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January 2007
Posts: 672
Location: New South Wales, Australia | In relation to Losov's thread about doing it all again...I'm curious as to why so many people played for a few years and then just stopped...for decades in some cases. |
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June 2006
Posts: 7307
Location: South of most, North of few | Life got in the way. |
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December 2003
Posts: 1889
Location: Central Massachusetts | Not that I have gotten very far to begin with, but for me, the interruption has been due to genetic redeployment [kids]. |
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Joined:
October 2008
Posts: 489
| Ah! Well, in my case I undertook a course of study that simply did not allow for any diversions as consuming as playing music. I put the guitars down and did not think about them for about six or seven years.
Thought I was done but then my wife engaged to someone in casual conversation who was looking for a guitar player for a local musical theater production. I was volunteered. Kinda stayed with it since. |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 10581
Location: NJ | got married
bought a house
took a day gig
tired of dealing with people with substance abuse
got depressed
sick friends family and relatives
life got in the ways says it all. |
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Joined:
April 2006
Posts: 972
Location: PDX | Frustration with the lack of progress.
In my youth i didn't quite understand that anything worth having was worth striving for.
_____
gh1 |
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Joined:
December 2006
Posts: 6268
Location: Florida Central Gulf Coast | In chronological order:
1. Voluntary military service ('65)
2. Newly wed marital bliss ('69)
3. New family additions due to #2 ('71-'75)
4. $hortage$ due to #1, #2 and #3
5. Extra jobs to compensate for #4
5. Military retirement, aka career change, due to #3; enough moving for my Girls prior to their Jr./Sr. high school years. ('85)
6. $$$,$$$ for #3 educations
7. My bride's emergency brain surgery... ('06)
... which brought me here to pass some frightful times!
Thanx for being here for me!!! Seriously... |
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September 2003
Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | I never stopped completly but things got really slow while we were bringing up 3 boys. |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7211
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I've put a lot of thought into this of late, because as it stands now I haven't played in a long time. Months in between just picking up a guitar and noodling, years between playing an actual tune, 7 years since a band.
I did a lot of searching (sole and otherwise) and I just like playing in a band. I don't like playing by myself at all, and I guess I never realized it before, never thought about it before.
I only get excited if there is a potential gig with a band. Could be a group getting together to do one show for an event, or planning on playing every weekend, but it seems most of my life I would find a band, or put a band together, and if I wasn't working on that, I wasn't playing at all.
When I had my recording studio, I was around music a lot, so I didn't realize I wasn't playing that was 2002-2006. Then I moved out here in 2006 and it's now 2009.
I want to play... but I'm stuck it seems. It's not like I can just go "JAM" as it's been so long I got nothing to play, and to make matters worse, my arthritis seems to put a limit on how long I can play anyway, if I did have something to play. I haven't learned a cover tune in nearly 10 years, may be longer, and don't really have a desire to play anyone else's music, but I guess I would if I had to.
The real rut I am in is I (yep I'm gonna use a word I would NEVER use to describe any aspect of music)..... I hate the way I sound when I play, hate it. Songs that I should know I have forgotten, and my brain says "play it like this" and my hands just respond with "huh??" I can't force myself to practice, cause I just suck, there's no upcoming gig, and it hurts. I will once again gist a quote from Matt Smith in that "Music is supposed to be fun" that's why it's called "playing." I do not enjoy playing guitar anymore, period.
To add insult to injury.. ok.. find a band to play with. To my knowledge there is no real venue in the area for Metal. Lots of Country, Folk and Blues. YAWN!!!!!
I had almost reached a point where I thought I would do open mic nights. Just do it. (Thank to Damon and Alpep for the motivation really) Just strum rhythm, or maybe even bring a Bass. Then I saw the Iron Maiden in RIO concert (yes they are still touring) on VH1-Classic and realized... playing folk songs or doing some acoustic thing just ain't gonna cut it. I'm getting to old to waste my time with something I'm not interested in.
So.. that's it.. I guess I'm just done playing guitar. I don't mean to sound melodramatic, but it is what it is. I'm not going to say never... I would LOVE to play again. I just don't see how it's going to happen. |
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Joined:
December 2004
Posts: 4394
Location: East Tennessee | Originally posted by Trader Jim:
Life got in the way. +1 |
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January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Never really stopped, but certainly slowed down due to all the above. Sure enjoyed playing with you, Miles, at the PNW gathering. If you really hadn't played in a long time, you sure retained more than I would have. Watching you and Al rip was a blast. But I totally agree with you on one point . . . playing in an organized band according to an established schedule serves as motivation to work harder at it. |
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Joined:
December 2008
Posts: 1453
Location: Texas | When personal computers advanced sufficiently to be viable for graphic design, I got so deeply into computer graphics that I ignored my guitars… then I blinked and 20+ years had passed…
Last year, I happened to be in a music store looking for something for my son and I wandered into the acoustic guitar room and started picking up guitars. One of them was a Celebrity 12-string. (I still had my '79 Custom Balladeer.) I never owned a 12 string, but always wanted a 12 string Ovation (and a Rickenbacker, I'm half way there.) ;) I wasn't sufficiently impressed with the Celebrity… the store had no higher-end Ovations at all.
