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Thread: Are you improving? Talk about humps, plateus, and breakthroughs.

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    Default Are you improving? Talk about humps, plateus, and breakthroughs.

    I was thinking this was a really big year for me on mandolin. A lot has happened in a good way.

    My last hump was when I got bored and disheartened with my limited bluegrass repertoire, none of which I could play fast enough for the local jam at 90 bpm.

    The rescue was switching to focus on gospel and classical music. I still play through the bluegrass stuff, and the BG BPM still keeps improving. Surprising that switching genres and focusing on a lot of slow accurate playing somehow helped the speed a lot.

    I've had three breakthroughs in the last year (I am nearing the end of my 3rd year as a mandolin player):

    - I love classical and Gospel, adding those to my practice got me to practice a lot more. Caterina Lichtenberg at ArtistWorks is simply fantastic.

    - I got to where I could pull tone from an instrument and control it, that opened the door to classical music, and to sometimes actually enjoying hearing what I play. I used to feel like a honkytonk player piano, just mechanically picking notes, there was little joy in that.

    - taller frets and lower action significantly reduced the fight with the instrument. A guitar player friend inspired me there, he said his past plateaus were almost always the instrument holding him back.
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  3. #2
    Registered User Ivan Kelsall's Avatar
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    Default Re: Are you improving? Talk about humps, plateus, and breakthrou

    Maybe it wasn't simply 'switching' the genres of music that helped,but all the playing time that you put in. Learning to play any stringed instrument is a slow process & dexterity & everything else improves over time. I never set out to try to be a 'fast' player when i started mandolin. I put 1000s of hours in & i was surprised when i found that i could play some of the faster insts. / songs.

    Your technique will build on itself over time,every little bit is a stepping stone to the next little bit & so on. Put the hours in,practice songs etc. that suit you,& you'll be as surprised as i was somewhere down the line - but i was putting in 4 to 6 hours a day at the weekend in the beginning,& maybe a couple of hours every evening after work. When i retired i was putting at least 4 hours of practice in every day - simply picking along with music from CD or I/net Bluegrass radio. 13 years later - i'm doing ok,& you'll get there as well - just practice every chance you get.
    Ivan
    PS - Here's one of my own regular 'practice tunes' - John Reischman - ''The Eigth of February'' I learned this tune 'by ear'.
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    F5G & MD305 Astro's Avatar
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    Default Re: Are you improving? Talk about humps, plateus, and breakthrou

    Well I can say I had a breakthrough on guitar. Unfortunately the band I was playing mandolin for went kaput and so I switched back to guitar to assume the lead. It was awkward at first as I hadnt spent much time on guitar for 3 years while playing mando. But soon I well surpassed where I was before. Especially with right hand picking on leads. I think the mando playing really helped me out here.

    Of course now I'm really sliding on mando...maybe someday I can get back to it.
    No matter where I go, there I am...Unless I'm running a little late.

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    Registered User Charlie Bernstein's Avatar
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    Default Re: Are you improving? Talk about humps, plateus, and breakthrou

    I just notice the little breakthroughs: people clapping for a solo I've been working on, doing justice to a cool scale I'd discovered recently, remembering all the words to a song for the first time, finding that people enjoy a song I just wrote, coming up with a good tweak to my rig, getting a new instrument that adds a good new dimension to my sound - that kind of thing.

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    Default Re: Are you improving? Talk about humps, plateus, and breakthrou

    I've recently, after two plus years, ventured up the neck, learning double stops that relate to melody, not in any organized way but in an as I need to learn it as I go way. It has started to click, finding the melody note and harmonizing it. Now I'm recognizing patterns useable in the next tune. It has made playing much more fun.

    I'm also relating the scales I've been playing religiously to melody patters. I can find a melody faster with more accuracy due to motor memory development. When you can play some rapid double stop licks up the neck you start sounding like you know what you are doing. Now the challenge is learning enough not to sound repetitive.
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    Registered User foldedpath's Avatar
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    Default Re: Are you improving? Talk about humps, plateus, and breakthrou

    I've been working harder on Irish flute this year, which necessarily means I'm plateauing out (is that a word?) on mandolin.

