The Values of Playing Guitar

You should have a hobby! Yeah, that's right, I'm talking to you! What hobbies do you have? Maybe you play a sport, or read books, or even do art of some sort. These are all very good choices to pursue, but what if I told you that there was a specific hobby that could help you in more ways than you can count. This passion is rather common, but it is overlooked in modern times. I’m talking about playing a guitar. I’ll even go as far as saying HOT TAKE: GUITAR IS THE BEST HOBBY YOU CAN PURSUE! There, I said it, happy? Anyways, I say this from personal experience and here are some of the benefits I have observed and believe that everyone should get from playing a guitar: it's a stress reliever; it’s also a great hand-eye coordination trainer; and, it’s just an overall good time.

    To start, it’s a stress reliever. Whenever I’m mad, I break out my guitar and just start strumming. It usually helps me out a lot. I always feel better after playing and can go back to chilling out. But don’t just take it from me. Recently, I asked Anderson Ratliff  ‘26 why he plays guitar, and he shared my views, saying, “Well, I play guitar to help relieve stress, and so that’s kind of why I picked it up. And I’ve just, I’ve taught myself how to play guitar over the past two years.” So, as I believe many others can relate to, playing guitar is a good stress reliever. Daniel Levitin, an award winning neuroscientist, musician, record producer, and who is well known for his New York Times best seller This is your Brain on Music, worked with popular guitar brand Fender to write about this very concept. “"Playing an instrument has a meditative aspect that can release positive hormones in the brain and can reduce the stress hormone Cortisol, increase productivity, and create social bonding to combat loneliness in the digital age," Levitin said. "Playing music with other people produces the chemical oxytocin, a binding chemical that promotes trust and social bonding and makes you feel better." 

    To continue, practicing guitar can greatly improve your hand-eye coordination. Learning how to do riffs takes a lot of training, especially complicated and fastly timed ones. This training can greatly improve other tasks you could have that require good coordination. For example, craftsmanship. Say you also do other art forms, like carving. That also takes a lot of practice to master, and playing guitar can greatly improve your dexterity and aid in the carving process. Or, you might play another instrument. Again, most instruments require good dexterity, guitar can help improve on that. Don’t just take it from me though, many sources agree with this claim. MJP Guitar Tuition claims quote, “Playing an instrument requires a certain level of hand-eye coordination, which is of course developed with practice. Reading guitar tablature and/or music involves your brain converting that information into specific motor patterns.”  

    To finish it off, playing guitar is a good time passer. Back in the 1900’s, kids went outside and played games with each other when they were bored. Adults used to read the morning paper and listen to music on the radio. Occasionally, the family would gather around the television to watch their favorite shows, but technology was not as prominent as it is in modern times. Nowadays, kids and adults spend hours a day on their devices, either watching videos, playing video games or writing up business reports. It’s not a good thing, and that's another reason why I began playing guitar. Let me share a quick story for more context. When I was younger, I never had a device of my own. I would occasionally get to play games on my mom’s phone, but that was it. Then, Covid hit, and everything changed, not just for me, but for all of us. People's online presence grew and grew, and with that, consequences arose. I became addicted to screens, sometimes going hours at a time repeatedly without stopping. I grew lazy, and lost a lot of curiosity in anything that wasn’t on a screen. Eventually though, I snapped out of this trance-like state and realized it was a very bad thing that I needed to fix. I began looking for alternatives, and one thing I remembered I could do was to play guitar. From there, my online presence drastically decreased and I began to actually have energy and the willpower to do the things I loved again. But don’t just take it from me, ask your friends, family, or even yourself, because I guarantee that most of you reading this have experienced a similar time in  your lives. My point here is that guitar is a great pastime. It keeps us occupied, entertained, and brings out the best in us. It’s a way for people to express their creativity through song, either by themselves or with their friends and family. 

In short, playing guitar is a great, if not the best hobby one can acquire. The benefits go farther than what I have covered, including joining Guitar Club at North Cross (every Friday in room 19, everyone is welcome!). Shameless self-plug aside, I hope you got something out of this read. So, stay happy out there, go down to your local Fret Mill, buy a good guitar, and just mess around, have fun, learn new things, and most importantly, enjoy yourself.  

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