Throw it all away, burn it down. I hate music.

[DrMole]

Agree with those who say to take a break and perhaps better- consider a totally new genre or instrument.

My former muse became my anti-muse and that is a hard pill to swallow when they are your spouse.
Over it now and glad I never considered giving up music.

First world problem, yes. But take all music away from me- feel free to take my life.

 

[40Hz]

I had the chance to see her in the late 90's. She was amazing.

I saw her around the same time. And I agree with you. She is amazing.

 

[mongo2]

Does anyone else ever feel like just giving up?

Yup.

I've played music for 57 years when my parents started me on accordion when I was 9 years old. I added piano, guitar and bass along the way. I was most interested in bass so that's where I landed.

I've always enjoyed playing but just when I was having the most fun I've ever had in my life playing...

On the evening of July 3, 2018, while driving home with my wife I was stopped a light about a block from our house when my right arm started feeling odd and hard to move. The feeling went away but returned twice within the next half hour. I told my wife to take me to the emergency room thinking it may be a cardiac issue. In the emergency room they took me immediately and did a CAT scan of my head and decided to keep me overnight for observation. Things were going fine with no issues until 4am on July 4 when I had a minor stroke while the nurse was taking my vitals.

That stroke effected my right side and I had a gig to play in 5 days. I found could still move and walk but I did everything funny. Good luck was I could still move my right index and middle finger in a bass playing like fashion (first thing I checked) so I felt I could play. I was released from the hospital in 3 days after lots of testing. As soon as I got home I sat down to play.

While my right hand could move those two fingers in a bass playing like fashion my brain couldn't coordinate them with my left hand nearly as well as they used to so it took a lot of work and changing of parts to make the gig but I made it and it was deemed acceptable.

Playing causes me pain, heaviness discomfort, fatigue, numbness, tingling and other assorted weirdness. Playing the next few months of the season here were a challenge but I never missed a gig and things improved but are still no where near the same as they were. The next season was more of the same with some improvement in the playing and a bit of improvement in the other issues.

This season was cancelled due to the pandemic so we have quite a break and I sometimes find myself asking why am I bothering. So yeah, I've felt like giving up more than a few times over the last nearly 2 years.

But I didn't quit because I love to play. It's what I am and I feel giving up while I can still play to any extent is giving up on myself. I feel grateful that it wasn't worse and blessed that I can still play at all.

BTW, it was really difficult to type all this and I wasn't going to post it but maybe it will help someone along the way.

 

[Bajo Clarkko]

@mongo2, Thank you for posting that.

Clarkko

(Btw, my brother also started off on accordion, about the same age as you, and he also switched over to Bass.)

 

[brianrost]

Does anyone else ever feel like just giving up?

I've felt this way many times over the years, both before and after I started gigging, right up until today. It's normal.

Guitarist and educator Mick Goodrick wrote something in his book "The Advancing Guitarist" that really caught my attention:

Things to try when you feel stale (about your playing or music):

Stop playing the guitar, but listen to a lot of music for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 days.

Change the strings on your guitar and polish it.

Send your guitar back to the factory to either be retuned or recycled.

 

[pcake]

Does anyone else ever feel like just giving up? I'm not in it for success or money, I just play for the fun of it and my own enjoyment. Lately though, I've been stuck in one of those ruts where nothing is right, nothing sounds good, I'm continually frustrated and I hate everything. There's no fun, there's no enjoyment, so why bother?

And then the next day I'll feel just the opposite.

10 minutes later I'm back to hating everything. I'm at the point now where I don't know whether I want to pack everything away and take a break, quit entirely (which would save money), or get rid of every instrument and piece of gear I own and start over from scratch.

that's when i stop practicing, stop playing my regular stuff and go find some fun, easy stuff in genres of music i never play. or i have a few easy favorites that i can make sound great on my worst day and then i feel better.

but if that doesn't do it, i take a week or so off, and i always come back feeling better and playing better.

 

[Garret Wheeler]

Does anyone else ever feel like just giving up? I'm not in it for success or money, I just play for the fun of it and my own enjoyment. Lately though, I've been stuck in one of those ruts where nothing is right, nothing sounds good, I'm continually frustrated and I hate everything. There's no fun, there's no enjoyment, so why bother?

And then the next day I'll feel just the opposite.

10 minutes later I'm back to hating everything. I'm at the point now where I don't know whether I want to pack everything away and take a break, quit entirely (which would save money), or get rid of every instrument and piece of gear I own and start over from scratch.

Don't give up! It always gets better. I've been through more ruts than I can count, and every time I power through I find myself more inspired than ever.

