Overcoming The Playing Plateau

Originally posted on January 22nd 2016 on the Sustain & Resonance blog.

Is your guitar playing at a stand still? Do you find yourself struggling to get past the playing level that you have been stuck on for the past four months? Is reading the same old guitar articles driving you insane and you want throw your guitar through your computer screen? Well, we have all been there before. We all get into ruts where, no matter how much we practice scales, no matter how much theory we study or no matter how many times we jam to the same practice track, no amount of practice will push our playing to the next level. You are not alone. Everyone who has ever picked up a guitar, nah, anyone who has ever picked up any instrument has been there. In this post, I will discuss different ways to overcome the plateau and re-energize your passion for playing.

I have a question for all of you string rut slingers out there, when was the last time you put the guitar down and stepped away from it? Sounds crazy, right? The more and more you play your instrument and play the same chord progressions, arpeggios, riffs or solos night after night, your brain will go into an autopilot zone. It learns what you practice every night, over and over and it will become muscle memory. While that can be very beneficial when learning solos note for note, it does hurt your progression moving forward and overcoming the plateau.

To overcome this autopilot mode, you need to take a break from the instrument. If you are worried about losing your speed, grip or calluses on your fingers during your break, there are great finger exercises you can perform to keep your chops healthy while letting your playing take a rest, which you can read here.

Now, taking a break can definitely help in the short run, but what about for the long term? If putting down the 6 string for a day, week or month does not sound appealing to you at all, have you ever thought about picking up a new instrument?

The benefits of picking up a new instrument can be the answer to your playing prayers. YES, putting the guitar down and picking up another stringed instrument (or any instrument) will train your mind into a new way of thinking, a progressive way of thinking, it will push you out of the rut. Think about how the strings are structured from a note perspective. We all know the EADGBe tuning, however, if you look at the tuning of say a 5 stringed mandolin, you have a tuning that is laid out in perfect fifths (CGDAE). Not only will this help you understand music theory with the circle of fifths, but it will also allow you to dive into new inversions of common chords you already know.

Inversions are like spices to food, they are still the chords you know but with additional flavoring to them. Take the E chord, for example, to make a major E chord, all you need is the 1st, 3rd and 5th note of the E major scale. In that case, the notes are the E, G# and B. If you look at a standard tuning open E chord on the guitar, you have E, B, E, G#, B and E. That E chord is going to have a unique sonic tone due to the order in which each note is heard while strumming (whether strummed upstroke or down stroke) and due to certain notes falling on heavier or lighter strings in comparison to the others. Take the E chord and apply it to the 5 string mandolin previously mentioned above and the E chord will have look like this: E, B, G#, E, B. While it uses the same notes (E, B, G#) the order of which notes are played and on which strings give the chord a different voicing. You can apply the same theory on guitar to different positions, which I will cover in a later post.

Another great reason to pick up a new instrument is the discovery of new phrasings. While there are only 12 different notes that can be played (not account for the multiple octaves in any given instrument’s range), there are an unlimited amount of ways to chain the notes together to make music. Like inversions, each instrument has a unique layout of notes which will expand the mind to go to new musical ideas (which can be applied to another instrument adding to your musical vocabulary).

Speaking of musical vocabulary, what palate of genres does your playing expand across? More likely than not, you stick to a few genres that are similar in their musical DNA. If you find yourself stuck in a rut, and don’t have a second instrument to pick up, try learning new genres of music. Do you normally fancy yourself as a metal-head, try learning rockabilly or jazz. This allows your mind to learn new chord progressions or new sounds that you normally don’t play. Play rock? Try learning some country licks. Like jazz music, country music plays over each chord change and forces you to learn new phrasing ideas. New genres can add new perspective to your playing and re-spark your drive to play.

Last, but certainly not least, if you are in a rut and struggling to find new ideas, go back to your roots. Remember how you felt when you first heard your favorite song or album, better yet, listen to it and recapture the magic. Go back and play the first songs you ever learned, chances are you haven’t played them in a while. You may surprise yourself and find a new respect and perspective for the song that can inspire you to learn new boundaries.

Playing music is amazing, but nothing is more frustrating than finding your playing stuck in a rut where nothing new occurs. Whether it’s picking up a new instrument, learning a new genre of music or taking a break, hopefully some of these, if not all of these, tips will help ignite a spark and push you to new heights.

Do these ideas work? Do you have any of your own to help overcome plateau playing? Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time, let the music play!

-S&R