Any musicians around?

You can make everything seem like nothing by this. Imagine you had this attitude towards every aspect of your life, like "why would I want to be with this person if there are hotter/better/whatever people out there I can't be with".

It is a challenge to learn to appreciate what you have without looking at what you don't. You get enjoyment out of this, it could become a great hobby for you that makes you feel proud and brings you entertainment and new challenges at every turn, that could calm you or console you and so on. Why would any of that be diminished because you cannot do everything?
Also, protip, no one can. In today's world with so many Tigermother babies who have had top level education and intensive practice from childhood onwards, the real world class pianists have a stroke of genius that is reserved for the very very few.

>>17670029
Wow, thank you for saying that. Sometimes I forget how nihilistic I can be.

>>17670048
No problem. For the record, I used to have the same attitude. Played the cello for ten years, eight to eighteen. (I wasn't "done with it" or anything, just lost track of it due to college.) I really resented constantly noticing what I didn't do well enough in my eyes. I felt like practicing, the money towards lessons etc was a waste of efforts and kind of embarrassing as I was obviously not a great talent. It didn't help that the guy who has his lesson right after mine -was- very talented and became a local celebrity within his area now.

Anyway, looking back I don't really care because I understand this is what I thought like back then, but it's still a shame. This destructive thinking was the only thing that had a real negative impact on my abilities. And no, I'll never be a top notch player. But I also now feel that it was very immature of me to narrowly think in terms of average - above averagely talented - exceptionally talented - genius etc. A musician has his or her own voice, you put something of your personality in the way that you play, something of the way you experience the music. Just like one singer's voice can appeal to you a lot more than that of another, even though the second singing voice is technically better. So that's something else still... you still put your own way of making music out there, even if just for friends. That in itself is something beautiful.

>>17670069
You've reminded me why I even started playing in the first place.

Now that I think about it, a lot of other things I do seem to be along the same lines. Like I'm also interested in writing, and am currently studying for a quite useless degree (psych) just because I feel that it is right for me.

Great talk, anon.

>>17670017
>How the fuck do I improve?
You fucking practice. How else? You want to get better at improv? Find a jazz methods book. Want to be better at playing by ear? Start learning tunes by ear. Maybe even find an aural training book. You want to master a piece of music? You spend more hours on it than you can imagine. Find recordings and constantly ask yourself "How can I make my sound more like what I'm hearing?"

What you're asking for is hard stuff. There is no way around it. I used to be like you. When I asked "How do I improve?" what I was really asking was "What am I doing wrong?" and I was hoping someone would give me some little secret that made it apparently obvious why I wasn't succeeding, and that I'd put myself onto a new path, but that's never going to happen.

Here's a tip: treat your practice room like a laboratory. Literally experiment with technique, style. Learn a phrase, then play it ten different ways until you find the interpretation you want.

>>17670126
Thanks. I was going to brush up on theory and chord progressions and the like. I remember some watching some youtube tutorials a while back but never stuck with it.

I guess I'll just have to keep on experimenting...