up a guitar and say, “game on”. But we need to acknowledge that you’re playing the game with some disadvantages. It’s safe to assume you’re good at other things so that gives you an ego and high standards. Get rid of those and come to terms with sucking. 

Kids have the upper hand. They will go blindly into anything and suck their way through “the dark ages” unscathed. The honking saxophones, the tone deaf divas, screeching violins, the incoherent guitar chord shapes, all of them are no deterrent for an oblivious kid. You adults need to be more like kids. Because those kids put the time in to grow through the puberty stage of music playing and actually get good. There is no hidden secret to learning an instrument, the more time you put in, the better you will get. And some people are worried about lacking the natural talent to play an instrument. That’s kind of valid. Natural musicality can go a long way. I have always been pretty good at doing a cartwheel but no level of training could ever get me close to doing anything like an Olympic gymnast. Strumming along to Wonderwall is more like doing a cartwheel. Just make sure your expectations are reasonable.

I wasn’t joking earlier, I have so much respect for a beginner adult music student. I genuinely don’t think I could pick up the guitar for the first time as an adult. My ego is too big and I like being good at things, or at least getting good at things quickly after learning about them. Guitar and other instruments aren’t like that. They can be tedious and soul crushing. It sucks to suck. BUT! If you push through eventually you won’t suck. The dark clouds will evaporate, the Red Sea will part, and you’ll understand how rewarding an instrument can be. If you need it in adult terms, it’s like waiting until after 65 to draw from your Roth IRA then moving to Fiji. Don’t pull out early and get taxed!

All the best things in life involve investment. You just need to give into the instrument and be okay with sucking until you don’t. If you stick with it, it will happen.