Hit a plateau

[rick111]

Hi all

I’m feeling quite frustrated and feeling like I’ve hit a plateau. This comes as I’ve been playing a whole year but I read this is common.

I’m stuck on the songs I’m trying to play mainly with hitting the full tempo and playing without mistakes. I’ve tried all the recommended advice of slowing down until I can play it comfortably then gradually increasing it, until I hit a wall and end up regressing and going backwards.

I’ve been learning Smells Like Teen Spirit for months, like seriously, since April. Not even a remotely difficult song in terms of parts to learn, and I’ve firmly imprinted it in my brain. However I can’t play it well still without mistakes.

I’ve also been learning my first lead line (Oasis - Supersonic) and again, mostly memorised it even all the solo, just piecing it together becomes a mess when played against the track… Losing tempo, mistakes, etc. I’ve been learning this since mid July.

Am I picking songs too difficult for my level? Should I just try and shelve them and focus on some other songs and come back to them?

I’m not getting disheartened too much, I still want to play every day and I’m still enjoying playing. Just frustrated that I haven’t cracked these songs given the amount of time I’ve put into them.

[Eddie_09]

Hang in there Rick, I have hit more than a few plateaus over the years and I usually just bench what I have been working on and try something new to freshen things up. I have been trying to learn the needle and the damage done (properly) for years and keep shelving it and revisiting from time to time. There is too much fun to be had to focus on just a couple of songs etc. Trust me you will get over the plateau but beware another one will show up further down the road

[sairfingers]

@rick111

I’m feeling quite frustrated and feeling like I’ve hit a plateau. This comes as I’ve been playing a whole year

Hi Rick. Im sorry to be blunt but a year is nothing. I’ve been at this for seven years and frequently feel I’ve hit plateaux. Yes I know I should be practising more and pushing myself on but there’s always a reason not to. It’s been the Summer and there are lots of other things to do, house, garden etc. Or I’m busy with grandkids or whatever.
On this forum we are always encouraged to post videos of ourselves in order to look back and see how much we’ve progressed. I’ve recently been reviewing some of the AVoYPs I’ve posted over the last few years and I realise that I was better at those songs then than I am now! I’m now revisiting them. That’s another plateau….I’m no better but actually worse than I was. In fact that’s not a plateau, that’s a downward slope!
We recently had friends round and they wanted me to play some guitar. My mind went blank and I struggled to get started and I had to get my song books out to remind myself of the chords to the songs they wanted to sing.
The trick perhaps is to find something totally different to do. @Richard_close2u recently did a tutorial on triads and I’m working on some of that in the hope that it will spark something off.
Yes Justin is great but maybe find a different approach from one of the other tutors on the net and suddenly something will click and you’ll get over that plateau…… for a while until you reach the next one. Stick at it. If guitar was easy everyone would be Eric Clapton.
Good luck.

[words_crafts_music]

@sairfingers

I’m no better but actually worse than I was. In fact that’s not a plateau, that’s a downward slope!

It’s refreshing to see someone mention that possibility publicly. I get a tad peevish when people talk like you can only get better at a skill. I’ve also gotten worse at some things, so I know it can happen!

@rick111

Should I just try and shelve them and focus on some other songs and come back to them?

Sure, why not? It seems worth a try. Sometimes when I’ve hit a plateau in other areas (not guitar), it’s helped to work on something else, especially something using similar skills but not exactly the same ones.

Sometimes I’ve even completely stopped working on one skill set in favor of another one and it’s made me better at the first when I came back to it. As an example, I learned to crochet but couldn’t grasp a few crucial elements even with practice, so I stopped and picked up knitting instead. When I tried crochet again much later, it was significantly easier, because I’d been working with the same materials but using methods that came more naturally to me. Seems like that could work with music, too.

[brianlarsen]

Hi Rick,
Don’t beat yourself up. Try to focus on things you enjoy
Here are some of my thoughts from a few years back that you may find interesting…

What's the point?

Community pillar and Nordic axe-god @Kasper recently remarked “It is my strong opinion and recommendation that people should strive to become better all the time. I mean, surely that must be the purpose for everybody around here?” At first glance that seems self-evident. I mean, we are on a website designed primarily to teach people with no previous experience how to play guitar. On top of that there are so many further lessons to help folk build upon whatever skills they have and progress in…

[mundeli]

Plateau? How did you know that was my middle name?
Regress? Yes I’ve felt/heard that too.
I’m on month 14, tacked onto the end of 2/3 of a century. I go on practice benders, and sometimes the strings oxidize. Life proceeds nonetheless.

