[ThomPete]

When I was practicing scales to become a guitarist in my youth, my mom always came in and said "can't you play something we we know". My guitar teacher on the other hand said great and gave me another to practice.

You are making the mistake of "playing scales" in front of an audience who expect a performance of a final composition rather than a teacher who can provide feedback on your work in progress.

Change the audience.

[Haydos585x2]

such a great analogy and something I'm absolutely going to steal. I don't play guitar but compete in a sport. The people that do it will be stoked that you've accomplished an intermediate scale though to other people you're some scrub with no talent. The same people unimpressed people will be amazed when you play their favourite song or for the OP his business is earning millions with many employees unfortunately I don't think they'll ever see, understand or appreciate the work that goes into learning things.

[shostack]

As someone learning to play guitar this is the hardest part for me. The scales are boring and I want to jump to the fun stuff or learning a song. But then learning that song is a similar process. I have coworkers who are skilled guitarists and it is frustrating to watch them because I know they've put in the hours of doing scales.

It is hard to stay motivated when the "wrong audience" is yourself.

[ThomPete]

Then don't.

There are many ways to learn to play music. If you just want to learn to play songs then do that. Don't worry about the scales.

Instead of learning scales start jamming with some background music. Start to transcribe some solo you like (don't use tabs) and learn to play that way.

If you aren't motivated by playing scales then you shouldn't do it.

Make sure that it's always about enjoying music first, then about learning theory or technique.

One of my favorite ways to learn scales was to do patterns in the scales over some chord progression. That ways I was playing little patterned melodies while learning to play the scales.

Also don't confuse learning scales with learning to pick. Most of the times when you hear someone learning scales just going up and down the strings they are really practicing picking technique which is many times harder than to learn the actual scales.

[shostack]

That's pretty much how I've been doing it TBH. My mother passed down her old Martin classical guitar and so I've been learning some basic folk fingerstyle patterns which is fun because it gets the finger work in while sounding nice (or will sound nice once I get my speed up).

The most frustrating part is I used to be a section leader when I played clarinet in HS and could borderline sight read at that point. I've forgotten pretty much all my musical knowledge since then (including how to read sheet music), so it has been horribly frustrating to have shadows of memories for how fluent I used to be in this stuff and to have to start from scratch again. That probably makes me much less patient than I normally would be.

[neverminder]

Don't be afraid to defy conventional means. When as a kid I (forced by my parents) was learning violin and later piano - I'd throw away the notes and learn to play a piece by ear in a fraction of time. This year I picked up a Taylor and I'm learning fingerstyle. I don't do any boring mechanical practice, I only play songs that I like - it took a while, but watching youtube video note by note I managed to glue together Beatles "Yesterday" and now it actually sounds good.

[ThomPete]

Exactly. Scales are great if you want to learn to improvise and understand how to play in Dorian or Mixolydian etc, but even for that it's not actually necessary.

Your ear is the only thing thats really needed.

[sotojuan]

This happens to me a lot with programming, where the (maybe poor) analogy is scales being "fundamentals" and songs being "cool apps/libraries". I tend to skip to building cool apps and when the easy parts are done I get lost or the projects becomes a mess.

[throw9322]

This is profound, and I think you're correct.

[IsaacL]

I'll have to remember that "playing scales" analogy.

A year ago I was trying to level up my writing ability and wrote a medium-length article, with proper outlining, attempting to explain an abstract idea through concrete examples (mostly business related).

I sent it to one friend and was told "this is too intellectual, it contains no useful information, no-one will want to read it". No response to the actual subject matter.[1]

I was floored. I didn't want to be the stereotypical writer who gets defensive in the face of criticism, but my friend was so dismissive and patronising that it was hard to maintain my motivation. To rub salt in the wound they later told me "look, you just have to get used to harsh feedback".

[1] (Another friend read it and had some criticisms, but did actually engage with the argument I was making).

[ThomPete]

Believe me I have been there :)

I write some pretty complex essays purely of things I find interesting. For examples this one https://medium.com/black-n-white/the-problem-with-problems-4...

Most of my essays are based on looser discussions I have with people which I then ponder over and distill down into an essay.

So I always make sure to send to those people who have a basic idea of what I am talking about. I.e. I am not trying to convert some reader from being completely uninterested in the subject matter into someone who should care.

Instead I send to the people I discussed it with or a few group of people I know share my interest.

That mostly steers me clear of any frustration :)

Another thing I try and do is think about my essays as a way to get thought out of my head and down on paper. That way whether tens of thousands of people read it as they sometimes do or no one (as they sometimes do) I can still check it off as done.

[zalq]

Amazing (and very true) analogy.