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Thread: Blocks and no progress

  1. #1
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    Default Blocks and no progress

    New learner here with a question about running into problems. I have been playing for about seven months now and I am not feeling like I am progressing as much as I should. I have tried changing my practice routine for the last few weeks with no avail.

    Has anyone else had this issue or is it just me?

  2. #2

    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    I can't speak for everyone, but I know I tend to hit patches where I feel like I've plateaued. I've been playing about two years, and for me, they're always temporary blocks. Eventually I'll find something new and interesting or pick up a new technique and I'm off and running again for a while.

    I think we can put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be perfect right away, and that's just not going to happen. It's a challenge to gauge just how quickly one "ought to" progress. I'd say as long as you're enjoying yourself, keep playing. Practice really does make all the difference in the world in terms of progress.

  3. #3
    Middle-Aged Old-Timer Tobin's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Yup, there are times when I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels and doing the same thing over and over with no progress (or even playing worse than I was). It's temporary. What I usually do is move on to something else that gets my juices flowing again and makes me concentrate on different techniques. Then, when I come back to it later where I left off, I find that I've made progress in the meantime. It's weird, but it works for me.

    A lot of people, especially beginners, feel the need to master a certain part before moving on. And it creates frustration. But don't let yourself get stuck on one thing to the point where you lose your motivation. Go on to something else, and come back to it later. You sort of have to look at your progression as a series of overlapping goals, not a straight series of goals with clean breaks between them.

    There is, of course, the danger of blowing past important stuff without spending enough time on it. So you need to strike the right balance. Only you can tell when you're getting bogged down.

    Something else I highly recommend is recording yourself playing. It can be hard to gauge your progress when you're playing every day. But if you can record yourself playing something, and then record yourself again a few weeks or months later, you'll likely be able to tell a big difference that you hadn't realized before. I sometimes go back and listen to things I recorded before and cringe when I hear myself play. At the time I recorded it, I thought it sounded good. But compared to what I can do now, it sounds awful. That's progress! But I had to hear the two recordings side-by-side to realize just exactly how much better I've gotten.

    To be honest, 7 months of playing isn't really long enough to have hit a brick wall. What you've done is gotten past the first learning curve where the noticeable progress is fast. You're presumably now starting to hit the portion of the learning curve where it flattens out and takes more time to refine things and work in more advanced stuff. So I'll bet you're still making progress, but you just need to readjust your expectations. Once you get past the beginner stage where learning the basics happens fast, the other parts just take more time and experience.

  4. #4
    I may be old but I'm ugly billhay4's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Do you play with other people? It's a real impetus for improvement.
    Bill
    IM(NS)HO

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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    This is a universal phenomenon. We all have peaks and valleys in our progression to whatever level of expertise we eventually attain. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning. Keep at it, your progress will come.........and..........have fun.

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    Registered User Tom Cherubini's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Learning does not advance in a straight line, which has prompted psychologists interested in the subject to further research. In addition to that fact they made another really interesting (to me) discovery; to whit, that when we feel that we are stuck in a rut and not advancing, that is the time when in fact, we are learning most rapidly. So you are in good company - ie, all of us.
    Soldier on, constantly review, slow way down so you're not learning the wrong techniques (our brains do not differentiate between correct and incorrect; it learns whatever we put into it - remember the old saying; if you want to play fast, play slow.), and stop practicing before you are frustrated (so you are hungry to resume).
    So chi sono.

  7. #7
    man about town Markus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Sometimes we are not the best gauge of our abilities, oddly enough. Playing with others is good as often they will see the gold where you see all the mistakes. I cannot tell you the number of times I have played poorly yet someone in the audience came up to me with big compliments.

    Sometimes you plateau and need to keep plugging away devoted to practice for quite a while before you make a step.

    It may be a good time to get a few lessons, find a jam of picking partner, or something else where you can keep long-term practice going but also be working on shorter term goals too (learn new song, master a break for a song, etc).

    I find the more I play, the more people I play with regularly, the more fun I have and better I get - provided I keep my daily disciplined practice going.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    It is possible that you are practicing wrong. Generally the people I see making the slowest progress have some fundamental flaw in their technique. For example, they use their left hand to support the instrument, so the hand cannot move freely, or they hold their wrist at a bad angle. With the right hand, some people pick at the string instead of through the string. Just playing with a lot of tension is another one. If you let errors persist, your improvement will be hampered. A good teacher would be able to analyze what you are doing and suggest corrective strategies. A good teacher would also pick material that would keep you moving at an appropriate pace.

