How Practicing 3 Stoic Disciplines Can Make You a Better Guitar Player

Um, so the Stoicism thing, this is like my newest project, and it's, it's kind of one that I'm almost all in now. I, I fell in love with Stoicism as an 8th grader when I was in school. I had a— I took Latin from 8th grade, um, through high school. I was— so the dirty little secret is I was actually the winner of the Latin prize all 4 years. Running of my high school career. So I was that nerdy little kid that was like reading the Aeneid in, in Latin. Um, but my, my teacher Don Kelly, who I've— I, I saw not too long ago and still, um, kind of, uh, stay in touch with, um, introduced the class to Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. And it was just You know, it just totally rocked my world, even, you know, at that age. And throughout the— my— throughout my life, I probably picked it up at least every couple of years. As I'm now, you know, in my, in my middle age, I pick it up far more frequently because the Stoic concept of facing your mortality and, and like coming to peace with that is something that, um, you know, I recognized as something that can be motivating as opposed to being depressing. But Stoicism is really, again, it's just, you know, they don't teach Stoicism much in university because it's so easy to understand. It doesn't need somebody to interpret it for you. It's basically based on three principles: perception, action, and will. And those disciplines, the discipline of perception is things are, you know, we have this inborn need to create a narrative that fulfills whatever we want to get out of a situation. So sometimes it's ego boosting, like, oh, I'm fantastic, look at me, I'm being asked to participate in this Guitar Summit, I must be really, really good. Or it can be the other, oh, you know, I'm a nobody, what am I doing here? It's never— things are never what you think they are. Things are just what they are. And so it's that ability to take your ego out of the equation and to just accept that things are the way they are. And when you're able to do that, then when you act, you can objectively look at a situation, and if it's a, a misfortune or an obstacle you can find a way around or through it, or in many cases you can find a way to flip it and so that it then becomes an advantage. So like an example would be if you were to take somebody— if Frank Sinatra or Billie Holiday, two of the most popular vocalists in jazz, neither of whom had a very— they don't have an instrument that many other people would covet. I think Billie Holiday had a range of like an octave plus 2 notes or something like that. Frank Sinatra did not have a very powerful voice, did not also have a great range. So they had this obstacle, this constraint that they had to work within. And so instead of saying, oh, I can't really sing, I'll become a busboy, they worked within took their limitations and turned them into advantages. Like Frank Sinatra paid close attention to phrasing and being— singing behind the beat, really working with the microphone, which was a new technology at that time, and becoming a very intimate type of singer, you know. And Billie Holiday just, you know, being Billie Holiday. So that would be You know, that's the way a Stoic would approach any kind of situation. So that's a musical example of that. And then the concept of will is— it's that reserve that you need to have when the obstacle is not surmountable. So, um, I think of the will as kind of being the content of your character. So, you know, you're, you're trying to keep the ego at bay, to keep that spirit of humility, to remain generous and empathetic, um, and, uh, you know, to be a good person, not because anybody's watching, but just because it's the right thing to do. And, you know, there are times when life deals you a really bad hand and there is no way around, over, or under it, and you have to simply wait it out or accept it. Um, and that's where, you know, again, the content of your character really comes in. I, uh, I've started developing this site called The Stoic Guitarist, and I've actually started kind of branding myself as Scott Perry, The Stoic Guitarist, um, because I think it's, it's, it's a very pragmatic set of principles and practices that apply to anything that you do, whether it's playing the guitar or teaching the guitar or just kind of navigating, you know, what is, you know, what can be a very messy, a messy life in a messy world. And it's a way not just, you know, some people— so Stoicism has this rap of people being kind of emotionless, and that's really not it at all. It's you know, you accept that you are going to have emotional responses, but you sit with them long enough to let them pass, and you don't act upon them. Because when you act from an emotional place, you are going to act badly, right? So just think of you're on stage, you know, I've had, I've had this experience numerous times where, you know, you're on stage with great players, it's your turn to solo, and you decide that you're going to whip out every lick and flashy trick that you can think of just, just to try to impress somebody that is clearly your better. And what ends up happening is you play the world's god-awful solo, you embarrass yourself in front of your peers and the person you're trying to impress and the audience. Whereas if you can, like, you know, instead of getting caught up in that moment and trying to allow the ego to rule your response, you say you take a deep breath, maybe another deep breath, and you say, I'm just going to play what I can play. I'm going to keep it simple and direct. And remember that, um, you know, this is the other aspect of the Stoic Guitarist site, is it's, it says thrive through music and these three Stoic principles of perception, uh, disciplines of perception, action, and will. You know, music is a language. Languages are used to connect and communicate. Music is at its best when it's collaborative, not competitive. Um, and music is a craft, not a commodity. And, you know, I think if you can approach music in that way, then you're— again, that's, that's art, and you are an artist, and that's a higher calling than any particular art that you might be a practitioner of. So yeah, so that's—

yeah, I think if anyone's watching or listening to this just now, I know we're kind of obviously we're going to come to some like technical, like as in guitar technical things just now as well, but I I think, you know, what you're saying is an important point, and not just in learning and playing, but also if you're watching or listening to this just now, and you either have a career in music or you want to have a career in music, treating the highs and the lows, treating those imposters both the same, is an extremely important lesson to learn. And I've had the good fortune of working close hand with some of the most incredibly successful musicians. And I've been also the person that's had to deliver them really great reviews and tell them they've won some award and also really bad reviews and tell them something's happened, you know, here. And what I've noticed is the best people I've worked with, it's not that they're emotionless at all in those responses to those things, but they kind of go, they kind of take it on board. It's only really if they start to see a pattern um, with something, if they're seeing time and time again someone— people are saying something about their performance or, or something, that they might start, okay, reflecting on that. But it does take a quite a lot of discipline to be able to build that thing. And it only takes it from just doing lots of work and then getting lots of good reviews and bad reviews, um, to be able to kind of see those reviews as the same. You know, it's, it's that, that perception thing that you can talk to as well. So I think it's, I think it's interesting that, that, that Stoic kind of philosophy and how that relates to guitar playing.