We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Bryan Peralta a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Bryan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I started playing music for the first time in 2019 at 28 years old. I picked up a guitar that my gf at the time – now my wife – had sitting in the corner of our apartment and just started teaching myself. Years earlier I had written down the name of a website on my notes app. Justinguitar.com. I had heard that this guy had hundreds of guitar tutorials online for free and I had always wanted to learn. So i wrote it down and forgot all about it. I found that note, visited the site and just started from lesson 1 and I never stopped. I played every single day for multiple hours. I was working from home full time at the time which was a huge privilege that I definitely took advantage of. I’d turn my camera and mic off during zoom meetings and just bang away while my co workers talked about parking revenue. (I very randomly worked for an online parking app). I’m not sure if there’s anything that I can say now that would have sped up my learning process. I definitely didn’t dive deep at all into music theory which I honestly think was a good thing. I would have just found it all too structured around boring (it isn’t) but at the time I knew that my brain didn’t work that way. I learned a few basic chords first which allowed me to play songs right away and I think that definitely motivated me to keep learning as I was able to do the very thing I wanted to to in the first place in a relatively short amount of time. I was obsessed. I do think that a genuine passion and curiosity for the thing you’re trying to learn is key. You’re just not gonna take the time to sit there and be really. bad over and over again if you’re not completely maybe even borderline obsessive about the thing. That’s how i felt for myself anyway. I loved music so much for most of my life and it just became this drive that couldn’t be satiated. The more I learned the more I wanted to continue to discover what possibilities this path would take me on. I do think there is one thing that I kind of discovered by accident that helped me learn much faster then I had anticipated. I didn’t know what it was called until years into playing music but I was already doing it without even knowing. It’s called micro breaks. Basically our brains are better able to retain information when given a short rest period in between the act of doing the thing we’re trying to learn. So if you’re learning how to play a particular part of a song and you’ve been practicing the same phrase over and over for 5-10 minutes or longer. Take a break for at least 5-10 minutes and your brain will store that information where it needs to go and kind of imprint into your long term memory. Or some shit like that. You can google it. But it f*cking works. I’d come back 5 minutes later and notice that the phrase I couldn’t get down 5 minutes earlier suddenly became way easier. My muscle memory took over and I could play the phrase. It really changed the way I practice in a massive way. Some people practice 8 hours a day with no breaks and sure that can work eventually, but shorter practice times with multiple breaks built in will do wonders for you.

Bryan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Bryan Peralta. I’m a musician living in Los Angeles. I moved to LA from New York CIty 7 years ago to be an actor. I acted in a few shorts and student projects. Even took classes at UCB for improv and sketch comedy writing. But once the pandemic hit everything stopped and I felt pretty lost and unsure of myself. Unsure of my place in anything. I had moved my entire life across the country to pursue a career that I had dreamed of since I was 10 years old. I didn’t know what to do so I thought, ok if no ones gonna give me the parts I want. I’ll write them for myself! So i took screenwriting classes in hopes of being able to expand my cinematic vocabulary and really get my ideas down and see if I was any good at it. I started off well enough. Feeling confident in my ideas. Even finishing a few scripts that got good feedback from friends and other writers who I really admire. But then the doubt started to creep in again. I’d sit and stare at a blank screen for what felt like hours unsure of where to go or what to do next. I developed anxiety for the first time in my life. It got so bad that i had to start taking medication just to be able to get through some days without feeling completely immobilized by fear and doubt. Around the same time I had started playing the guitar fort he first time, needing anything to just get my mind off the crippling anxiety I was feeling. My gf had a guitar in the corner of our appt that was just sitting there. I had always wanted to learn how to play as I’ve loved music my entire life but just never had the patience to get around to it. I was working full time from home at the time so I decided to just sit down and teach myself to play using a website I had written down years ago called justinguitar.com. He had hundreds of free guitar tutorial videos that I followed and just never stopped. I played every single day and felt this euphoric feeling every single time I picked up a guitar. It became an obsession. What I’m most proud of is finding something that I never thought I’d find approaching my 30’s. A new lifelong passion and creative outlet that I never thought I’d have the time to learn. I’m proud of being able to sit down and teach myself an instrument after thinking that I needed to be one of those child prodigies who sat in there rooms practicing for 8 hours a day from the time time they were 13. It’s never too late to find the thing you really love to do.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding thing for me is the freedom of having these creative impulses and ideas and now having the ability to perform and execute them myself after working hard to achieve the technice and tools to do so. Having a melody in my head or a groove that I need to hum into a voice recorder then later I can sit down and play them on an instrument feels incredible and full filling. Creating something out of nothing – to me – is one of the absolute great joys of being alive. The ability to use just your own imagination to create something thats never been done before, there’s nothing quite like it.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I first moved to Los Angeles I wanted to be an actor. Not a terribly unique story there but I knew I wanted to perform since I was 10 years old. I dreamed of nothing else. when I got here I quickly realized what many eventually do. It isn’t about how bad you want something or even your level of talent. It’s who you know and how much you’re willing to out yourself out there. I didn’t know anyone when I first moved here and it was lonely and isolating. LA can be an unforgiving place. I tried to join classes and different groups to make friends and create community but ultimately my own inability to really put myself out there prevented me from finding what I was looking for. My creativity stalled and my confidence in myself began to plummet as the pandemic was starting to hit. I pivoted to trying my hand at screenwriting. I took classes and even finished a couple of scripts that I was proud of but then again, my self confidence wasn’t where it needed to be and I even began to develop anxiety for the first time. It was a dark time in my life. Around this time is when I began to teach myself to play the guitar. The more I played and the more time I took to really sit down and go on this brand new journey into music, the more my confidence started to come back. Playing music is an incredibly fast way to humble yourself. If you play a bad note or wrong chord, you know immediately. There was something about getting it wrong so many times that motivated me to keep going to get it right. Because once I did start to get it right, I never wanted to stop. i was learning at such a fast rate, I couldn’t wait to keep playing and playing until I was able to play the way I wanted to play. To sound like I knew what I was doing. To KNOW that I knew what I was doing. that was such a different feeling then when I was acting or writing. I knew that I was good. Or Good enough for me. That’s how you f*cking pivot.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tataomusic/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGPPRDNL-80HJWcKl_7arOA