    A lot of people have praised Mike Marshall's "Artist Works" lessons as a great value for the money.

    It could also be that everything is fine and you just need to keep plowing ahead.
    Last edited by JonZ; May-13-2013 at 7:06pm.
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    Lost my boots in transit terzinator's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Maybe share a little about your routine, as well as the kinds of things you play/practice.

    Are you just learning scales? Fiddle tunes? Trying to learn four-finger chop chords? Trying to improvise in a jam? Is it that you're playing good notes but not fast enough? Maybe some more info about your situation would help focus the responses.

    (If it's any solace, I hit plateaus all the time, but they eventually go away and I feel like I make a little progress. I've been playing for about four years, which is still not very long in the general scheme of things!)

  10. #10
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Two items.

    One, as Jonz says above, their may be a fundamental thing that is in the way of further progress. Holding the instrument wrong, holding the pick wrong, fretting incorrectly. It could be any of a number of things. Check out the Mike Marshall mandolin tips video and see how you match up.

    Second thing, as billhay indicates, play regularly with other people. It will add gasoline to the fires of your progress. Find a jam and sit in a few times, with your mandolin, and attend regularly and then challenge yourself to play along regularly. Its gigantic. Its gigantic because it gives you three things:

    1 serious and specific goals - not just learn to play, or learn tunes, but learn this tune.
    2 gives you other people (soon to become friends) who you want to look good for.
    3 gives you folks who will encourage you, empathize with you, help you and mentor you.


    If you pursue both fundamentals of technique and playing regularly with other people, I would be very surprised if you are still be blocked.

    You will be having so much fun playing and making progress you will be too busy to report back to us how you are doing!!!
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    Registered User Cindy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    I am trying to get over a block. Learned fiddle tunes (Mike Marshall student), using metronome, getting pretty fast, but when I got to a live jam, playing good old Joe Clark, my brain and fingers froze on the B part though I'd played it 1000s of times by myself. It was as if I'd never played nor heard the thing before. Also happened in second time at a jam, though in my defense the tempo was even faster. I couldn't remember a thing. And this is a friendly jam!! Having trouble motivating myself to even pick up the instrument the two days since that happened. I am sick to death of fiddle tunes that don't have my back when I need them. Hoping for inspiration from this thread.

  12. #12

    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Quote Originally Posted by Miss Grimke View Post
    I am trying to get over a block. Learned fiddle tunes (Mike Marshall student), using metronome, getting pretty fast, but when I got to a live jam, playing good old Joe Clark, my brain and fingers froze on the B part though I'd played it 1000s of times by myself. It was as if I'd never played nor heard the thing before. Also happened in second time at a jam, though in my defense the tempo was even faster. I couldn't remember a thing. And this is a friendly jam!! Having trouble motivating myself to even pick up the instrument the two days since that happened. I am sick to death of fiddle tunes that don't have my back when I need them. Hoping for inspiration from this thread.
    I recently started group mandolin classes, and I ran into a similar problem with freezing up while I'm in class and being just fine playing the very same thing at home by myself. I think it's just a matter of getting used to playing with other people -- before we moved out of state I often attended a weekly jam session my partner's dad hosted at their house, and while I was incredibly nervous when I started out, I did find that I relaxed more over time. It's been a good seven months since I played with them, though, and my class is a totally new group and a new sort of situation, so I guess I need to readjust.

    All that to say: don't give up! Just be patient with yourself.

  13. #13
    Lost my boots in transit terzinator's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Quote Originally Posted by Miss Grimke View Post
    I got to a live jam, playing good old Joe Clark, my brain and fingers froze on the B part though I'd played it 1000s of times by myself. It was as if I'd never played nor heard the thing before.
    I HATE THAT!

    It's happened to me before, too, and more than once! I think I was trying to summon Soldier's Joy or some such, and I noodled a completely different thing the whole way through. Everyone was like, wait, what tune did we call? It screwed everyone up!

    Question: Was it that you were the first one to go, and couldn't remember the melody? Or did you know it, but just couldn't get yourself to play it?

