How do you measure your progress?

[pauldil]

Maybe its a dumb question, but do you just feel that youre improving? Can you hear it? For me, progress is so slow nowadays that its really hard for me to notice it. Theres no instant gratification like there used to be years ago. Do you compare yourself to other players? I know its not a competition, but youve got to have something to measure against, right? For me sometimes when I play I feel like Im really getting somewhere, then I come here and listen to other peoples playing and feel like Im getting nowhere. Tone, phrasing, harmony, technique, vocabulary,. . .theres so much to work on! How do you measure your progress?

 

Paul

[revolead]

You have to practice the same stuff over and over, play the same songs over and over, and implement the same techniques over and over. Usually thereafter, your tone improves playing the stuff you already know, the songs that were once more difficult suddenly become easy. It's just a matter of staircases, linear slopes, and plateaus. If I were to graph my playing over the last two years since i started, it'd look something like this:

http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~spratte/graph.JPG

 

Tons of improvement when I first learned, but then things sort of slowed down. I started lessons and I saw a nice plateau, then I started practicing more and my rise started again. Since then it's been a series of plateaus.

[Funk Jazz]

sometimes i play a satisfying musical phrase, and it's new... it comes from somewhere that is not contrived. it's not very often, but that's when i feel i've grown.

 

i heard this line in a movie today: "it doesn't have to be beautiful, it doesn't even have to be good, it just has to be authentic"

 

that's my yardstick.

[A String]

As long as you are practicing, you are improving. The best way to conquer the "Plateau Blues" is to pick a song or solo that you can just barely play. Something just on the border...you can play it slow, but that's it. Then practice it...A Lot. You will soon see that you can play it with out to much trouble. Then if you pick a similar song that you couldn't play before, you should now find it much easier! Voila! You have improved!

[Jazz Guitar]

Originally posted by pauldil:

Maybe its a dumb question, but do you just feel that youre improving? Can you hear it? For me, progress is so slow nowadays that its really hard for me to notice it. Theres no instant gratification like there used to be years ago. Do you compare yourself to other players? I know its not a competition, but youve got to have something to measure against, right? For me sometimes when I play I feel like Im really getting somewhere, then I come here and listen to other peoples playing and feel like Im getting nowhere. Tone, phrasing, harmony, technique, vocabulary,. . .theres so much to work on! How do you measure your progress?

 

Paul

Recording, recording, recording.

[Compact Diss]

with a stick!

 

The same as above.

When I start with a song that seems really tough for me to play and the first few days I'm saying to myself while repeatedly practicing it "I'll never be able to play this", then what I do is walk away.

Only after I have practiced it so much that I begin to hate it, and my wife hates it and is sick of hearing it. Then I walk away. Four days later when I decide I want to hear that(what I was practicing)again, it f'n flows from my fingertips!

I have realized that I can practice, eat, sleep, read, study, listen to a song, this is what I have to do in order to learn how to play it. I need to break it down note by note for some.-after having done this for some time---I can then pick up my guitar and play it very easily. It's work I have to put in to see/feel/hear the results. It is very satisfying to get to the results...

[henryrobinett]

I think it's very hard to tell progress. I think one thing that happens is as you improve and have a break through your ears also improve, so where one day you're on cloud nine the next you think you haven't traveled that far at all. You might even think you've digressed.

 

I'm having a major breakthrough myself. I've been recording myself. Something I shunned, except for really recording, for many years. I suddenly realize I think I'm better than I thought I was. But I think it's hard to quantify such things.

 

I keep a journal of my practicing that goes back many years. I can at a glance look and remind myself what I've accomplished. The hours spent as well as the specifics. If ever I'm feeling down in the dumps about my playing I can always look. Or put on a recording of something I recently played really well.

[Compact Diss]

I keep a journal of my practicing that goes back many years. I can at a glance look and remind myself what I've accomplished.

Henry, thank you for bringing up a good point. I am a strong believer in journals. I love to keep a journal. I've been slacking on my current routine but you just hit me with the bug again. Thanks!

[TeleCarlos]

1-With a ruler!!!

 

2-Just kidding; I actually have a very detailed blog about it. It's chore sometimes cuz it takes sooo much time to write it and all that sometimes can't even actually practice that much.

 

3-By how many different chicks I "boink"; (0 at this time).

 

4-By saying how much other people souck in these forums (which actually does take a lot of my time to patrol the threads and pick on everyone else likes and dislikes, while stating how much everything like is way better than what other people actually and .... forgot what I was saying....