Some of you might find this story’s headline (Give Yourself Permission to Be a Musician) a little confusing. Most of you play an instrument, and many of you are serious about following your passion — making guitar playing your profession. So what’s this about permission?

Let me explain.

Since I was 16, I’ve been on an interesting, but not very unique musical journey. Starting in my early days, I strongly believed playing metal was my ultimate passion in life and that I wanted to pursue it as a profession. On the other side of the coin, although my parents were supportive, I remember them asking me to consider some other, “safer,” professional choices, be it computer programming, obtaining some sort of an executive job, etc. I always believed that if you give something your all, there’s a chance you’ll be successful. I never had fear that I wouldn’t be what I considered successful at playing guitar. But something was still nagging at me. Subconsciously, I still had layers of guilt about not making my parents feel secure about I was doing. This is partly because when we left Poland in 1984, my parents sold everything they had in order to move to the US for a better life for me and my sister. And then their son decides to be a metal guitar player. Writing it down makes it sound kind of insane.

There was a stretch for about five years after I graduated from Berklee that I started teaching full time. I did not play out, I just taught, a lot! Many of my private guitar students were business professionals, lawyers and dentists … and so my interviewing began. I would drill them on why they became who they are professionally and if they would trade it for becoming an artist, guitar player, etc., if they could make a living at it. You would not believe how many thought being a musician was the ultimate way to lead a life.

Now, I’m all for anyone becoming whatever they want, but at the time, it made me feel great that even the people with what we call “respected” and “admired” professions thought playing guitar was the coolest thing in the world. About that time, a shift happened in my life. In my mind and probably out loud, I said to myself, “I give you permission to be a musician!” That’s it. That’s all it took. I stopped eyeing local publications for jobs that might give me relief from teaching, and I said to myself, “If you are a musician, concentrate on using your talents as a musician from this point on. And, while you’re at it, refuse to be broke because of it.”

Even though I made an album and taught music, when asked what I did for a living, there was some hesitation. After the shift, I simply told people I’m a musician. This translated to the clothes I bought, and well, the list goes on. When you allow yourself to do something, sometimes another world of possibilities opens up. Things appear in front of you that were always there, but your eyes weren’t open enough to see them. Think about this.

After that moment, I put a metal instrumental band together and started opening shows for Yngwie, Steve Morse and Ronnie Montrose on the East Coast. After three years of being caught captive via digital 0’s and 1’s, the music from my self-financed CD, Isolation Chamber: Grind Textural Abstractions, eventually ended up living again. Eventually, a tape of one of those shows landed in the hands of The Metal God, Rob Halford, and my dreams started to be become reality.

Of course, once you are showing serious results for your work, it becomes easier convincing relatives and friends about your life path. But here’s the deal: It doesn’t matter. Give yourself permission to do what you believe in, and silence the limiting beliefs. Things seem to align themselves when you are ready, including relatives. Thanks for listening, everyone. Horns up!

As the world we live in extracts new technologies that often speed up the pace we can do something, it is important not to lose track that some things take time. Some things do not happen overnight and it cannot be otherwise.

What does it mean to master something? To master something is being able to call on something to produce a result in a quick manner. If you have mastered the spelling of a word you don’t have to think what letters make it up.

However, to master something it takes time.

Where I am going with this? Although we can Google almost anything instantly or skip the supermarket and have the food delivered to your door, to get great on your instrument it will take some time. I often play a lick to my guitar students after which they often ask me how did I do that? My best and honest answer is that I have practiced this particular or similar licks for 5 years before playing it to them. I might be exaggerating a little here, but you get my point. So, although I can break down the techniques and ideas that make the lick great, the student will not be able to recall it as well as I do – unless, they put in the time and diligence to make a great progress.

This is a quick and general reminder to stay patient while getting better at your playing.

I was thinking about how we, as musicians, advance and make progress in our careers.

I’ve come up with something that rings true in terms of every situation that has helped me in my personal journey. It comes down to this: Anytime anything happens “for us,” it comes as the result of a recommendation from someone else. Or someone we knew thought of us.

It’s as simple as that.

If you think back on your life, you’ll see this is true. Think of your tree of recommendations, gigs, interviews, etc., that you’ve done. How did you hear about the prospect or get involved?

This same principle also stands out as to why some amazing guitarists I knew never burst out of the bubble of being just an incredible talent that some people in the underground knew of and admired. Many musicians spend so much time on becoming mind-blowing players that they never make friends and work on their social skills, which are incredibly necessary to take it a step further.

Developing your skills on how to effectively communicate with others is as necessary as working on your scales, songs or equipment.

Many guitarists feel that once they become amazing players, someone out there will discover them by pure luck — and then the hard work will pay off. Maybe. I must admit that more often than not, major career breakthroughs come from practicing your instrument, developing your talents, showcasing your skills to others and then having a network of friends who can make influential recommendations or simply think of you when they have some good info to pass on.