    I still practice tunes on mandolin almost every day, because I have far more of the Irish/Scottish repertoire under my fingers on that instrument and I don't want to lose it. I'm at the point where I can hang in with the fiddlers and pipers at their tempo, and throw in some ornaments here and there. That's enough.

    It's my guitar playing that suffers the most due to focus on other instruments. Flute is advancing, mandolin is stable, and guitar is slowly receding into the distance. It's not completely gone. Thirty-odd years of guitar playing builds in lasting muscle memory, but it ain't what it used to be.

    As I get older, it just gets harder to keep everything maintained to the same level of accomplishment, while also moving forward on at least one instrument. Taking up the Irish flute in my 60's probably wasn't the smartest idea in the world either, but I'm having fun with it, after climbing the initially very steep part of the learning curve.

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    Doc Ivory Doc Ivory's Avatar
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    Default Re: Are you improving? Talk about humps, plateus, and breakthrou

    I do seem to plateau a bunch anymore but I just keep playing and every once in a while , BINGO, something clicks.
    I think it's just a game of persistence.
    Doc Ivory
    -Play loud, live long..

  10. #8

    Default Re: Are you improving? Talk about humps, plateus, and breakthrou

    This is an interesting topic for me. For a while I had interest in literally buying and playing every stringed instrument I could get my hands on. I soon realized this was an unrealistic endeavor. Since guitar has always been my main instrument and mandolin has become a close second, I decided to focus on just them... and occasionally banjo.

    I hit plateaus all the time. I dont ever force myself to break through them, I just keep with my usual playing routine and eventually work through them. I have noticed that playing other instruments will seemingly make me better at another. Also, I have even noticed taking a week or 2 off from playing entirely makes me better in a sense. Perhaps it's simply letting the muscles heal properly.

    Either way, I feel as though I enjoy playing mandolin more now than ever. I'm currently playing with 2 bands one of which I play guitar and the other mandolin. Sometimes the feeling that I would prefer just playing mandolin creeps in!
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    Registered User MoreThanQuinn's Avatar
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    Default Re: Are you improving? Talk about humps, plateus, and breakthrou

    I've been playing mandolin for almost a year now. And it's crazy, even in the course of any given month, how much I feel like I hit plateaus and breakthroughs.

    Some recent ones:

    One breakthrough that I noticed just in the last few months (since I've had more time to focus on music) is that I finally feel like I'm able to really get musical with my playing. I'm not always just stumbling through and hanging on for dear life anymore, but I'm able to emphasis where I want to put emphasis, play with dynamics, and actually get some good sound out of the instrument. It's been fun to feel more and more comfortable recently. My muscles are more relaxed, I'm listening more, I feel like I have been building a good foundation.

    That said, I do feel like I have hit a sort of plateau this month. I don't seem to be able to push my BPMs any further for the time being, nor can I get a consistent, comfortable, and in-time tremolo. I'm a lefty on a right handed instrument and sometimes I wonder how that might limit me (though even as I type that sentence I know it's not a healthy way to think about playing music).
    Anyway, I've been feeling frustrated, but still I do my scales and play my songs and try not to cut corners. I am sure something will give sooner or later.

    I have also taken up violin again, and in a way I feel like this has made a huge impact on how I conceive of music as being a part of my life. I'm probably playing 2-3 hours on any given day and certainly thinking about it a lot more than that. I love making music, and there was a long period of time in my teens and early twenties when I didn't play at all. I'm glad that's over. That feels like the biggest breakthrough of all

    I guess one last thing: My girlfriend (a wonderful vocalist) has taken up guitar. I've got her playing fiddle tunes with me, and I'm backing her up on songs she likes. Making music with other people is simply the most fun thing.

    Awesome thread.
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  13. #10
    Eschews Obfuscation mugbucket's Avatar
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    Default Re: Are you improving? Talk about humps, plateus, and breakthrou

    Playing weekly practice sessions (Gospel) with my buddies has forced me to be able to transpose to different keys depending on who's singing lead. I can pretty much noggin out the melody for most tunes, and am about 90% accurate about 70% of the time!
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