Frederoc's DIY Experiences
German Rock, Blues, boogie & Ballads

If you pursue music as a hobby and teach yourself many techniques by "do it yourself", you might aim to improve. However, this goal alone is insufficient as a lasting motivation. Over the years, what truly motivated me was the joy of music itself: the sound of the guitar, drums, or bass, the groove of a song, the beauty of a composition, the excitement of learning a new riff or a new song — and, last but not least, the pleasure of playing together with friends. In recent years, something else has been added: the joy of experimenting at home with sounds, chords, riffs, recording, and mixing.

In the very beginning, I took weekly guitar lessons, but only for about a year. After that, I continued as a self-taught musician, using whatever resources were available — with the exception of AI 😁 — both before and after the rise of the internet. Having worked in the education sector, I’m quite familiar with learning processes. But here I’m not talking about systematic learning as found in schools or vocational trainings. Instead, I’m referring to the skills and knowledge we choose to pursue simply because they bring us joy and balance outside of work.

That’s why I’d now like to share some insights into my approach to do-it-yourself learning — the way I practice it.

I'll soon publish these and other DIY experiences as an amateur musician in detail on my new YouTube playlist "DIY Music Stories"
(actually under construction)  

Eleven suggestions on what it means to teach yourself something as a "do-it-yourself" teacher (here: to play an instrument and/or to record and mix songs):

1. Have fun - making music should bring you joy and not stress you out.

2. Stay curious – childlike curiosity (which we usually lose in everyday life) is a strong motivation to discover and learn new things. Perhaps you're interested in a particular riff or chord progression. Maybe you'd like to try out a new program and experiment with it. Whatever the reason, the important thing is that you remain interested in new things and new people.

3. Keep practicing - it doesn't have to be intensive, but it should be consistent. For example, I always keep my acoustic guitar decoratively displayed in the living room. And so, sometimes I only pick it up for ten minutes to do a little picking in A minor, or to repeat a new riff - this also works for riffs that are usually played on the electric guitar. And all of a sudden I didn't play for ten but for thirty or more minutes.

4. Don't put too much pressure on yourself - but don't let your practice slide either.

5. Play with friends - no matter what level you play at, playing together offers you a range of valuable musical (and human) experiences. It's certainly helpful if the skill levels of you and your friends aren't too far apart.

6. Set yourself small, achievable goals - if your goals are too ambitious, you might demotivate yourself. If they're too modest, you could get bored. In either case, you might give up playing music altogether.

7. Start small – no matter your budget: you don't need to buy the most expensive and complete equipment right from the start. I acquired my gear piecemeal over many years - little by little. A used acoustic guitar, but one that's properly intonated, had been perfectly adequate for me as a beginner - as useful as other used equipments that I bought offline decades ago. But if you want to learn electric guitar, it's definitely worth buying a relatively good instrument at the beginning. The guitar must be in tune across the frets. But does it have to be a Marshall stack right away? No, a small cube is perfectly sufficient to produce a nice sound at home.

8. Learn from others – this could actually be a teacher or a book. Nowadays, your first step might be to watch other people's videos online. I learned some well-known rock riffs and mixing secrets from YouTube videos, for example. Determine whether you prefer learning in a group (workshop or class) or individually. Either way, practice the other approach as well.

9. There are many ways to learn something - try them out and find the one (or ways) that suits you best. E.g.: work with an online or offline teacher / learn pickings, scales or riffs by sheet music / learn mixing by a textbook / play along with a song / pick out notes and melodies from a song and repeat them on the guitar / create a looping chord progression and practice a riff over it / use a drum program as a loop to practice precise playing / first cover the songs that put you in a particularly positive mood / play along to a karaoke background on the web / create notes and melodies on the guitar intuitively / experiment with sound plugins in a DAW / jam with friends over chord progressions ... etc.

10. If you practice systematically (and you really should, depending on your circumstances): make time and space for it, both literally and figuratively. ... I started at home with an acoustic and an electric guitar in a 2-rooms appartment. I was only allowed to play quietly so as not to disturb the neighbors, but I set aside a few minutes each day. 

11. Enjoy your successes – instead of constantly focusing on what you haven't mastered yet, or what others are much better at than you. As hobby guitarists and part-time amateurs, we're unlikely to reach the perfection of Orianthi or Joe Satriani - if you will succed, all the better. ... As a beginner, learning progress comes relatively quickly. After a while, we reach a so-called "learning plateau." It seems like we're hardly making any progress, even with a lot of practice, and that can be demotivating. But it's important to persevere, because when we look back after a while, we realize that we have indeed made small or medium improvements. They're just not as phenomenal as at the beginning, but they keep our motivation and fun [see #1 ]. ... As a beginner, it took me two weeks to be able to switch from
    C-Major to G-Major reasonably smoothly, without blisters on my fingers and without playing off-key notes. But I had been extremely proud of this small initial success. Even today, I get a huge thrill when, after three hours of practice using a YouTube tutorial, I can finally play the riff from "Rock Bottom" (UFO, MSG) smoothly and just in time. And this is just for fun, because I like the riff, even though I don't intend to cover the song.

That's all for now. You can find my DIY songs at the actual playlist =>

#frederoc #GermanRock# Deutschrock #diy #diymusic #diyMusicStories #rock #blues #boogie #RockBallad