The Ebb and the Flow - Does this happen to you?

[BuddytheReow]

Life comes in waves. There's always an ebb and a flow. Yes, we love this hobby, but sometimes life gets in the way sometimes and we need to put this on the backburner.

Life situations aside, I find myself playing nearly everyday for a good month or two with NO time under the iron. I remember right when COVID happened I was playing/practicing probably about a good 3 hours everyday. Mornings were practice routines: scales, arpeggios, chords, a dash of theory thrown in there. Lunch break at work (was working 100% remote at the time because of COVID) was "learn a new riff or solo". Then after work I would just jam out and go through my repertoire from memory. I got pretty good, but I was still a basement player.

Then I started building pedals.

VERY little time was being put back into playing. All I wanted to do was solder and make things. A few months go by and I realize that I haven't put in the time with my 6 strings and my chops started going south. I didn't care.

A few more months go by, a few dozen breadboard or stripboard builds later, and I start losing the "high" of circuit making. So then I go back to playing for a while. Then I lose interest slowly in playing. Everything sounds so boring and routine...

Then I bought a bass...

A new instrument and new skill set! I practice nearly everyday for at least an hour, thinking like a bass player and trying my hardest not to think like a guitar player learning bass (here's the secret: less is more with bass).

That was the beginning of last year. 3 months go by and life starts getting in the way with a new job that, in hindsight, was a bad decision on my part but that's in the past. Little playing or circuit building has happened. You may have noticed my contributions here were minimal. I was just too burnt out...

Then I found another job this year. And that's when new life was breathed into my hobbies again.

TL/DR

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm either building up my calluses or making circuits. Never both simultaneously. Maybe it's ADD or maybe that's just who I am. Anyone else have this experience?

 

[Alan W]

I can’t imagine that we all don’t go through cycles of both time (availability for life’s non-essentials), interest, and energy. I know I sure do… (and in some cases, disposable income)

I’ve had the same basic “hobbies” since I was a teenager, and have seen the decades roll by with waves of interest in one or another of them keeping me up at night with excitement, as I learned (or just wondered about) new aspects. (Was just reading about banjo head heights, after I was given an old Harmony 5 string open back on Tuesday, and am realizing that I know nothing about how to set up a banjo…)

What surprised me, in my retirement, was that now with almost unlimited time to explore my interests, they still seem to ebb and flow.

 

[GizzWizzKing]

This has been killing me lately. Specifically for bench time.

I am going through a period where I realize that I experience noise in my life a little differently than other people. I have a hard time balancing stimulus and that has been making my hobby time very hard to manage. This might be linked to more stress at work or yadda yadda yadda... I just feel very slow when I build and I can't seem to accomplish anything. Whenever I get time to do something I find myself blocked by one or another impasses. This then causes frustration and even anxiety about something that I thought I enjoyed.

I am coming off of a small break where I had to try and get life and fun organized and learn how to approach this hobby specifically in a more organized fashion.

For me the goal is that I shouldn't stress about the hobbies that I am or am not doing. If something is on the back burner then it probably belongs there for a reason and I don't want to be anxious about getting back to something that I only started because I wanted to enjoy it and learn.

Maybe this isn't quite the same as you meant but that is where I am at and I think it applies.

 

[Blooze]

Same. I started diving back into pedal building, amp building, etc... about two years ago. I think I've picked up my guitars maybe 1-2 times to play in all that time, except for testing the gear I've built. I've actually been contemplating selling most of my guitars/amps.

 

[Guardians of the analog]

If I want to build I build, if I want to play I play. Depends on what I feel like doing with my spare time you guys guys just indecisive?

 

[jimilee]

I built like a mad man over the last 3 years. I haven’t done anything productive for about the last 6 months. I just can’t get motivated.

 

[Feral Feline]

I've started practicing again. Upright's a bitch, but so much fun at the same time.
I've started building again, slowly.
Cars are being left alone for an icy spell...

 

[Gordo]

I watch everybody's posts and watch the ebb and flow. I worry about some of us at times but it always seems to right itself or some people just drop off. Sometimes that's not a bad thing in that it triggers another avenue: playing music or just going in an entirely different direction.

In my case I've had a chance to really take a hard look at why I do what I do. Playing in a church exposes me to a severely limited range of sounds, where even 3 years ago was the exact opposite. I still build like crazy just because I love the freedom but in terms of actually using the stuff...I need a compressor, delay, and thick reverb. That's it.

Not complaining because I also have a renewed vision of my function. I spend hours practicing for a 3 or 4 song set every week just to absolutely NAIL it. I mean I can play these tunes in my sleep. It's driven me to totally understand my little Yamaha guitar and all it's little nuances and take what few effects I use and milk every drop out of them. So even though I can cover any scenario, I cover the one I need to...and throw myself totally into it.

In the meantime, if this genre embraces triggered filter or massive wall of fuzz. Who's your daddy?

 

[HamishR]

I have weeks where I'm making stuff and weeks where I'm playing. Often on the days where I'm building I'll have an hour at the end of the day for testing/playing/tweaking. That's the fun bit. When I got into motorbikes I spent a lot of my time repairing/customising my bike which was a huge amount of fun - and quite a bit of $$ too. It didn't leave much time for amp or pedal building.

Recently my "need" for trying out different overdrive pedals has receded a little because I have come up with a design which suits me so well everything else sounds redundant! But I still get curious, and friends ask me about pedals so I'll build one to see what they're like. And while I have built a few delays and reverbs they don't interest me as much as overdrive. I imagine that eventually building pedals will be a more occasional thing.