The rust (and discouragement) forms so quickly

[Harold The Barrel]

Putting in a bit of practice/playing last evening, i had played earlier in the day but as I was running through some stuff I found myself quite discouraged by what I heard. My picking and fretting weren't at all in sync, and overall the playing sounded downright sloppy. I (as I'm wont to do) started to have doubts about this whole mandolin thing. Maybe it was another one of my kooky faddish obsessions, and had finally run its course. I was never much of a guitar player (beyond simple rhythm); what made me think I could do this? Kind of a silly instrument, really, when you think about it. And here in New England, where am I ever going to find any use for playing bluegrass, or any style for that matter?
All of these thoughts descended upon me and I began to feel very unsure, until I recalled the past several days, how I had been unable to get solid practice sessions in since before last weekend. That's what was causing all of my uncertainty. The fact is, I'll get more playing in in the next few days, and I know from experience that my attitude and playing will improve.
Still amazes me how quickly the rust can form! I played trombone for years, and so am well aware of the importance of consistent practice, and maybe it's just because I'm so new to this instrument (<6months), but I felt last evening that I had somehow "forgotten" all I had learned!
Just thought I'd share this experience in the hope that it provides consolation to others in the same boat.

[Tobin]

Yep, the rust does indeed form fairly quickly. Like the old saying goes (from Ignacy Jan Paderewsky, I think): If I miss one day of practice, I notice it. If I miss two days, the critics notice it. If I miss three days, the audience notices it.

I can tell when I miss a day of practice. It really makes a huge difference in terms of fluidity and fine motor control if you keep it honed every day. The more experience you get in your playing, the easier it will be to get back up to speed (i.e. when your fine motor controls are more established in your neural network), but it still has to be constantly maintained.

To be honest, this is why most people quit. They just won't dedicate the time to it that it requires to get better. Once a week, or once every few days, isn't enough to make it happen. They get frustrated with their lack of progress and they give up. Not realizing that daily practice can make all the difference.

I have been focusing on fiddle and banjo for about the last 6 months, and have hardly played my mandolin during that time. I picked it up the other day and was disgusted with myself for how rusty I was. I know I'll get back to where I was before, but it's going to require getting back into that daily routine - at the expense of one of the other instruments. *sigh*

[Dave Sheets]

Thanks for starting this thread, interesting topic.

In addition to the rust problem, some days are just bad days, and you are just off. Happens to me all to often, I just try to loosen up, play some simple things and remember to enjoy what I'm doing. I try to accept that there are days like this, and not get upset about it and stop practicing or playing. It's bad when this happens during a performance, but I just try to simplify what I'm doing and not worry about it. With a bit of luck, I loosen up after a couple of songs and matters improve. the last thing you want to do is let it get to you.

One quote from Victor Wooten works for me. "One of two things happen when you try to learn something. Either you quit trying or you learn it". Keep trying, persistence counts for a lot.

Weirdly enough, my electric guitar playing has improved a lot since I started focussing mainly on fiddle and mandolin. Go figure? Maybe I was in a rut on guitar???

[Randi Gormley]

Well, considering the weather, it just might be a lack-of-sunlight thing or a sore-from-digging-out thing (depending on where in New England you are) added to a little guilt from not playing ... voila! I know sometimes when I'm less than diligent about practicing/playing, I'll get so frustrated with my inability to even do minimal stuff that I'll put the instrument down in disgust and walk off to play some computer solitaire. But once I get over my snit, I'm back at it again with a little more humility and care. By now, playing music is so much a part of who I am that I can't stay away for very long, even if I'm not playing up to any standard I occasionally aspire to. Not to mention attending a weekly session I've never missed in more than a decade except when I've been away from home. Knowing I'll be playing in public at least once a week has kept me honest with the mandolin and my playing.

[Bertram Henze]

Despondency is not an option. Topics like this always remind me of Bogart/Hepburn:



The clip stops short of what the last camera move reveals - there is open water just a few yards away. Never give up.

[JeffD]

I think it important to try and distinguish between disappointment, and an full out existential crisis.

What am I doing this for? Who is going to be impressed? At my age what kind of success can I possibly achieve? What was I thinking?

It is not irrelevant to think about these things, though perhaps wait till a better mood.

I think regularly playing with others, attendance at a weekly jam for example, kind of helps here. Not just for the practice it gives, but for the context. Even if your entire practice goal is to get that tune down before you meet up with the folks next Tuesday, well that is an unambiguous goal you can get your arms around.

And, in the greater thinking, being able to meet regularly and play music with people, that is a wonderful life, at any level of ability. It sustains me.

[Ky Slim]

Learning something new might help knock the rust off quicker than trying to regain something that was probably well practiced before the time off.