In the realm of “learning to play guitar” I’m pretty sure I’m mostly in the rote memory stage. I just don’t have the mental scaffolding, yet, to hold so many new things, so they quickly drop off.

So, you are not alone. This is a long, long process, particularly if you have lived past the biological period of maximum mental plasticity. There is no end, just a procession/recession/procession.

Me? when I feel a bit discouraged I go back to one of my songs I can play to a reasonable level of satisfaction, and give myself a pat on the back for that. Then I repeat some of the previous lessons I’d “completed”. Wash, rinse, repeat. We do it with clothes, why not our brain?

Hang in there Rick. More proficiency will happen if you keep at it and follow a good instructor (I believe Justin is just that).

Bruce

[chris_m]

It’s a deep and meaningful question like what’s the meaning of life for guitarists? Never mind the plateau, I fall off a cliff a couple of times a year. I don’t have a good answer, other than what others have said, try something new, change things up.

[Prof_Thunder]

Hitting a plateau is normal. I just tried learning new things in the course when that happened. Then later I went back to the songs I had been learning and found I could progress a bit more with them, make less mistakes, add embellishments etc.

[roger_holland]

Hi Rick,

I have not yet seen a plateau in playing guitar in all these 5+ years , but just in case a glimpse appears I have a huge sledgehammer with me .

This is in the form of a great interest in different songs that I want to learn and skills/styles that I like and have to practice.

Well, I regularly revise old songs and sometimes I spend days and even weeks working for many hours to get to the same level with that one song after ( edtit …months or weeks ) 1, 2 or 3 years not playing that ones.

So now I’m working on some things and I know I need months to play it properly and at that level there are times when I don’t progress and then I stop and move on to something else…not completely different…but the same style so that I unconsciously also work on the further development of the song that has been put on the shelf…

Very early on I often alternated simpler fingerstyle songs or exercises from Justin with learning some rhythm guitar or theory or a course for sale here or a random tutorial found on You-Tube…

I have no idea if I can help you with this, but for me it helps to have a large plate with varieties in front of me, although the menu is becoming more and more specified these days.

I’m more into “hitting the wall/doorpost guy ” and then not playing for a few days/weeks or like almost 2 months…
but that’s a completely different story

Greetings and good luck

[rick111]

Thanks for the encouraging words everyone.

I’m probably being somewhat too hard on myself, as I’d never played a lead line before and I can play this entire song now, somewhat OK. So I’ve definitely improved, I just feel like I’m getting 80% of the way to completing a marathon and always getting stuck at the end.

I think I will do as many of you suggested and shelve these songs and maybe keep them fresh by playing them a couple of times a week. And pick something new back up, maybe it’s time for something firmly in my comfort zone, so I can pick my confidence back up.

[mattswain]

I think you’ve probably hit the nail on the head when you say about picking songs that are too difficult. Something like Teen Spirit may not be the world’s most complex song but it still requires a deal of skill and consistency that I certainly didn’t have in my first year (others may say otherwise, this my experience).

With hindsight I’d say that any song that takes me more than a few weeks to get close to, is probably beyond my current level and worth parking for a while. It’s not good for motivation grinding away at one song for months and still not nailing it, I’ve certainly been there.

(When I say any song I’m excluding stuff that includes virtuoso level solos, I’m talking about the sort of songs a beginner/early stage guitarist might expect to be able to learn)

[mfeeney0110]

A year in guitar student time is very short. It took me three years to be able to play a short set of songs, still like a student with frustrating mistakes popping in. Just keep at it. Sometimes it’s best to walk away from the instrument for a couple of days and start fresh.

[LievenDV]

Plateau’s are indeed very common and one of the main inspirations to my “motivation club”.

I think you are trying to rely on “memorizing the whole bunch” too much instead of relying on your own building structure.

Imagine buildign a car
When you build this car in different pieces, you will options to

• expand it
• exchange components with better/stronger/morebeautiful/more durable
• retire parts that feel outdates or don’t work well with the others anymore
• take out of the car and put in another car
• take parts of 2 cars and build a “best of both worlds” car with it…

Imagine… your neighbour challenged you to build a car and race it in a local competition

Imagine trying to build the car in one piece; mold the whole thing.
It’s structural integrity won’t be as strong in the longer bits. it will bend or even break far more easily because there is to space for it to ‘work’. Apply some heat and the whole thing starts to apply pressure on its own. you can’t replace parts and you will take AGES to fiannly create the mold that makes a usuable car.

your neighbour takes the more agile approach and his ‘MVP’ (minimum viable product’ is just a plate with 4 wheels, an engine, some basic controls like pedals and a steering wheel and brakes. In a fraction of your time, he’s already on the street testing it, coming to the conclusing he needs to adjust the chassis shape to solve a handling problem.
Meanwhile, he starts to source some basic parts, not minding the details too much. He takes off the wheels to inspect them. The next day he’s ready for new tests.