 

[consectaneus]

I feel like that often. There are times when I am sure I don't want to play anymore and that it is a waste of time, but the next day I'm right back at it. Sometimes I think of it as a curse! I have to make peace with the fact that music will be a part of me so I just have to try to keep things in perspective and enjoy it. It's actually a positive barometer...if I'm interested in playing, it means things are going well in my life.

 

[pcake]

My apologies to the OP, and the rest of you if I come across like a jerk right now, but....

Early this morning, about 12 miles from where I live, some criminals burned down a bank that I has previously used. There was also a bank next door, and it too, BURNED TO THE GROUND.

In doing so, they put dozens of really nice people out of work. I’m not holding my breath assuming that the safe deposit boxes survived the carnage, in which case, dozens (hundreds?) of nice folks, just like us, had precious, valuable, irreplaceable possessions, family heirlooms and documents destroyed. Forever.

The natural ebb and flow of our feelings towards our music is what might be considered a “First world problem.”

Again, I offer my apologies. Rant over.

i don't think you're a jerk, but you definitely see this differently than i do.

losing irreplaceable items is awful, but i would say that suddenly losing the desire to do something you've studied and practiced for thousands of hours plus the unhappy feeling that comes with it isn't just a first world problem. you could have that problem and not be in a developed nation.

to me playing music is more important than almost anything - losing that would be worse than losing any item i could fit in a safe deposit box, and i scan the documents before they go in the box, so they're already replaced.

 

[DrMole]

Yup.

I've played music for 57 years when my parents started me on accordion when I was 9 years old. I added piano, guitar and bass along the way. I was most interested in bass so that's where I landed.

I've always enjoyed playing but just when I was having the most fun I've ever had in my life playing...

On the evening of July 3, 2018, while driving home with my wife I was stopped a light about a block from our house when my right arm started feeling odd and hard to move. The feeling went away but returned twice within the next half hour. I told my wife to take me to the emergency room thinking it may be a cardiac issue. In the emergency room they took me immediately and did a CAT scan of my head and decided to keep me overnight for observation. Things were going fine with no issues until 4am on July 4 when I had a minor stroke while the nurse was taking my vitals.

That stroke effected my right side and I had a gig to play in 5 days. I found could still move and walk but I did everything funny. Good luck was I could still move my right index and middle finger in a bass playing like fashion (first thing I checked) so I felt I could play. I was released from the hospital in 3 days after lots of testing. As soon as I got home I sat down to play.

While my right hand could move those two fingers in a bass playing like fashion my brain couldn't coordinate them with my left hand nearly as well as they used to so it took a lot of work and changing of parts to make the gig but I made it and it was deemed acceptable.

Playing causes me pain, heaviness discomfort, fatigue, numbness, tingling and other assorted weirdness. Playing the next few months of the season here were a challenge but I never missed a gig and things improved but are still no where near the same as they were. The next season was more of the same with some improvement in the playing and a bit of improvement in the other issues.

This season was cancelled due to the pandemic so we have quite a break and I sometimes find myself asking why am I bothering. So yeah, I've felt like giving up more than a few times over the last nearly 2 years.

But I didn't quit because I love to play. It's what I am and I feel giving up while I can still play to any extent is giving up on myself. I feel grateful that it wasn't worse and blessed that I can still play at all.

BTW, it was really difficult to type all this and I wasn't going to post it but maybe it will help someone along the way.

Glad you have stuck with it, throughout the difficulties. "It's what I am" - exactly.

A year ago June 21- I experienced a small stroke at work. (In the hospital, fortunately) No real residual effects except a tiny bit of numbness in the tip of my right middle finger. It seems to be gone but the fear that it never would and the fear of having another stroke played havoc with every part of my life. Many changes made- many more to go but my daughters and music have been what kept me going through it all.

Good luck. Please continue to play.

 

[maxschrek]

Nah, never considered it...then what would I do? Same in your case.

 

[Hambone70]

I know the feeling! It comes and goes. I reckon it’s a personality trait, and for me it has been exacerbated by COVID, and now the George Floyd situation.

I’m dreading gigging starting back up, particularly as I can’t stand the majority of the songs or venues we play. But that's probably my bad attitude, which I can change.

Hang in there!

 

[Guild B301]

I’ve NEVER considered anything but keeping on. I’ve been at this professionally for a very long time and have never had a “day job”. It’s all I’ve ever done. There is no other choice. But, I’ve had some VERY bad times, where music was all that got me through. Music mind you, not the music business. The business can be really cut-throat. Don’t concentrate on the bad things. (I’ve had MANY). Concentrate on how happy music can make you - when you’re just listening to music. It is inspiring. You won’t want to give up.
Sometimes it can be fun to start from scratch with new equipment. That can also be inspiration.

