5 Non-Musical Benefits I Gained From 30 Years of Guitar Playing

Being able to play the guitar is just one of the many benefits of practicing the instrument.

I started playing guitar with one main goal in mind: to become a rock star. 

I was a shy 15-year-old who had been in love with Heavy Metal for a few years.

Heavy metal was my escape, and the guys in Black Sabbath, Manowar, and Twisted Sister ruled over a beautiful world where I could be myself and dream. 

As I started to dream bigger, I wanted to become one of them.

So I practiced the guitar a lot.

Little did I know that becoming proficient on the instrument is only one small piece of the puzzle to becoming a star (as Sebastian Bach of Skid Row once said, “it’s only 1% of it”).

However, as my dreams of stardom gave way to the more realistic goal of becoming a professional musician, I realized that, while it would take more than just practice to achieve my goals, practicing guitar was providing me with numerous benefits, many of which I couldn’t pinpoint at the time. 

Nowadays, I can clearly see how much I benefited from spending so much time practicing.

Take a look at what I learned, and remember that if you put your mind to it, you can learn priceless life lessons from practicing the guitar with serious intent. 

  1. How to be alone

Before learning the guitar, I felt lonely whenever I was alone.

Thus, I always surrounded myself with people, to avoid spending time with myself at all costs.

Over time, I realized there was an exception to the rule. While practicing the guitar, I didn’t feel alone. In fact, I wanted to be alone.

As the quality and quantity of my practice improved over time, I developed a stronger desire to be alone with my guitar. 

I also began to feel less lonely, even when I wasn’t playing the guitar.

While this cannot be attributed solely to practicing the guitar, as I was also reading self-development books and working on myself, practicing was an important factor in teaching me a valuable life lesson:

You cure loneliness when you learn how to be alone, and an efficient way to do so is by being very passionate about something and dedicating your time alone to it.

  1. That I’m worth something

A lot of the insecurity I had in my teens stemmed from the fact that, despite getting good grades in school, I didn’t believe I was good at anything. 

I wasn’t good at sports, wasn’t popular with girls, and, most importantly, I couldn’t point to a skill or a job that I was confident in. I blame this on an educational system that required us to memorize a lot of information but never taught us how to apply it in practice. 

As I approached the intermediate level of guitar playing, I began to think, “This is something I can get really good at, and even better, it’s something I enjoy.”

This encouraged me to practice more, and as I improved, I began to believe that I was worth something after all! 

  1. The power of certainty

Since the reality facing me during my teens was bleak, I clung to the world of music, particularly Heavy Metal and Punk, as if life depended on it.

And because that reality was so valuable to me, even though I was uncertain about everything else in life, I was certain that I would continue to practice until I became an accomplished musician.

There were no other options. I had to. My happiness depended on it. 

Nowadays, I realize how powerful certainty is. 

If you approach learning the guitar (or any other endeavor) with the mindset of “maybe” you’ll get there, you’re very unlikely to. 

Is it worthwhile to devote daily effort to a goal that you may or may not achieve?

Every time you face a major challenge, you will begin to believe that you are wasting your time and energy because you will most likely fail to achieve your goal. The chances are that you will quit.

But when you’re certain you’ll achieve a goal because you’re not giving yourself the option of failing, you’ll find enough motivation to get you through even the most difficult challenges. 

  1. Listening to my body

In recent years, I’ve suffered a couple of guitar-related injuries, the most serious of which was tendonitis in my right shoulder. 

I had read about guitar-related injuries, but I had no idea how serious they could be until I experienced them.

After the pain subsided, I began identifying what caused the injury (usually down to the specific riff and movements that caused it) and adjusting my practice habits to avoid re-injury.

Small but effective adaptations included switching between two riffs in a practice session, one that requires more stress from my right hand, and one that requires more stress from the left, as well as taking frequent micro-breaks to prevent repetitive strain injuries.

Eventually, I realized that such minor changes to my way of doing things could be applied to everyday life rather than just practicing the guitar. 

Thus, the real lesson I took away from this was that in many situations, life can be made easier (or safer) by changing small things like the way I breathe and posture, how I start the day, and how I prioritize things. 

  1. Connecting dots

This one is difficult to explain in words, but I’ll give it a try! 

Practicing the guitar necessitates a significant amount of time spent figuring out and memorizing fretboard patterns (such as scales, arpeggios, riffs, and licks) as well as creating new ones (while improvising or composing).  

After about a decade of guitar practice, I began to notice patterns that were not related to my playing. 

For example, the facial expressions of a politician about to lie, a relationship about to go sour, or a high-potential opportunity that would have gone unnoticed. 

Did these skills develop as I matured and learned about life in general? After all, life requires consistent pattern recognition. 

It could be. 

However, something inside tells me that, if guitar practice wasn’t the only thing that helped me learn to recognize such patterns, it certainly sped the process. 

A gift that keeps giving

To be motivated to practice the guitar for a long period of time, it is important to keep in mind why you started, and where you want to go.

However, it is also important to recognize the numerous benefits that practicing the guitar brings along the way.

The five examples of how I benefited from practicing the guitar for an extended period of time are directly related to my personal experience. The ways in which you benefit from practicing the guitar may differ. 

What is certain is that playing the guitar for an extended period of time has numerous advantages, some of which may feel intangible and difficult to explain but still improve the quality of your life. 


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