[Mark Wilson]

Even when I practice everyday, the first 10 minutes can feel frustrating sometimes. Missing a couple days sets me back a practice or two.

Kind of a silly instrument, really, when you think about it. And here in New England, where am I ever going to find any use for playing bluegrass, or any style for that matter?

Even if it's not bluegrass country there is always another picker or two around who would join in if someone set it up.

[Eric F.]

Wait, you played trombone and you call the mandolin a silly instrument?

[Harold The Barrel]

Wait, you played trombone and you call the mandolin a silly instrument?

Touché.

[Harold The Barrel]

I think regularly playing with others, attendance at a weekly jam for example, kind of helps here. Not just for the practice it gives, but for the context. Even if your entire practice goal is to get that tune down before you meet up with the folks next Tuesday, well that is an unambiguous goal you can get your arms around.

And, in the greater thinking, being able to meet regularly and play music with people, that is a wonderful life, at any level of ability. It sustains me.

As a matter of fact, I will be attending my very first jam this weekend! I'm very excited to play with others and see what I'm able to do and what I will need to work on. It's a monthly thing but I'll take it. Been bonin' up all month and I can't wait! I have a feeling it will be quite enlightening.

[Jill McAuley]

I was just removing the rust from my mandolin playing after neglecting it in favor of drums and my tenor banjo for the past few years. Felt like I was just getting back into my stride and then what did I go and do? Left the mandolin at the luthiers for a refret! It's times like these that I wish I still had a back up mandolin as I'll be well rusty by the time I get my beautifully set up and refretted Ajr. back. Bah.

[Jim B]

Weirdly enough, my electric guitar playing has improved a lot since I started focussing mainly on fiddle and mandolin. Go figure? Maybe I was in a rut on guitar???

I've noticed the same thing. After playing solely on mandolin for a while my guitar playing is much better.

Doesn't seem to work the other way though.

[Jim Bevan]

There's another side to the coin, I've found, at least for me:
I play piano professionally, and I practised for years, up to six hours a day, throughout my 20s and into my late 40s (I'm in my early 60s now). For about ten years in there, I studied with a teacher (Olga von Till) who was very strict about technique, about how relaxation = good tone. I now find that I can go a month without touching the piano, and then sit down and play just fine -- I don't seem to lose anything.

I'm still waiting for this to happen with my mandolin playing, but I doubt that it will, not having the time to dedicate to practising that I had back then. Still, I'm a believer in my own theory that a bout of intensive practising (like, maybe six hours a day for four or five days in a row) will pay off, will raise my abilities to a new level, and, while that new level might get rusty, the fact that it existed at all has resulted in a permanent change.

[UlsterMando]

I am positive that every person who has ever learned any instrument has
encountered the same issues. It is the nature of the process. The same is true in
every walk of life and at every level. Even the greatest athletes, at the peak of
their careers, can have "off days". Do not be discouraged.
I remember a very useful nugget of wisdom from the great fiddler, J.P. Fraley
who said, "always play for tone". In my own practice, when I meet a bump in the road
such as you describe, I pull back from trying to master any particular tune at any particular
tempo, and play simply for tone. Apart from being a great help in its own right, I find it
to be a very effective way to "hit reset" so to speak.

Good luck.

[farmerjones]

I'm with Jim B.
But there was as time where I went at least five years and only missed playing a fiddle a handful of days. Because of that old adage, I developed a true fear that I would loose something. First I took a weekend vaca. Then I took a week vaca. To no incident.
There seems to be a digression threshold, but I'm sure it's not well printed for several years. An hour a days for a years is only 360 hours. I'm guessing closer to 5000 hours. Surely it depends upon one's personal fit (affinity) to the instrument too.

I'm not sure rusty is the right word. Because I'm pretty sure one can get past the point of rapid degradation with enough hours.
At six months to a year, you think you have it burned in. But the "rustiness" tells you, you really don't.

[puckmank]

Thanks for all the comments on this. I thought it was just me. I travel internationally quite a bit and don't take my mandolin. It takes a while to knock off the rust. One thing I have been trying to work on is being relaxed when I play. I think being tense when you play leads to issues with technique

[Bertram Henze]

Travelling is not a real problem. There are sturdy and hotel room friendly electric instruments to be used with earphones for practising.

[Kevin Stueve]

Wait, you played trombone and you call the mandolin a silly instrument?

