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@jumpinjeffjumpinjeff .J2, great response and that 5 Gallon penny filling analogy is spot on. Good way to look at it. I certainly hit the frustration point many times throughout the year, and now when it happens I will just remember the 5 gallon jug!! Thanks much for that.
My wife and I went out to a winery last night (actually this was on the roundabout return leg of an 80 mile road trip to check out a 2008 Martin D-16GT, which I ended up coming home with😀) and they had a guy playing an Archtop Acoustic/Electric guitar as the evening entertainment – he was basically a jazz guitar player and used that skill to not only play jazz, but also to put his jazz spin on several more contemporary Beatles, Jim Croce, etc. songs. He was unbelievably good, super smooth, effortless with zero vocals – just guitar and amp (no pedal or any other electronic enhancements at all).
My wife asked why I don’t sound like that. Ha, Ha – because he was very talented and probably had about 50 years of playing under his belt. Needless to say, it doesn’t matter how much time I put in, I will just never be that good (I don’t have 50 years to work with anyhow😁) and you know what? I am totally OK with that. I will be as good as I will be and to someone else’s ears that may just be really bad. but I don’t care. I am making progress and getting better step by step, inch by inch or maybe centimeter by centimeter. Can’t see the bottom of that 5 gallon jug anymore, so watching the pennies fall is where I am at. Jug will never get full.
Sitting there listening to this guy just play with zero effort, I showed my wife how well I can now lift my ring finger independently after 2 years of TAC exercises. She puts her hand down and lifts her ring finger up about 2 inches compared to my 0.75 inches and has never, ever done a finger exercise! Told her maybe she should take up guitar! Some folks are just born with more flexible fingers and natural than the rest of us. Once again, I am focusing on what I can do and not worried about what others can do or what I can’t do. Otherwise you will go down a deep, dark hole.
Enjoy.