Tips on staying motivated?

[sosippus]

Hey guys! I've been playing guitar for a few years, and for some years I attended a private music school. I went through a rock course, and then 2 or 3 years of jazz+theory courses. The best times to me were learning how all seems to be linked theoretically, and then applying that during improvisation and all that.


However, I recently had to move to another country. A few months back, I went to another music school in here, but they only had private classes. No school that I can find in this small town has group practice that I can attend - they are either too expensive, or only a select number of people can be on the "shool's band". Having said this, I am struggling to try and stay motivated to keep practicing, but the joy of discovering something new and applying it on the guitar is something that I want to keep getting.


Having said this, I'd like to ask you the following questions:

1. Do you recommend any self-learning guitar and music theory books?
   
2. What do you do to stay motivated when you have to practice and improvise only using backing tracks? (and what resources do you use?)
   
3. Do you recommend any online resources where I can learn and practice new things?
   

Thanks for all the help!

[ToniSteele]

These days you really don't need a program, entire training courses are available for free on Youtube and There are some good music mixing services to provide you the practical help.
The general advice given here, though, is that even if you wish to learn entirely on your own, you should still aim to have a few one-to-one sessions with an instructor as they can spot mistakes you may not be able to identify from a video.

[Jerome]

Toni I know you are quietly trying to push your mixing/mastering services (your home page) and that's ok with me, but telling someone that mixing services will help with learning an instrument is way off course. Mixing services have absolutely nothing to do with keeping a person motivated or helping them to learn an instrument. Motivation comes from a desire to master an instrument simply because you just enjoy playing. And the best tool in the kit for learning an instrument is on either side of your head. People are learning to play guitar 'robot-fashion' by watching things on YT. Get an disc in the player, and improvise along to that - you will learn far more than any monkey see, monkey do, YT video. And while there are a number of good tutorials on YT, most are crap because you are dealing with people who think they know what they are talking about when in actual fact they are not experienced at all. Just look at reviews of new gear on YT and you will see what I mean - mostly it's a 'producer' or 'engineer' who cannot hook up even a basic studio or outboard gear, but because he knows how to paste and copy in a DAW he considers himself a mixing and mastering engineer.

[hayley]

Hey - I mentioned this site on a different thread but in case you don't come across it...
There's a fairly new site that helps plan and track practice sessions. It addresses a lot of the things many instrumentalists struggle with like self-motivation, accountability and goal setting.
Check it out if interested: https://pitchplay.io/