Once you’re in the position you desired, or while you’re on your way there, you are expected to communicate well. That’s a whole lot more than just playing guitar.

Most bands that look for new musicians first ask their friends about whom they think might fit. Even if you see an ad for an audition, it might have come from a website you know of because a friend recommended it to you. If not, you might have seen the website as a link on your friend’s Facebook page. That’s an example of an indirect recommendation. If you never knew your friend, all other links from that point on would have been lost. You can now begin to see how all this works.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not recommending you run out and make as many friends in the music business as possible with only the end result in mind. That system is fake, and no one appreciates it. What I recommend is that you work on building honest, real relationships with new people and faces. Think of quality before quantity and connect with people you find interesting or inspiring.

So is it “Who you know and not what you know?” That’s way too one-sided for me. If you work on becoming a successful metal guitarist, you and I already know you will need the technical ability and knowledge that goes along with playing this style of music. What I know is that you probably don’t want to be the next Dimebag sitting in your basement for the rest of your life, as what good is your talent if no one knows about it?

Do us a favor and share your talents by allowing others to help you. Just think about the above blog post for a bit and see what it means to you.

Thanks for reading,
Metal Mike

Throughout the years of teaching guitar I learned how to pick up on various behavioral patterns in my students. Depending on the student’s age, experience and commitment, some of the patterns are pretty typical such as expecting the teacher to magically do all the practicing for them, not bringing in ideas as to what they would love to learn next, being late for a lesson, etc. You get the idea.

However, today I want to talk about one of the biggest self-sabotaging mistakes many guitar students make. And, this silent assassin even applies to some of the most committed students that I teach.

It goes something like this. I show my student a guitar playing example and before I am done with it; my student starts to try to play it immediately. This happens more often than not while I’m in the middle of showing them ‘how to play it’. Get it? I have no idea why students do this. But, sometimes it drives me bonkers. It must be a human thing. But, as you can imagine there is huge disconnect there as obviously how can a student play something correctly when he or she doesn’t know fully how it is supposed to be executed in the first place.

I really do not know why this happens. Maybe they are anxious to see if they can do it, or are simply impatient. I don’t think people are even aware of it. But, ‘why’ is not really the point. So, here is a simple tip. If you are a taking a lesson remember to listen to the end until the teacher is done explaining something to you. It will make it much easier for you to learn it and then you will still have the rest of the day to practice it. And, you will make your teacher much happier to boot.

In photography, the term “depth of field” is often used to describe what object retains the focus and what is blurred out.

In a long depth of field, everything is sharp and ready for examination; in short depth of field, you will see the sharpness emphasizing the main subject, while the remainder of the picture is blurred out.

It doesn’t take long to realize you can apply these principles to the life of a musician. I like to follow Bob Parsons from Go Daddy. He says many wonderfully useful things in plain language. One of his rules is the fact that anything that is watched and measured grows and improves. Guess what? It is true.

If you go to the gym regularly and apply correct techniques, you will build muscle. If you run every day regularly, after some time, you will become faster and leaner. If you practice your guitar regularly, you will eventually get better at it. Same goes for songwriting and well, guess what – pretty much everything else, too.

The truth is that one of the only reasons why we fail at anything is the lack of focus to constantly watch, measure and chip away at achieving whatever we set out to you. Yes, even with constant dedication, you might not be the next Randy Rhoads, but you will definitely get better. It is just how it works.

The depth of field idea will help to remind you that sometimes you have to adjust your focus on what it is that you want to achieve in the upcoming week, month or even years. You have to hone in on it, zoom in on it and not let it out of your sight if you want to see improvements. Blur out the things that might not be as important. You do not have to take them out of the picture completely and you should sometimes treat everything to a long depth of field to take inventory of what things look like. Adjust as necessary and go back in zeroing in on the task.

I find this very helpful, because I must be honest that with the distractions that pull at our senses every day, it is extremely tempting to loose focus. Musicians and artists are very susceptible to this because we already have a lot going on in our heads before regular life steps in, don’t we? It’s crowded up there. Use the depth of field to zoom in and keep things in perspective.

Sometimes a simple visualization technique such as this can really bring is great results.

For a minute a day, you can imagine yourself adjusting your depth of field as you see your goal come alive sharper in your vision while the “other” stuff that could distract you is blurred out. It’s very helpful. This exercise allows you to move your thoughts through a process that jump-starts your actually putting priorities together. Otherwise, with so much pulling on us, our minds get so crowded that we never even get off the starting line.

On the last note, this technique can also help remind you that not everything in your picture has to be perfect in order for you to enjoy what you are looking at. Most people, of course, including musicians, wait for something to happen before they can be happy. One simple example is a weekend, a new pedal or a new guitar, a new drummer, gig or whatever. Here’s the truth: This approach never works for more than a minute. It never did and it never will.

I just want you to think about all of the above ideas for a few minutes and see how you can apply it to your development as a musician. Hope they will help out in a few simple ways.