    Anyway, the cool thing is that it didn't kill you. You survived to tell about it.

  14. #14
    Registered User Cindy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    It does help to know it happens to other people. The tune seemed vaguely familiar but had no idea how to play it, beyond sliding up to the A and then hit the G at the chord change. I was not the first to go. With fast jam I just held back, couldn't even remember the chords.
    Am I not now dead?
    I think I need to lay off the fiddle tunes for awhile. Going to try Ashokan Farewell. Something with a lot of tremolo.

  15. #15
    Registered User xiledscot's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Well Miss Grimke..................I think you will find that Ashokan Farewell is in fact a fiddle tune! In fact most stuff you will play,bluegrass to Scot/Irish,wil be originaly a fiddle tune.
    What has happened to you is nothing special. You have suffered a crisis of confidence. The old ego has taken an almighty hit,but the ability you have is just the same as before you walked into the jam.
    Personally I am not a fan of Jam's or sessions with lots of other musicians and certainly not when the tune becomes a race.
    Do you know of anyone who could accompany you while you practice? A guitarist perhaps ?
    Take it at your own pace and try to rebuild confidence. If you can, play at some low key quiet gigs,for free if necessary,take your time and you will get there.
    D MAC S

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    Registered User Randi Gormley's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    fwiw, the sudden 'what WAS that?' happens more often then you'd think. I've been playing for long enough to feel comfortable in a session, but when I first sit in with a new group (as opposed to a new session with my buddies in a new venue or with a new leader), I find that it takes me a while to find my equilibrium. I put it down to a need to refine my expectations rather than my own incompetence ... one session that I've been to 3 times now has what the leader calls a "circle of death" where everybody plays a jig, one after another, around the circle and twice now I've managed to stop the whole thing dead, once because I couldn't think of anything and the second because I missed the string when I went to play. Yet I'm planning to attend the same thing tomorrow despite feeling like I'll be run out on a rail. Perseverence (or idiocy, I haven't figured out which) does, I have to believe, pay off in the end.
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    Registered User SincereCorgi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Quote Originally Posted by Miss Grimke View Post
    I am trying to get over a block. Learned fiddle tunes (Mike Marshall student), using metronome, getting pretty fast, but when I got to a live jam, playing good old Joe Clark, my brain and fingers froze on the B part though I'd played it 1000s of times by myself.
    Yeah, I've had this happen to me plenty, too. I think it's not really so much a 'technique' problem as a form of social anxiety. The easiest solutions are: 1) just keep showing up and get inured to the embarrassment, or 2) raise your game so much that when you do screw up, it's on a more exalted level that doesn't lead to a train wreck.

  19. #18
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Quote Originally Posted by Randi Gormley View Post
    ... one session that I've been to 3 times now has what the leader calls a "circle of death" where everybody plays a jig, one after another, around the circle and twice now I've managed to stop the whole thing dead, once because I couldn't think of anything and the second because I missed the string when I went to play..
    Perhaps I am not getting the right impression. But this does not sound very welcoming. It does not sound like "hey lets all play jigs until we can't think of any more."

    I know a lot (really, a lot) of jigs, and I love it when our local jam goes after a specific type of tune. Its a lot of fun. There is a little pressure sure, but if you can't think of one you can't think of one. It says nothing about your ability to think of one next go around, or after a while.

    Your situation sounds like a single elimination tournament rather than folks sharing their love of music.

    With all the experience and comfort I have with jamming and with jigs, I would not be comfortable in the situation you describe and I don't play where I don't feel welcome and reasonably comfortable.

    I may not have the right impression however, and I don't wish to disparage a jam I know little about.
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  20. #19

    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Some things that help me play better at jams...

    Be sure you sometimes practice songs all the way through without stopping. Sometimes people think that they can play a tune at speed, but they really can play 90% of a tune at speed.

    Practice as loud as you intend to perform. Trying to suddenly kick your volume up a notch can increase tension.

    Learn to play a minimalist version using only the important chord tones. This can give you a route back into a tune if your plans go haywire.

    Picture yourself at the jam as you practice.

    To improve concentration, have your children pinch, poke and yell at you while you practice (if they aren't already).

    At the jam, go through a mental checklist as your turn approaches: relax, breath, correct posture, correct instrument position, correct pick grip.

