I think Adrian is still figuring out aspects of himself (musically and otherwise) like most of us - including myself! And I am around his same age at mid way over the half century mark. So previous posts about models aside, we are all works in progress.
His posts on guitar are all about self improvement. Who among this forum (from the best to the newbie) doesn't want that?
i agree with this. but often he'll bring up talk about live gigs, for example. he'll ask for advice, we give it and he'll say things akin to "it's not like that" or "i wouldn't do that" etc. the advice was very basic, standard things.
but he hasn't done any gigs yet. that itself isn't the problem, but shunning advice or saying it's wrong from a standpoint of never experiencing a gig is off-putting and frustrating to deal with. suggesting to do a quick open mic or something very simple, low pressure, we are told he's going to work over the next 5 years on 20 songs and start gigging after those 5 years.
earlier in the year, i was actually cheerleading for him to at least perform on twitch - which he did a few times - to get some kind of experience where you have to keep going like a gig, yet from the safety of home with all your stuff and no real pressure... it's a livestream do whatever you want. i answered many of his questions and provided helpful insight. answered direct messages for the gear needed for streaming etc. he was cooperative and the advice helped him successfully stream.
some time after that though, his responses on the public forum were frustrating as i described above, and many of his recent threads were "this or that: discuss" traps where he already had an opinion formed ahead of time and then dropped it in the middle of the discussion, making the former posts a waste of time.
there's a definite "you need to be a rockstar to be a musician" angle in his view of music, and that's hard to break through in simple discussion. it always wins out during discussion of normal people doing music.
i have no judgment on his playing and videos, but they do reveal facts about current skills. earlier in the year, he stated he wanted to start gigging and doing what he does in the videos. it's just the guitar part of popular songs with no backing tracks or singing. with distortion and effects. at the beginning, a few of us were trying to steer him in a better (our opinion i guess) direction posing the question would anyone hire that type of performance? it's not typical - which could be a plus - but a bar or restaurant with a mid-range-only instrument with distortion just playing the guitar parts out of time (rubato) may not be anyone's cup of tea for entertainment. again, my (and other's) opinions.
then some push back started regarding our thoughts on that type of performance, so many of us fell off and stopped helping. sorta let him do what he's gonna do.
that's where some of the sentiment from a few of us comes from, history from previous experiences and discussions.
this forum is a wealth of information with very experienced professionals. to ask a question then say no to the advice - when you haven't done the thing you're asking about ever - is frustrating to witness. then a bevy of gaslighting posts... frustrating.
i think most of us want him to succeed. 20 years playing guitar is a good amount of time to be successful in some way. 5 years to learn 20 songs seems like too much before even trying a gig to see if it's something you want to do.
i hope he starts his twitch stream up again and does a consistent 1 day a week or something similar. he already has 1021 followers there with just a handful of short streams. the potential is there. the work has to follow.
