The best and the worst music year of my life (Looking back to 2023)
Many people say that New Year is just another day, just a change of a number in the calendar. And of course, technically it's true but I also like to use it to look back to the previous 12 months
I like to use the end of the year to summarize what happened during the whole year. I do it because a reflection is the best way of finding out what we did wrong and we did right. It is the best way to learn from our mistakes but also our successes. Not surprisingly all companies evaluate campaigns, product launchment, effectivity of processes etc.
So if you should look back to the previous year what can you see? What were your musical ups and downs?
I had an amazing first half of the last year related to music. I found a professional guitar teacher who played with Tommy Emmanuel. Thanks to him and my consistent practice I was progressing very fast, especially in fingerstyle guitar. I started organising jams for my friends, so I regularly played with other musicians. That was an amazing experience and I recommend it to everyone. I tried busking which was a huge step out of my comfort zone. It was scary. It was hard but also a lot of fun. I started taking piano lessons and singing lessons. I had an amazing time. I could have called myself a musician, finally… However, then my body said stop.
After practicing piano for a month I started having a weird feeling in my hands. It was a tickly and a little bit unpleasant feeling going through firstly my right and then my left hand. I thought it was not a big deal. I just slowed down. It’s gonna be alright I said to myself. However, three weeks later I had to stop. I had such a big pain in my hands that I couldn’t play piano, or guitar. It was one of the worst moments in my life. I found my passion and now it was taken from me.
My reaction was even worse, every reasonable person would go to see a doctor. I said no. Somehow I figured out that I have carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). I started wearing tapes and doing exercises. It didn’t work. So after 3 months, yes it took me three long months to finally go to a doctor where they tested me for carpal tunnel syndrome. They found out that it was tennis elbow and overload. So I wasted 3 months. It was not carpal tunnel syndrome. I found a physiotherapist and started doing exercises. What’s unfortunate, I still have problems till today and I can’t practice properly.
This horrible situation could cause me to stop playing the guitar and the piano. I would just find something else. That’s what I always did in my life. I stopped playing football after 10 years because of problems with my knee. I stopped doing power yoga because I was going too hard and had problems with my back. But this was different. First time in my life I felt that I had to find a solution. I decided that nobody would take a music from me. So despite having these problems, I decided to use this situation to practice other musical elements.
I need to admit that I was down and very sad for a few weeks. But I realized that I love music and I can’t live without it. Therefore, I decided to attend and organize jams despite being the guy who can only sing and not that well. But it was a lot of fun and a great experience. It motivated me to improve my singing. The second amazing thing, I started doing was ear training. I started learning intervals, rhythm, how are chords made, basics of harmony and suddenly whole new world of music opened to me.I finally understood what I was doing when I played fingerstyle guitar. However, after a positive wave and learning a lot I had a crisis. I spent a month during the autumn being very passive and not training. But now I got my musical spirit back.
To sum it up, not being able to play the guitar was and still is the worst but also the best experience which could happened to me. I learnt so much. I have a lot of new years resolutions but if I should choose just one, it would be:
To put together my body and especially hands together and to be able to fully play and enjoy the guitar again.
Have a great New year!