wuuf. burnout is a thing. i get hit with it every now and again and now is one of those times. i've been hitting it pretty hard lately... in fact the past 2 and a half month has been pretty active. i've been practicing every day over multiple practice sessions and the results are nice but yikes, is it repetitive. i mean, it has to be to a large extent, and i'm fine with that but it can be pretty taxing over the duration.
it's kinda hard to say exactly what the best thing to do in these situations is... and likely there are a million answers. for certain i get burned out when i'm no longer excited by what i'm working on and then it begins feeling like a chore. i'm going through the motions because have to and i can somehow let myself think that it's progress some how. it's probably just maintenance at that point and likely not even all that effective.
so step one is realizing I'm burned out and it's because my current practice routine is... uh, routine. step two is changing something. it could be new material to work in, a more challenging variation on the exercises i'm currently working on, or just learning a new song. this last one is what i opted for the other day.
it has been a few months since i've learned anything for the ol' repertoire so not only was my practice routine getting stale so too was my rep. learning a new song gives me several new things to grab my attention, new rhythms, problem solving trying to figure out where on the fingerboard it was played on the album, the tone, etc. usually the rhythm part is the most interesting for me. nothing is better than getting hung up on a part and busting on the metronome and spending some time getting it right. then being able to play the part up to speed and in time. that's a good feeling.
but then it's time to get back to it. whatever it is i'm burnt out on was important enough to wear it out in the first place. i suppose i can play the new song one more time before i get back to practice.