 

[Treebeard]

I took a break for a year and a half. Really did me well. Focused on fitness. Now I'm back at it.

 

[TheReceder]

Does anyone else ever feel like just giving up? I'm not in it for success or money, I just play for the fun of it and my own enjoyment. Lately though, I've been stuck in one of those ruts where nothing is right, nothing sounds good, I'm continually frustrated and I hate everything. There's no fun, there's no enjoyment, so why bother?

And then the next day I'll feel just the opposite.

10 minutes later I'm back to hating everything. I'm at the point now where I don't know whether I want to pack everything away and take a break, quit entirely (which would save money), or get rid of every instrument and piece of gear I own and start over from scratch.

Papazita… take a minute, close your eyes, listen to this song... every bass player hurts....


If that doesn't work... search squirrels and bird feeders in youtube... that always seems to distract me... that and shiny things.

 

[ToneMonkey]

I was super fed up with the local music scene in and around Portland. Then I started taking Jazz lessons with a trumpet player. It’s rejuvenated me. Hopefully I can meet some Jazzers interested in doing something.

 

[punchdrunk]

Taking a break is good. It’s called adulting. You attend to other issues and cultivate experience that informs your occasional creative urges. In my downtime I like to read history and such ( I highly recommend “The Gulag Archipelago” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn for a real eye opener as it relates to the selective chaos that’s being crafted around us). Its quite alright to be disinterested in music, I find other things in life are so much more pressing/important that musical pursuits sometimes seem comparatively trivial...downright juvenile even. I still play tons of gigs, but at this point it’s mere enterprise, not expression.

 

[Killing Floor]

Back a few years ago I remember thinking I hated every song I had on my iPod.

Now I rediscovered the cure.

Step 1) Really good record player. Really good stylus. Really good speakers
Step 2) Go to the record store. Buy records. If you don't know what to get look at the covers and get them based on the jacket art. Any genre.
Step 3) Listen to the dang music. Don't listen to stupid bass lines, who cares about bass lines. You're in the moment listening to music. Get into it.
Step 4) (optional) use headphones. The isolation of good cans on your head might help you tune out the nonsensical idea that you need to focus on stupid bass lines.

Be a listener instead of a player. Makes a huge difference.
p.s. standing up to flip a record every 15-ish minutes is better for your posture than sitting for too long.

If your local store is still closed I'd recommend https://www.turntablelab.com/
But after the world opens up go to the shop. It's way cooler. Just keep your elbows tucked, 1 bin width only!

 

[ToneMonkey]

Back a few years ago I remember thinking I hated every song I had on my iPod.

Now I rediscovered the cure.

Step 1) Really good record player. Really good stylus. Really good speakers
Step 2) Go to the record store. Buy records. If you don't know what to get look at the covers and get them based on the jacket art. Any genre.
Step 3) Listen to the dang music. Don't listen to stupid bass lines, who cares about bass lines. You're in the moment listening to music. Get into it.
Step 4) (optional) use headphones. The isolation of good cans on your head might help you tune out the nonsensical idea that you need to focus on stupid bass lines.

Be a listener instead of a player. Makes a huge difference.
p.s. standing up to flip a record every 15-ish minutes is better for your posture than sitting for too long.

If your local store is still closed I'd recommend A Better Music Store Experience serving DJs + The Music Obsessed since 1999
But after the world opens up go to the shop. It's way cooler. Just keep your elbows tucked, 1 bin width only!

About 10 years ago I realized that I was getting better and better at playing music I cared less and less about. It was a blight on my soul.

I also noticed that my vast listening library was not doing it for me... song after song that I would just skip past.

So I decided to stop playing and listening to music that didn’t move me.

I deleted about 2/3 of my listening library. I love my all digital library for that reason. I’m not obligated to listen to anything I don’t want to.

 

[Cut the middle]

Does anyone else ever feel like just giving up? I'm not in it for success or money, I just play for the fun of it and my own enjoyment. Lately though, I've been stuck in one of those ruts where nothing is right, nothing sounds good, I'm continually frustrated and I hate everything. There's no fun, there's no enjoyment, so why bother?

And then the next day I'll feel just the opposite.

10 minutes later I'm back to hating everything. I'm at the point now where I don't know whether I want to pack everything away and take a break, quit entirely (which would save money), or get rid of every instrument and piece of gear I own and start over from scratch.

Sell your stuff if you want but keep the stuff that's, if you will, sentimental. You can always get new stuff, but you will always return to your first love.