It's early Sunday morning. You're up, and everyone else in the house is asleep.
Perfect.
You make a coffee, head to your practice room and pick up your guitar. It's been a busy week, but this is your time — there are no emails or admin that need your attention, and you can finally let loose.
It's just that, when you actually pick the guitar up, you don't know what to play.
You noodle a few of the same licks you always do — and then head to YouTube to see if there's a cool backing track to jam over.
You find one and start improvising, but you don't like what you hear. It sounds clunky, mechanical, and it lacks that bluesy feel you hear from your favourite players.
You let the track roll for 5 or 10 minutes, but you start to get frustrated. Everything sounds the same, and you feel stuck — just repeating the same licks in the first shape of the minor pentatonic scale.
Whenever you think about making a move, you freeze. You have no idea where you need to go, and every time you try something different, you hit a wrong note. You immediately wince with embarrassment and hope that no one heard you make that mistake.
Losing motivation, you start to think about what you need to do to salvage the practice session. And then in the corner of your eye you spot a lesson in the YouTube sidebar:
Well that looks interesting, so you click on that and start learning. But 5 minutes in and that sidebar captures your attention again:
Who doesn't want a better guitar tone?
30 minutes later and you're watching a Klon pedal comparison video, you've ordered two new overdrives, and you have a new wishlist on Reverb of dream guitars you'd like to add to your collection…
The practice session has been dropped, and now it's too late — you've lost your chance and will have to wait for another time to work on your improv.
Maybe this sounds familiar?