The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Its all in the fingers, or is it?

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Re: The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Post by Danger Mouse »

chur wrote:
Molly wrote:I tend to give too much time to my hobbies. I wonder how much I could've achieved if so much guitar-related crap didn't keep pushing its way to the front of my mind.
I think about it a lot, and watch a lot of youtube, if only I actually practiced as much..
"What could I have achieved if I had done things differently...?"

There is a problem with that question and it is that I can't do things differently. Those people you watch on youtube are not normal, we are. We don't achieve the things they do, because deep down we don't want to. Certainly not enough to do what they did to achieve what they have.

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Re: The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Post by sty »

It's interesting that as far as my hobbies are concerned, especially guitar, the less I worry about it the more fun I have and the more I worry about how crap I am the more of a barrier it is to even getting started.

So the article from my perspective seems to be spot on :)

It's also interesting to see them trying to draw a line from their argument to the fact we default to vegging out in front of a screen (I'm interpretting TV or Device) and not getting involved in anything.

I have spent the majority of my free time since about 1994 reading up on new technology or practicing new coding techniques to keep on top of my professional career, at the expense of most of my hobbies, which apart from having had a good career at some points hasn't been as much fun as if I'd just carried on tinkering with stuff like I used to in my younger years :)

I also agree that the fear of not getting something perfect can stop me getting started on stuff, or make me feel crap when I get it wrong. However I managed to relax about it to a significant enough degree that let me get my new Studio/Office completed to a useable state, which would not have been possible if I hadn't chilled out, and I can live with the imperfections where the sheets of roofing MDF don't quite line up the way they should in my mind.

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Re: The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Post by Michael »

i love celebrating how shit i am at everything

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Re: The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Post by Molly »

sty wrote:... I managed to relax about it to a significant enough degree that let me get my new Studio/Office completed to a useable state, which would not have been possible if I hadn't chilled out, and I can live with the imperfections where the sheets of roofing MDF don't quite line up the way they should in my mind.
I really try to get that stuff right. I measure, re-measure and really try to be precise. Then I fuck it up.

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Re: The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Post by Aquila Rossa »

The trick is to convince peeps that mediocrity is excellent and have a more attractive mediocre product than your rivals. In learned in QA that 100% is just not practical. You had to know what to let slide and how, or pursuit of perfection would cost production output big time. Yet still had to please the customer. Working to tolerances. I have relaxed tolerances playing guitar. if I get all perfectionist about playing or tone like i can tend to do, I quickly get annoyed and do not feel like playing :D

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Re: The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Post by kdawg2a »

Michael wrote:i love celebrating how shit i am at everything
I feel the same way about myself!
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Re: The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Post by codedog »

I had a real wake up call recently when one of my team members applied for an internal role outside of his current job, not too far out though. I think there are people who are comfortable with how shit they are at certain things and just give it their all. In this case it turned into a defeatist attitude, i.e. giving up before the interview begins. Frustrating.

Am I mixing up being comfortable with, or celebrating, one's shittiness with confidence? Maybe...

I was comfortable enough playing a guitar in public for the first time in my life at 43 years old, accompanying a violinist, pianist and flutist. In a room full of guitarists? Fuck that for a laugh! Inexplicable...

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Re: The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Post by chur »

Molly wrote:
chur wrote:
Molly wrote:I tend to give too much time to my hobbies. I wonder how much I could've achieved if so much guitar-related crap didn't keep pushing its way to the front of my mind.
I think about it a lot, and watch a lot of youtube, if only I actually practiced as much..
This is me too. I think having a band would change things.
Yep that changed things for me. Once it ended I kept practice going for a while, but eventually other priorities took over then the bad habits of wasting time on youtube crept in.
No one ever died of hard work.. but why take the risk..

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Re: The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Post by Terexgeek »

To be fair, I was mediocre before it was cool.
Tin arse!!

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Re: The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Post by Slowy »

I've been playing acoustic; haven't touched an electric in 3 months.
One of the things I enjoy is the challenge of perfect phrasing and on an acoustic, you've nowhere to hide at all.

I need to play a piece through several times, but I do improve noticeably when warmed up. My aim is perfection. I never attain it but I do get the satisfaction of hearing the tune improve.

With reference to the article, I lost my love of live playing over the last year. The more I needed to step up, the less I could find. Now I sit at home, play only when I'm inspired and not when I'm wrung out from a hectic day, and have rediscovered the pleasure that brought me here in the first place.

There are times I think I'm pretty good and that's all that really matters. :D
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Re: The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Post by Zaulkin »

Good article, I've been thinking about this a fair bit.

Everyone is different. Personally, having one thing to strive to be good at makes me feel like getting up in the morning. I probably won't be the best in the gym or in my other hobbies - I'll accept mediocrity for those - but damn I want to be good at guitar.

It is definitely an interesting instrument. As soon as you get good at playing lead and try fingerstyle, you're a noob again. Same thing if you try to learn jazz properly, or Travis picking, or slide... Or...

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Re: The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Post by Single coil »

The guitar is a unique instrument in that it’s really the only one you can get away with being a hack on.
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Re: The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Post by Vince »

I had to make a hard decision when I started playing solo bass in publlc... YouTube is full of people who can blow me out of the water. Do I have a place at all, playing in front of people when the world is full of genius players? In the end, a couple of people convinced me to give it a go. And it turns out, nobody is as good as me at being me, so that’s ok. Sometimes I play and then the next people on blow me away. Ok, that happens, someone out there will always be better, but it really doesn’t matter.
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Re: The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Post by Lawrence »

I struggle with this.
between the ages of 16 and 23 or so people thought I was a pretty shit hot guitarist. So did I. Then my musical horizons expanded to lesser known artists and I realised i wasn't a pimple on their bum. Ever since its made me a bit shy to expose myself.....Not to say i don't try to put on a great show when I do... but I angst before and after about how much better it could have been. The older I get and the more I understand music - and just how great some artists are - the worse these feelings get. Its hard just to be the mediocre me.
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Re: The Forgotten Importance of Mediocrity

Post by Molly »

Lawrence wrote:I struggle with this.
between the ages of 16 and 23 or so people thought I was a pretty shit hot guitarist. So did I. Then my musical horizons expanded to lesser known artists and I realised i wasn't a pimple on their bum. Ever since its made me a bit shy to expose myself.....Not to say i don't try to put on a great show when I do... but I angst before and after about how much better it could have been. The older I get and the more I understand music - and just how great some artists are - the worse these feelings get. Its hard just to be the mediocre me.
I can relate to this. When you're young it's easy to think you're hot-shit. You and your mates are into the same stuff and all revere the same benchmark playing (in my case Randy Rhoads and EVH). So if you can party-piece your way through Mr Crowley, Dee, Eruption and a couple of others you're the local hero. In time you come to realise you actually know fuck-all (I swear I can exhaust my lead guitar repertoire in about sixty seconds).

I have my moments but that's no longer what it's about. I'd just as soon crash my way through some REM, or Chuck Prophet or whatever. It's more fun now that I don't give two fucks about who I do / don't impress.

Edit: Hmm. I'll just qualify that by saying it's still nice when you do get a compliment so maybe I do care. A bit... ;-)

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