Emotional Release
Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of playing the guitar is the cathartic experience that comes with making music. This is one of the most accessible avenues for free expression outside of fine art! Freedom of expression in the creation of music is associated with many health benefits.
We talked about how playing the guitar can help exercise the brain in the previous section, but according to Fred Cicetti of Live Science, playing music can also lower blood pressure, lower heart rate. and depression. There is also emerging evidence that playing music can improve your immune response to viruses and bacteria, but that debate is still up in the air.
The main reason for many of these emotional and health benefits is that playing music puts you in a state of flow similar to that achieved during long periods of meditation. During the flow state, time seems distorted, your heart rate lowers, and you’re generally more relaxed. Athletes often turn to sports psychologists to learn how to achieve flow states to trigger peak performance!
Freedom Through Discipline
It’s true that learning to play the guitar doesn’t necessarily require discipline. However, getting better at playing the guitar is definitely possible because the way to get better at something is that it takes a lot of discipline and dedication.
As I mentioned earlier, the learning curve of music is quite steep and each stage of your progress will present new and more challenging obstacles. I’d like to say that it will eventually get easier, but the truth is that the first stage of learning guitar is probably the easiest, and as you progress along your musical journey, noticeable improvements and “eureka” moments become more difficult and fleeting. faster. due to.
This means that in order to continue to improve and improve your guitar playing skills, you need to be very disciplined in your practice method. Many professionals often stick to a fixed exercise schedule with hours of exercise per day! The legendary Steve Vai even has a 10-hour guitar tutorial available online. 10 hours might sound like an insane amount of time to practice guitar in a day, and it probably is, but that’s the amount of time and dedication it takes to become Steve Vai.
Of course, most of us aren’t trying to be the next Steve Vai, and many of us just want to play guitar. However, even the most casual players need practice to see improvement. Being able to stick to an exercise plan, especially on days when you don’t feel like working out, can undoubtedly improve discipline. Discipline is a defining characteristic that all great musicians, artists and athletes have in common.