You just keep on dwelling the abstract mold for your car and you’re getting pretty tired of it. in a week, your neighbour is racing his vehicle, although it doesn’t look so nice yet… it gets the job done and crosses the finish line while you are still at the drawing table. He gets better in racing in the weekends while on week days he builds his car.

You aren’t getting any racing experience while your neighbour was already learning the tricks and optimizing his car concept.
The second season he noticed his car looked a bit different than his designs but because of the lack of real polished bodywork, he was able to adapt all that because he didn’t overcommit on that yet.

You get your car on the track for the first time and you guys trade a little paint in the first corner. He gets away thanks to some driving instincts but you spin a 180° and even worse, there’s some damage to your car. Your neighbour had some damage too but a quick pit stop allowed him to exchange the part while you have to reitre and go home…to die cast a new model from your mold…

It is a silly story but I’ve got the feeling this is what’s going on here.
A focus on reproducing the song too much as it is took away some development of skills that build a song that makes you develop the COMPONENTS, which you learn to control and adapt; to build that song, but many like it as well. That kind of control and modular building will get your song on the stage (your car on the track) a lot sooner. It’s no Ferrari yet but its engine purrs and you steer it to the finish line.

Making songs your own is in the development of its components so you can make it your own. Your own version will be simpler but you will be giggign it a lot sooner, with confidence. You practice bringing the song sooner (participate in the races) a lot sooner and these proven parts will come in handy in other cars…errr songs

I propagate learning songs in layers but from beginning to end; you paint layer above layer; rhythm, songs structure, chord structure,

You could check out these Live Clubs I did:

Making songs your own

https://www.youtube.com/live/xvaOU5tLVlU

Memorizing songs;

The connections in your long term memory, the building blocks are easier to solidify that the long passages. even for solo’s. Don’t try to copy somethign exactly like it but develop little lead parts that are your own. close or far from the original. You can re-arrange those blocks later. Guitar techniques allow you to make anew necklace of blocks with these and STILL sound like the original… without BEING the original. This is how you adapt STYLE above COPY’ing it

https://www.youtube.com/live/jpNuEFwivuI

[mundeli]

@rick111

I’m getting 80% of the way to completing a marathon and always getting stuck at the end.

MOST folks never even enter a marathon, let alone train for one – it takes a BIG commitment to practice/run even on rainy, sleety days (as least where I live it does ) over a l-o-n-g period of time.

So, good on ya! You’re doing it. You’ll never be an elite Kenyan runner, but you’ll be running with a great crowd nonetheless, growing, and feeling better as the days/weeks/months/years & jam sessions fly by

[swoosh]

You’ve a good point! I’ve actually managed to run two marathons in the past, so I know how tough that training can be. In the end, though, it truly felt worth it—and I believe learning guitar will turn out the same way: a lot of effort, but with great rewards!

[Kasper]

Hey @rick111,

I think everyone hits plateaus now and then, no-matter how experienced or beginner… I surely do myself!

I think usually people get stuck for a long time on plateaus because they are not doing the right things to overcome them. That usually means that you/we try to solve too many different problems at once, or play too long stretches of a song or lick we’re working on.

We really need to be super analytic about it, and drill down to the actual problem. What is really causing you to fail? Is it:

• A memory issue? You cannot keep track of what chord or part comes next?
• A left hand precision issue? You misplace fingers (hit the wrong frets) or over/undershoot hand placement for chords?
• A rhythm issue? Do you loose track of the beat of the song? Can you “feel” the pulse of the song in your mind/body?
• A right hand rhythm execution problem? Meaning: your right hand is not playing the notes in the rhythm your mind is actually telling it to do?

To progress, you need to identify what exactly is the problem, and then work specifically on fixing just that. This is normally done through very small exercises - not by playing along to a track!!

A few examples: let’s say it’s a rhythm issue… you get totally lost. Put the guitar down, and turn on the track. Can you tap your foot in time with the song all the way through? Or your hand? Do you really feel the pulse. Do you really know, deep inside, exactly when the song goes from verse into chorus etc. If not - then of course there is no way you can actually play the song. So work on rhythm specifically, with small exercises depending on where you are. Metronome, tapping along to the song etc. Gradually up complexity, maybe just play a single note on a single string (doesn’t matter what note) and focus on really locking in with a click. Play quarter notes, 8th notes, triples, various rhythm patterns.

