Adult Learning Music – Remember When This Process Was Fun and Not Frustrating Or Discouraging?

Learning music as adults is different than what we did as children.

Have you noticed just how excited a child can get when they get a new technique or understanding of theory?

How about gleaning an understanding of a new chord, improved sound, or completing a new song?

These learning experiences were fun, new, exciting, and enchanted us with curiosity. However, as adults, our frustration levels are high due to our lack of time and ability to focus on our intended hobby or pursuit, particularly when we consider music.

In this day of instant gratification, our frustration and disappointment levels go up even higher as we struggle with all the obligations of time. We need to be able to step back and take a look at our learning challenges.

How can we get back to a fun filled learning experience? There are three issues I would like you to consider in order to get on the right track.

It’s a Journey

The first thing to understand is that it is a long journey. Actually it’s a lifetime journey. This is a mindset where we have to acknowledge that it’s not that we can’t do it, but how are we going to make the trip.

Most of us don’t have the time to master anything like a musical instrument in a short period of time. If playing music is your goal be realistic about the time you can devote to this pursuit.

Plan on making a consistent effort and devote a small amount of time every day to your goal. Add more time when it is available. 5 to 10 minutes of focused time will gain you far more than an hour of worry about how you aren’t doing enough.

It’s done in steps

Second, it is done in steps, you start out with a little knowledge and add to it step by step.Come to grips with learning to play music is just like learning a martial art or any sport for that matter.

You start out as a white belt, novice, or newbie and add abilities to gain the next level of experience and expertise. In music we start as beginners and advance to intermediate, advanced, amateur, and for the few with the passion and talent to professional and virtuoso.

Realizing that it’s the steps that get you there, makes it easier to set goals as smaller increments of effort and time. Adopt this concept and you will overcome hurdles in both accomplishments and lowering of frustration levels.

Failure is the path to success.

This idea of failure is our third issue. Many of us get into a frame of mind that we can’t fail. To the point where I’ve seen people not even start because they thought they might fail or be disappointed.

When I was learning music as an adult I would watch the kids perform at our mini concerts. We would watch a newbie just total crash in front of everyone. Our teacher would get up and explain the challenges of performing for the first few times and have everyone give the performer a hand for having the courage to get up and give it a go. The second and third times up the lessons of practice and preparation started to pay off and they got better and more relaxed with each performance.

I was so motivated by this I was one of the first adults to volunteer to play in these performances. Yes I failed several times as well, but acknowledging that I could fail just motivated me to do better next time. Now I love to perform and at one point performed a 25 minute Beethoven sonata as a turning point in overcoming all the previous downfalls.

Whatever the learning method, it has to be done in steps. Take this into consideration and it will reduce the frustration levels. Allow yourself to fail, no better yet, go out and fail just to see what it is like. Take the experience and see how you can improve it for the next time by focusing in small steps to use the failure as a path to success.