"In my opinion, the trombone is the true head of the family of wind instruments, which I have named the 'epic' one. It possesses nobility and grandeur to the highest degree; it has all the serious and powerful tones of sublime musical poetry, from religious, calm and imposing accents to savage, orgiastic outburst. Directed by the will of the master, the trombones can chant like a choir of priests, threaten, utter gloomy sighs, a mournful lament, or a bright hymn of glory; they can break forth into awe-inspiring cries and awaken the dead or doom the living with their fearful voices."
-- Hector Berlioz

[EdHanrahan]

"... nobility and grandeur to the highest degree ... powerful tones ... to savage, orgiastic outburst. ... break forth into awe-inspiring cries and awaken the dead or doom the living ..." -- Hector Berlioz

My loudest concert EVER was, if fact, classical: a New Years Eve "First Night" performance in Montclair, NJ, 6 or 8 years ago, given in a round church by 4 trombonists from the NJ Symphony. Superb acoustics put all four of them right at your eardrum. And I'm not comparing to just "acoustic" concerts!

[Bertram Henze]

"...they can break forth into awe-inspiring cries and awaken the dead or doom the living with their fearful voices."

Well, apparently he didn't know the real one

[Ivan Kelsall]

From sheets - "....some days are just bad days, and you are just off.". Yes,that does indeed happen. I can play as well as ever one day,& the next day it seems like i never picked a mandolin up !.When that happens,i leave it alone for a couple of days & 99% of the time,when i go back to it,i'm back on the horse !. I think sometimes we can do too much practice & what we're doing simply doesn't stick. Our brain tells us to rest up,just like an athlete who's overdone it. Coming back to something with a 'fresh'(er) mind often helps. In 50 years of playing,this has happened 100's of times to me. I was amazed the first time i went on a 2 week holiday only 10 months after taking up mandolin. I was concerned that my playing would take a real nose dive after such a break. Far from it, i picked my mandolin up & played as though i'd just done a couple of hours practice. It's been mentioned on here many times by many people,that our sub-concious carries on in the background,working on 'whatever',so taking a break ,for me, seems like practice by default & i let the 'ole grey cells' do their magic stuff. The one thing that we must do very conciously is don't give up on ourselves ,that gets nothing done - ever,
Ivan

[John MacPhee]

I hear where you are comin from Harold. Last night after 4 years of weekly tuition I bought my teacher a bottle of JD and paid him for a lesson and I said that it was time that we separated for a while as I had lost all enthusiasm to play, practice or even listen.
I will go back in time and yes I did pick up my Weber SE, tune her up and played today but I am just over the "I must do this".
Not that my comments will help but it helped me putting it on paper. Thanks for the thread and good luck.
Cheers and Regards to All
John

[Bertram Henze]

I hear where you are comin from Harold.
...
"I must do this".

Jumping off ledges and playing are not mutually exclusive

[Jess L.]

... I found myself quite discouraged by what I heard. My picking and fretting weren't at all in sync, and overall the playing sounded downright sloppy. ...

I'd say that the fact that you are able to critique your own playing, and that you recognize areas that need improvement, shows that you are making progress. (Kind of hard to explain.)

... here in New England, where am I ever going to find any use for playing bluegrass, or any style for that matter?

If you enjoy playing & it helps you to relax/unwind or express emotions & whatnot, then take a kinda zen approach & don't worry about whether or not it has any immediate usefulness to *other* people. It might someday, or it might not, maybe too soon to know.

If playing music makes a person feel more peaceful & less stressed, then there are countless ways that could *benefit* other people that you have to interact with *now* (work, family, whatever).

I believe that playing one's own music can have a profound beneficial "ripple effect" even if the playing isn't perfect nor performed in public.

Also, don't expect to play like a phonied-up studio recording, I read a few months ago elsewhere on this forum that the amount of trickery & deception used in modern recordings is almost unimagineable (to an old fogey like me anyway)... singers don't even have to sing in tune (there's software that fixes bad singing), stringed-instrument wrong notes can be 'corrected' & replaced with 'good' notes by engineers long after the musicians have left the studio, apparently this has been the norm for a long time. Point is, a real human will NEVER *consistently* play as good as a doctored-up studio "recording", so there's no reason to beat yourself up over not sounding as good as some recording star.

One last point. Anything you learn musically, will inevitably help out with other musical endeavors that you might take up later. Every new instrument you try, seems to make the other (earlier) instruments easier to play, because you've learned useful new stuff without even realizing it. I briefly (couple years, long time ago) dabbled with Andean flute & Irish tinwhistles and while I didn't pursue it beyond a certain level, it nevertheless gave me ideas that (even many years later) I could use on *other* instruments.

But, that said, if a particular instrument starts to become just a source of frustration, as fiddle did with me after a few years, I put the fiddle on sabbatical and concentrated on other instruments instead. But most of the stuff I learned on fiddle is still useful to me today on other instruments. (I learned oldtime banjo & mandolin first, then later got the bright idea to take up fiddle.)