    Imagine everyone else at the jam is in their underwear. (Just for fun. It doesn't really help.)
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Everyone chokes at first.......for example you can play it great at home by yourself, but not for your teacher or others.....Just don't think so much.........just try to be in the moment & hear the tune in your head & play it........you might be surprised your muscle memory knows the darn tune & just does it.

    Think too much & the moment is gone. I know this is easier said than done, but it comes with time & practice. When you get better you can make mistakes & cover by just keep going........you might think you blew a phrase, someone else might think it was a variation & sounded HOT!

  22. #21

    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    You know I have a similar feeling. I've been plugging away for a year, and I see all kinds of progress, but I feel like I'm making all kinds of errors all the time, even with the simple tunes I started with. Sure, I see a reduction in the errors, kinds of errors and so forth, I see myself making fewer errors for newer tunes I learn, learning them more quickly and such, but, it's just not at the point where I'd feel comfortable playing in front of others AT ALL.

    I took advice from this thread I think and started recording myself, and choked a few times, just on my own camera, no one watching, then loosened up and got a few tunes recorded, just to keep a record, and man, those were hard to watch!!!

    I guess I've also taken on some challenges, too, like I memorized Bach's Cello Suite and have been hacking away at it for a while, got help and figured out the chords to "blackbird" on mandolin, which I still can't do right yet, becuase it's so hard, and stuff like that. Maybe took on some pieces that were too challenging just for the challenge. Those two tunes were my main focus for a month or two, and still, I can't get through the Cello Suite without at least 2 flubs, and usually many more, and not one's I could "pull off" either, and I can't do "Blackbird" without loosing tempo. I'm better, much better at both, but Gosh DARN it's taking forever!

    I don't practice those songs as much now, focusing on the more simple Celtic tunes, both because I want to really explore the sound of the mandolin (jammed with some guitar players to start, long story, but basically 1/4/5 in C and G until you vomit), and because those tunes are the closest to presentability as possible and because with a few of the slower and simpler Celtic tunes I can explore embellishing the tunes. I'd like to start getting together with people and playing, but I just don't feel like anything I know is presentable, yet.

    Am I "behind"?

  23. #22
    Registered User Randi Gormley's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    JeffD -- yeah, I go to the thing once in a blue moon as much to keep myself humble as to up my game! It isn't a particularly welcoming place (I didn't dare go until the leader invited me!) but it does have its uses and I don't think the regulars think they're being exclusionary. Music is as much psychological as it is physical, sometimes, and it doesn't really hurt me. When I'm playing along with these guys, at the level they play, it's a great feeling.
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  24. #23
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Quote Originally Posted by PhillipeTaylor View Post
    but, it's just not at the point where I'd feel comfortable playing in front of others AT ALL.
    Let me tell you something that is absolutely true, and you will absolutely not believe me. You won't believe me at all.

    You will never, never ever feel ready to play in front of others. If you wait till you feel ready, it will never happen. Or to put it another way: On that first day when you go to a jam to play, you will not feel ready, you will be feeling nervous and uncomfortable and unprepared. The only difference is you will be doing it anyway. Its true.

    I have been doing this longer than somewhat, and I am not ready either. Especially when there are new people at the jam. I am nervous and ill prepared and need more practice and awkward. (Or at least that's how I feel).

    Please, don't wait till you feel ready. OK you don't have to go out tomorrow (I can hear your sigh of relief), but don't use feeling ready as your start criteria, 'cause it ain't never gonna happen.
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  26. #24

    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Thanks Jeff!

    I've just printed out a bunch of tunes for a slow learners session next Wednesay. I'm going to do my best with the tunes I can and just show up. Its not like I'm lying and telling them I'm badass.. besides, its a slow learners sessions, so I'm probably going to be okay.

    Thanks for the pep talk!

    p

  27. #25
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    Default Re: Blocks and no progress

    Besides nerves, I think another thing that can happen when you are used to playing by yourself and then try playing with a room full of folks is that you find you can't hear yourself as well. This can cause you to try and play louder. But trying to play louder usually doesn't result in louder playing; rather it more often can cause your picking hand to tense up and when that happens, your cooked. Always fight the urge to bang louder just to be heard and keep a loose and relaxed picking hand.
    Bobby Bill

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