When I was a young teenager, my parents gave me an acoustic guitar for a birthday gift. I was sure I wanted to learn to play the guitar! And they signed me up for music classes. Unfortunately, the music teacher didn’t seem to appreciate the fact that young teenagers don’t want to spend hours and hours every day learning ONLY to read music and play the “mary had a little lamb” types of songs. Young teenagers ALSO want to learn a few “quick and dirty” songs that they can play fairly quickly. And no one had explained how much it would hurt my fingers to put pressure on the guitar strings when pressing them down on the frets!
So I abandoned the classes fairly quickly – they were boring and my fingers hurt. I wanted no More painful, boring hours of practice alone in my room playing songs I hated! Sometimes people ask me if I wish I had kept at it, and when I hear gifted musicians play, I do find myself wishing I could play that well, too. But, my tolerance level for pain was too low, so the answer to that question is “no.” I’m not a big fan of pain!