The seed was planted, I researched models on Ovation's web-site and eventually stumbled into the OFC, I blinked again and now I have 5 guitars, including 2 Ovations, and I am really enjoying playing all of them every chance I get. I'm actually trying to learn things I should have spent more time on when I was young enough to learn easily but too impatient to bother.
Long story, but you asked… |
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Joined:
August 2005
Posts: 3736
Location: Sunshine State, Australia | Originally posted by Trader Jim:
Life got in the way. Snap. |
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Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Originally posted by Trader Jim:
Life got in the way. TJ nailed it
what more can be said! |
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Joined:
March 2005
Posts: 12750
Location: Boise, Idaho | Pretty much the same story here. Maybe that's why I spend so much time here--we have a lot in common besides Ovations. Neither of the girls were really into guitars until college. When looking for an amp for the oldest, I went to a bunch of music stores and found the OFC and ebay. I think I have 16 guitars now and the only non-Ovation is a Hamer.
Iffy, SWMBO has to go in for brain surgery soon. A fairly large, slow growing tumor. Life getting in the way is better than the alternative.
Miles, as you know, we are polar opposites in musical tastes. I've been looking for someone to jam with in Boise and all I can find is metal bands. I hate that crap. I have a friend that does country gigs and I'd join him long before I'd ever consider learning metal stuff. |
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Joined:
December 2006
Posts: 6268
Location: Florida Central Gulf Coast | Originally posted by Mark in Boise:
Iffy, SWMBO has to go in for brain surgery soon. Mark, PM sent. |
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Joined:
July 2003
Posts: 3111
Location: Nashville TN. | I haven't stopped I made a switch from rock (which I was never that good at) to country in 2002.
I got a bit side tracked with my parents getting sick & passing away one after the other. |
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Joined:
January 2009
Posts: 4535
Location: Flahdaw | I never ever "stopped", I always had a guitar around. I just never took it serious. Had only my old Tak from '77 until '99, when I bought my Collectors. Got re-energized for a coupla years, then kind of funked out until a few years ago when the wife bought the Everett.
My only regret is not pushing it a little harder 30 years ago...I might have been good. |
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Joined:
May 2008
Posts: 1553
Location: Indiana | I guess this is a cross answer to both this thread and the "would I do it again" question Loslov posed.
I've been playing 40 out of my 48 years. I can't imagine my life with out a guitar.
The only time I ever stopped happened in '93 when a head on collision shattered my left arm. Post surgery, nerve damage resulted semi-paralysis... my left hand curled up in a claw.
It was touch and go for months.
I realized at that point how much it meant and how deeply I'd taken my relationship with the guitar for granted.
It all worked out OK eventually... and I'm a very, very grateful guy. |
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Joined:
February 2004
Posts: 2487
| I came in on the tail end of the greatest decade in Rock & Roll (for me) and it was the music written and performed then that inspired me into learning and dealing with all the lunatics you need to find within a musicians circle (myself included) to form a great band. So once this was done and we started playing (79-81) I was living large for a year or two. Back then if you had a rock band that had the talent and the equipment to put on a show that could cover Floyd, Genesis, Rush, Yes, there were bars all over that were huge places and the coolest people went to see the coolest bands and back then our set lists were it. So we'd pack the house all the time. THere were a few rweal ood bands in our area that did this on a regular basis and you could get pid (up front) $1,200- $1,500 and split the cover at the door of $4 or $5. I was playing at least two nights every week summers three or four or five bar gig,s parties, fairs. Back then I was making more money than my Dad who was a hard working SOB and a Union Foreman. I quit college to do this. I was livin the life ya know. Mind of a 19yr old kid very often works like this, always will it seems. Anyway around 81 or 82? I don't quite remember, anyway, that was the year the drinking age was changed, and the Police started enforcing the DWI laws more stricktly then the laws kept changing, liquor licencing became more and more expensive. Occupancy, age, and time curfue rules were being checked and enforced. So the crowds dwindled from a packed bar of 250 people to 60. The new music was coming in and the girls noly seemed to care about the juke box songs as many bands (like ours) folded and the only bands that filled the void were the lesser musicians and they had a perfect vehicl to take the stage with in Punk Rock and goofy electronica crap like Too Too Shy Shy Hush Hush Eye to Eye. The Girls somehow thought Billy Squire was the sexiest thing alive. So to stay in music back then meant playing music I absolutly hated with a passion. I slowly began selling instruments and equipment and always figured this music will dye down and the good stuff will come back and I'll get back into it. Well it never really did, so then Life came along and a marriage and I did manage to keep one guitar. It