Is it a left hand precision issue, or a specific little riff in a lead line or solo. Play just those 2-4 bars, again and again, at various tempos. Make sure you really, really nail the required timing, note placement and technique. Only then progress further. If hand sync is way off, work on small exercises for just that.

And so on…

This does not have to be your full practice time with the guitar, because it’ll probably/maybe feel boring compared to playing a song.

But maybe set 15mins aside for super-hyper-focused practice like the above… and once you’ve put in your reps there, allow yourself some time to just play the songs and enjoy the guitar. And in this phase, do not beat yourself up over mistakes!!

If you address the actual problems, one at a time and with focus - then I guarantee that you’ll progress and eventually be able to play those songs you mentioned no problem! But keep doing the same as now, and the outcome will remain the same as well

[rick111]

@LievenDV I understand this analogy very well. I’ve been a software engineer for many years and always advocate for the MVP but never have I thought about relating it to my guitar practice. The memorising songs video is very interesting I’ve been gradually working through it.

@Kasper thanks this is very helpful. I played through a song earlier and really focused on my left hand, which seems to be the main cause of the problem. Missing frets, etc. It’s weird as I thought my left hand would be ahead of my right by now, being left handed and learning to play right handed, but this is not the case. I’ll give some focused practice on the parts I’m struggling on a go at different tempos.

In the meantime I’ve started looking at another song which seems to be much simpler and going well after only 15 mins of learning it.

[AJSki2fly]

Hi

I think most of us has felt this, and I still do at times.

If you are making mistakes on a particular song or part of it, then the bast advice I can give is go back to basics, slow those parts down to 50 or 60 percent and focus on practicing those’d parts until easy to play the gradually speed up, once ok at 100 go to 110% and practice, then 100% will feel easy. Then practice each part in song context, until you have it all.

In my own experience unless you play the song regularly you will loose it, so even after nailing it repeat regularly as Justin advises.

It does work but it can be a slow process if your at your limitations. Bit the next song will be easier.

Hope that helps.

[thelight]

It feels good to see that I’m not alone. I gave up on guitar a while ago when I hit one of my first plateaus: I couldn’t get the “Johnny B. Goode” solo at the proper speed. In the end, I never got it. Now I’m back, and I’m trying “Stairway to Heaven”. Still stuck on the solo after 10 months.

I think people here brought a lot of interesting ideas to get through plateaus. I also think that some ideas that look different are linked.

• @Kasper 's idea to figure out what is the part actually difficult for you, and practice it is the tip most of my friends that are great at guitar gave to me. I did finger exercises to improve speed, and that helped up to a point! I also did “stretch” finger exercises because the 1-4 fingering always felt awkward/weak. I’m thinking now of doing “rolling finger” exercises to roll the finger from a string to the one underneath. Steve Vai’s workout (available to buy online) has a lot of ideas for technical exercises. The thing is, for me, it’s difficult to figure out what is blocking me. From this point, I see two alternatives:

• Getting an experienced teacher. I’m a very strong believer in Do It Yourself, but sometimes I think I’d need a little help. Maybe an experienced teacher could look at me playing the solo, see I do something bad/weak, and then send me back home with some exercises to address that weakness.

• Randomization: I think that’s the tip that I saw the most here: just shelve the song and practice something else. What you do when you practice something else is that you become a more versatile guitar player (you increase your skills in many different areas), and it’s likely that at some point, you’ll practice what was blocking you in the original shelved song without knowing it, so if you go back to that song in about 1 year, it will likely feel a lot easier.

Finally, I think what @LievenDV said is super important. It makes me think of when Justin says that we should always make sure we have fun when we practice guitar. The feeling I get when I accept that I don’t sound perfect and then go in the world and play a song that I like with all my heart is probably the only reason why I’m still playing guitar after so many years.

[jjw]

@thelight

I couldn’t get the “Johnny B. Goode” solo at the proper speed.

@thelight

I’m trying “Stairway to Heaven”. Still stuck on the solo after 10 months.

I have no idea of your level, but these are pretty hard! Have you tried easier solos? What solos can you play well?

I made the mistake of undertaking Johnny B. Goode long before I should have. I figured if I take it slow and go step-by-step, then I should be able to get it. That was wrong. I didn’t have the foundations to attempt something like Johnny B. Goode.