Tonight I did something I haven’t done in a long time. (All you guitarists with kids will appreciate this.) I put my son to bed, closed his door, went into my studio, plugged in my electric, turned on an amp and just played. It felt great and was a lot of fun. I think I can so easily get bogged down in music for a cause or a purpose like playing for church or recording projects. I have so many ideas for things I want to produce, songs to record and even musicals and books to write, but so little time to do any of them. It’s too easy for me to obsess over every second of creative time allotted to me. They have to be jam packed with productivity in regards to some goal or they are wasted. Part of this is a German born work ethic. Another part is a sick perfectionistic obsession that can squelch the creative love right out of the room.
But tonight I just played and it felt real good.
I ran through pedal configurations and presets, distorting here, modulating there and, of course, had the obligatory “push-the-tubes-to-the-moon” rock out. And not with headphones. The volume was a low enough for my son to sleep (with a sound machine) but loud enough to let the speaker sing.
What about you? Do you other guitarists and creative types ever struggle with this. Do you ever ask yourself, “When was the last time I just ‘let my hair down’ and played?” I love to work hard. I love to get that perfect mix. But tonight I loved playing.
Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.
Jeremy
small table studio 
I have been going through this “Self-Reliance” 30 day writing initiative. My kids are grown, but it’s still hard to find the time to write and this challenge has been good for me in that I must find the time each day to write. Sometimes I struggle to do the work, but several times in the last ten days I have found that I just enjoy writing. Yesterday was one of those times when I wrote about a character I had had in my mind for some time, but was afraid to flesh out: Arkoudas.