was a real nice cream color Elite. And I forgot most of themusic I played and only took out the elite around a campfire. almost 20 years. My music nostalgic now and no longer "classic" rock it is "oldies" music actually. And for some odd reason I have been told by a few local club owners @ to be truthful that they have been getting requests for bands that can play the RUSH and YES and Floyd and Genesis again. There are a lot of guy's my age with cash to burn around the lake in the summers and they are sick and tired of the same bands who play the same crap over and over until they all sound the same. I am excited because I have united one old friend and past band mate with three new guy's who are the best musicians I have ever heard. I have recently combined two musicians, who I had seperate Duo's going with and I blundered into a drummer who is so fast and capable of what we need (at 30 he knows who Bill Bruford is)(he knows and loves King Crimsons work and actually does all the fills in Frame By Frame for us!) I am grining from ear to ear listening to this guy play..... So anyway myself and my dinosaur friend are tying to direct this herd of "testosterone mayhem" [Good name for the band...??? "Focused Mayhem" ...??] toward a goal of creating a set list that is full of the best of what we used to do back in the day before I gave it up and a mix of newer music like 3 doors down It's Not My Time. Nickleback Rock Star... Etc. And we will knock the competition dead. So I hope that explains my reasons for giving up and I could not help but add what has happened to me since returning a few years ago with some perseverance and focused determination and a little luck/fate ? I have a working solo thing and a working duo and a second one in the works and now this Band. The members of the Duo's are in the band so no conficts of interest and I do my solo stuff when I want anyway. This is better than it was 28 years ago, only difference is the pay is reversed?
Glad the hand recovered in fine order from the accident by the way Mr. Stone. |
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Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 4026
Location: Utah | I've written briefly before that my hiatus was brought about due to my fiance having a thing with another guitarist. Kind of soured me to playing guitar in general. For about 20 yrs I picked up a guitar maybe a half dozen times until my middle daughter got interested. We bought her a 3/4 size Applause and that re-lit the fire for me.
Northcountry, your story supports my theory that the change in drinking age was a big part of the decline in pay for the average working musician. The anti-smoking laws have further eroded bar attendance. The advent of cable tv and now high-def satellite further reduces people's desire to go out on a Friday or Saturday to listen to a band. |
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Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 2120
Location: Chicago | Marriage, children, career.... that'll put the kebash on giggin' Now mine are a little older (11 and 18) so I can squeeze some music back in.
Great story, Northcountry |
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December 2001
Posts: 7211
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | "This is better than it was 28 years ago, only difference is the pay is reversed? "
And while I really hate to admit it, that's just the nail in the coffin for me. I did most of my gigging in the 80's playing pop music (yeah the stuff that caused Northcountry to STOP playing) to somewhat cash in on it. The gigs were fun and back then I really didn't care, nor did I realize there were "different kinds" of music. I played songs I liked, or could learn easily and entertained people and got paid. I was a Bass player in the 50's band at one point. What a hoot!!! AND it paid well.
In the late 80's I started playing my own music. THAT was the most fun, and I pretty much stopped playing covers of anything.
Today, the thought of ramping up to play, finding the musicians, finding the venue, working up the show, and NOT get paid.... I seriously don't think I can do that.
Good thread... fun to see everyones take on music, and life.
"I can't imagine my life with out a guitar." - Wish I had that gene... |
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October 2008
Posts: 489
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Today, the thought of ramping up to play, finding the musicians, finding the venue, working up the show, Yeah, I think I'd rather confuse my eye drops with Lysol than do all that again. Not to mention lugging all the crap SOMEbody in the band thinks you need into the club then back out again at O-dark thirty while it's three degrees and snowing. Then there's the inevitable wife/girl friend who wants to sing and is placing EXTREME pressure on the unfortunate band member to make this happen.
It's solo or duos for me now, if I play at all. I'm seriously thinking about chucking the whole playing in clubs thing.
Don't know what you guys are referring to about not getting paid. If I'm playing in a profit seeking establishment, I'm getting paid. |
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Joined:
January 2009
Posts: 4535
Location: Flahdaw | Hey Northcountry,
That was the best post I've read since coming to the forum. In fact, this is like a whole different category of thread....very interesting and relevant. Of course, I think you have to be about 50 or so to really get it. This isn't "general posting" stuff. Like I said, this deserves a whole new category. |
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Why did you stop?
