Has anyone else noticed that the longer you play an instrument, the harder and longer it takes to make significant noticable progress?
Example, I've been playing the fiddle since I was a kid, been playing the guitar since I was a teen-ager. On both of those instruments, it sometimes takes months or years to really see some noticable improvement and usually that improvement is on a more subtle level. It's like the plateaus get longer.
Whereas on pedal steel, I'm a new player, and it seems that the improvement comes in big leaps.
I'd really love to hear comments about this from the journeymen on this list, so I know what I have to look forward to for the rest of my musical journey through life
They left out the case of "time" -- or at least I didn't see it.
i.e. -- your perception of time seems to be relative to the length of time you've been alive.
e.g. -- when you were a kid, say in kindergarden, a year seems like an eternity. However, to an 80-year-old man, a year seems to go by very quickly. But, a year is the same amount of time whether experienced by a kindergardener or by an 80-year-old man.
<marquee><FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Tom Olson on 04 December 2004 at 12:00 PM.]</p></FONT>
i'm fairly new to steel guitar, but i've played guitar, mandolin, and banjo for years. transfering things i learn on one instrument to another really helps me break through those plateaus. now that i'm playing steel, i'm seeing the guitar in a whole new way.
i also like to get out and play with alot of different people. everybody has their own ideas about playing, and we can learn alot from each other. i've had students that will do something that i never thought of before, just because they don't don't know that they're "not supposed to do it that way.
just my $.02....
john
That's actually a pretty good point. I've already been able to transfer alot of ideas that I'm learning on steel back to other instruments.
BTW, great link on the Weber-Fechner law
I wonder how much of playing plateaus have to do with the physiology of developing muscle memory?<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Toby Rider on 04 December 2004 at 12:51 PM.]</p></FONT>
This law of diminishing returns is present in most endeavors, I think. Bodybuilding is a good example. An average sized, healthy male can probably bench press 135 lbs. when he starts out. After a year or two he should be up to maybe 225, and after that, gains are much harder to make.
After your first steel guitar lesson you know 100% more about it than you did before. After you've been playing for any significant amount of time anything more that you learn may represent only a fraction of a percent.
Try working on only selected areas of your playing that you know/feel you are deficient at.
If you are a giging musician then pick something that you know you are going to use on the job, soloing over diminished chords, speed (with taste), chord substitutions etc. Work on that area until you see some improvement and then tackle something else. Sometimes the tendency is to try to cover too much. Just be sure to work on some things that you can actually use on the gig. That way you will always have a way to guage how things are going rather than just sitting in your home picking away at whatever.
I have been playing PSG between 25 to 30 years now, but it seems to me that the last two and a half years have been the most product-full, "learning wise" for me. I have finally figured out how to find all the chords in almost any song first time I ever play it! At least on the E9th neck (C6th..., is another story!)! And, passing that hurdle has been a feat I have long desired! Starting to play all those fast, little scale “riffs”, and knowing where to put them....? Working on that! It just takes lots of practice! At least three to four hours per day, every day! Here are three practice points that I give to all my music students. Especially those who relay to me, that they want to make this their lifetime ambition.
1. Set goals for yourself, and once you get there, re-set your goals again! You'll find that once you over-come a particular "run", or "lick", the next one does come easier, and "so-on, and so-on"!
2. While you are practicing, record yourself every once in awhile so that you can actually hear what you have accomplished up to that point. By recording yourself..., you can give yourself good points of reference. I played last night in a little club with my band members. One of them recorded our set. While we were playing, I said to myself, “This is the best we ever sounded!” and I couldn’t wait to hear the results. Boy! Was I ever disappointed! Your ears will play tricks on you! Not only that, "recordings don't lie"!
3. Practice like your very life depends on it! I never realized the amount of practice that I needed to get to where I wanted to be, and actually…, I would like to be able to stay in my studio practicing at least eight hours every day.
There is no substitute for practice! THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS!!
We (humans) learn things so slowly at times that we don't actually see and hear our own progress. Funny thing is..., no one ever told me these things when I first started playing. They are lessons that I finally discovered on my own, and it took me all these years to get there!
Toby, I have 40+ years on 6string, 1 year on steel. I practice 1 hour/day. I know most of the chord positions, can bluff my way with chords thru most songs, but now I know that the hard stuff is ahead, namely palm blocking! On guitar, diminishing returns has hit.But for sure, my 6string playing has improved from playing steel, though I rarely touch 6string at home. Maybe just the brain thinking music helps somehow, I don't know. But the plateaus are definitely there, and are terribly frustrating. JP
