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Getting off the plateau

Remember the plateau? That place where you feel like you’re ust kind of staying where you are, playing stuff that doesn’t feel much different than what you’ve already been playing forever.

Try looking at scales. 

I know. Gross, right? For good reasons, many people don’t like to practice scales. But it depends on how you use them. You may not be interested in improving your ability to move your fingers around the fretboard, but there are other uses for scales.

Making chords

Every note in a chord comes from a scale. Many of us don’t often think in this way since scales are about single notes, and chords are about multiple notes. 

Here’s the C major scale:

C D E F G A B

Here’s a Cmaj chord: 

C E G

If you know where all the Cs, Es, and Gs are on the guitar, you can start making C chords that aren’t the one in open position that we all learn in our first week of playing the guitar. Or the barre chords we learn not too long after.

If you don’t know where all the Cs, Es, and Gs are, you’re stuck with what you’ve got. 

So I think you know what to do. That’s right. Memorize where all the Cs, Es, and Gs are. It won’t really take all that long, and once you know those ones, the rest are easier.

Make different triads

Triads = three-note chords. Just start throw any three notes from the scale together. What does CDG sound like? CFG? ABD? Find those notes on the guitar, play them like a you would any chord, and suddenly your ears/mind have all sorts of new ideas.

Beyond triads

But why stop there? Add one of the other notes in the scale to that C triad. After C E G, we have D F A B. So…

• C D E G
• C E F G
• C E G A
• C E G B

In the short term, this can all seem tedious.In the long term (and I’m only talking months; weeks if you’ve got time and you’re efficient), it’s so worth it. Creativity soars. Suddenly, you’re creating chords and progressions you never knew existed.

What do you do when you pick up the guitar?

A fundamental question to ask is, “What do I normally do when I pick up the guitar?” Make a list. It might look like this:

1. Strum a favorite chord progression
2. Noodle around with the pentatonic scale
3. Start learning a new song/solo

Doesn’t matter what it is. Just write it down. Now ask yourself, “Which of the things on the list really get my brain working?”

From the list above, number 3 is the most obvious. 

Number 1 is you doing something you already know how to do.

Number 2 has some potential, but only if you’re thinking about what you’re doing. Noodling implies that you’re zoning out, and just letting your fingers move around. Some people do this in front of the tv.

To create new neural pathways, you need to consciously make your fingers do something they don’t normally do.

So number 2 needs a sub-list of things you normally do when you play scales. This could be any number of things, but just for argument’s sake:

1. Alternate index and ring fingers on a single string
2. Bend notes on the first string using my ring finger
3. Hammer-on, pull-off from index to ring finger

Now, for the sake of this exercise, don’t do any of that. 

But what do you do? 

Using the list above, try varying those things. 

Instead of alternating index and ring finger on a single string, try doing that while moving between different strings. 

Bend notes on the first string with other fingers. Bend notes on all of the strings using whatever finger you want.

Hammer-on, pull off using every finger combination.

Can you think of any other variations?

I’m not giving you examples using notation because the idea here is to get you to work these things out on your own. To create new neural pathways.

I’ll talk some more about how to look at scales in my next post.

Just open the case

You’d think it wouldn’t be that simple. But as soon as the case is open, you’re looking at the guitar. And as soon as you’re looking at the the guitar, it’s difficult to not pick it up. Once you do, it’s difficult to not start playing it.

And now you have to make a decision.

What’s your intention for picking up the guitar. Fun? Improvement? Those two things don’t always go together.

If it’s for fun, you usually play stuff you already know. If it’s to get better, you generally need to work on new stuff, listen to new stuff, work on new ideas. 

That can feel like work. One of my college students once told me that I had taken something he loved, and turned it into homework. 

The plateau

Not looking at new things can lead to complaints of reaching a plateau, of not progressing, either technically or creatively. You just stay where you are, playing and making stuff that doesn’t feel much different than what you’ve already been playing and making for a long time.

So, how do you get to the point where you feel like you’re progressing?

It’s pretty simple. Stop playing stuff you already know, and seek out stuff you don’t. 

Deliberate practice 

Which leads to the idea of deliberate practice, something many people aren’t willing to do. Here’s what I mean when I say “deliberate practice.” This is from Ethan Mollick’s book on AI.

“Imagine two students: Sophie and Naomi. Sophie spends her afternoons playing the same pieces she’s comfortable with over and over again. She might do this for hours on end, believing that sheer repetition will improve her skills. She feels a sense of accomplishment as she gets better and better at this work. Naomi, on the other hand, conducts her practice sessions under the guidance of a seasoned piano instructor. She begins by playing scales and then moves on to progressively more challenging pieces. When she makes mistakes, her instructor points them out, not to chastise her but to help her understand and rectify them. Naomi also regularly sets goals for herself, like mastering a particularly tricky section of a piece or improving her speed and agility on certain passages. The process is much less fun than Sophie’s experience, because Naomi’s challenges escalate with her skill, making sure she is always facing some degree of difficulty. Yet over time, even if both students clock in the same number of practice hours, Naomi will surpass Sophie in skill, precision, and technique. This difference in approach and outcome illustrates the gap between mere repetition and deliberate practice. The latter, with its elements of challenge, feedback, and incremental progression, is the true path to mastery.”

In other words, practice stuff you’re not already good at. No, it’s not always fun, but experiencing yourself getting better is worth it. 

Listen to stuff you don’t like, and ask yourself, “What makes this good?” Does it feel like you’re threatening your identity as a hardcore metalhead, a pure-hearted folkie, a whatever? Don’t worry. Nobody’s watching. And you might learn something about your own tastes.

As you get better technically, as you accept other approaches, your creativity will soar. You will be able to do things you couldn’t do before. You will get ideas you never knew existed. That’s exciting. That’s worth the exploration.

It’s really about getting your brain moving down different pathways, to stop thinking the way you normally think.

Consider all that for a bit, and then check out the next post.