Surround Yourself With Art and Pretty Things for Inspiration

The more inspired one feels the more colorful and exciting life gets.
I have pledged myself, at the start of 2017, to be more inspiring to all my guitar and music students than I have ever been before.

Here’s a quick list of some things that inspire me.

Design. I love the stylish design and artsy things. Here’s a link to some Interesting and Beautiful Tables.
Surrealism. Ever since I was a kid, Surrealism has always been and will always be my favorite art form. I can never get enough of it. From Salvador Dali to Renee Magritte. Renee Magritte is one of the reasons why my hat of choice is my bowler hat. 🙂 Do a Google search for “Surrealism” and click on “Images”. You’ll enter my visual dream world.
Reading. It opens up your world. I strongly recommend checking out stylish writers from the 1800s like for example “Oscar Wilde”. He’s a trip. 🙂 I read EVERYTHING Oscar Wilde ever penned. I strongly feel all these people you learn from, help shape your musical personality and your style.
Think about “David Bowie”. Not a coincidence that the voracious reader that he was, also had such a long career as a musician, with such a wide-ranging diverse musical color palette and stylistic range. That stylistic diversity can only come from soaking up many different cultures, influences, points of view, and so on.
Nature. One of the things I REALLY like about Los Angeles, is the close proximity of every natural environment one can imagine: ocean, beach, mountains, desert, forests, snow. The many hiking paths in LA provide ample opportunity to get more in tune with life and nature.
Walks in the rain. Not much rain in LA, but when it rains: I love going for walks. There is something “cleansing” about walking in the rain.
Move to an idyllic, peaceful neighborhood. Yesterday my wife Tiannah and I went for a walk in Mount Washington in Los Angeles. The sun was setting. I could feel myself getting all calm and relaxed just from the beauty of the neighborhood. It was like walking in a fairy-tale environment. I could imagine how I would be in a constant state of bliss if I lived in such an environment.
If you cannot just move to such a neighborhood, you can of course always pimp up your place to become a place of peace, beauty, comfort, and love, surrounding yourself with beautiful things, that don’t necessarily always have to be expensive.
Travelling. Nothing to inspire someone like being exposed to different parts of the world and different cultures.
Meditating. It’s funny how this is one of those things I keep advocating everyone should do, yet I hardly ever get to it myself. When I get to meditation, I always found that it opens up my mind for more and deeper inspiration.
Photo websites. Spend time on websites with cool art or cool photos like Photos You May Not Have Seen Before.
Visit musea. LACMA is one of my favorite musea in LA. (LACMA website).
Hang out at the library. There is something about being surrounded by so much knowledge of every field in human existence. Every book you open is like a new world one enters. I LOVE the Los Angeles Library so much I wrote about it. The Los Angeles Library: A Fantastic Resource for Musicians.
Go to the ZOO. I love walking around in the LA zoo.
Go to concerts and music festivals. I still remember how coming home from a Joe Bonamassa concert, I just wanted to start playing, jamming, and practicing guitar right away. Seeing really great musicians perform inspires one to keep getting better as well.
Take lessons. One surefire way to get really inspired is taking lessons with a great teacher who shows you tons of fun, cool stuff you can do with your instrument. A couple of years ago I took Gypsy Jazz lessons with a European gypsy guitarist in LA. It was a ton of fun to get better at Romanian gypsy scales. 🙂
Dinners with friends. My wife and I love cooking for our friends, followed by late-night talks by a glass of wine till early morning hours.
Humor. I’ve heard it said before that “laughter is the best medicine”. Earlier today I had to laugh so hard I got teary-eyed when a friend sent me this music joke photo:

Practicing a lot is great, but everything in life is about balance.
Sometimes the best thing you can do for your musicianship and growth is to just take some time off and go do things that will inspire you and renew your mental energy.

Hit me up anytime at vreny@zotzinmusic.com if you have any questions, or if you would like to book a lesson.
You’re on your way to becoming a great guitar player.
Have fun! 🙂

Conclusion

Hit me up anytime at vreny@zotzinmusic.com if you have any questions, or if you would like to book a lesson.

These free lessons are cool, but you will never experience the progress, joy, and results that my students experience in lessons when you’re learning by yourself from blogs and videos.

That is why people take lessons: way better results and progress, much more complete information, exposed to way more creative ideas than you can get from a blog or YouTube video.
There is only so much that self-study can accomplish.

If you want to see amazing results and progress in your guitar playing, buy your first lesson here and get started ASAP.