Plateauing: A Bluegrass Musician's Paradox

Does it ever feel like the more you practice the worse you get on your instrument?

Or perhaps it seems like you're on a learning plateau and despite a ton of effort you just can't improve.

How about not practicing at all for a while and you find you've definitely gotten better in the interim?

I've experienced all of this, at different times, of course.  And it can be confusing.  It certainly doesn't encourage one to practice!




Let's decompose this so we can understand what might be happening.

Analysis
When you are picking a tune with your friends, there are really two things happening inside your brain simultaneously:
  • Execution - the process of creating (or calling up from memory) musical phrases and then translating them into a series of muscle contractions that produce the notes. 
  • Listening - the process of hearing what you are playing and comparing it to how it is supposed to sound in context.
You probably didn't think of these as separate things.

When you are back home practicing, these same two things are happening: you are teaching yourself to execute, or to produce musical notes and phrases and, at the same time, you are also learning to listen, to recognize and comprehend musical phrases. 

And it also helps to think of these as separate learning processes.

Learning to execute (muscle memory)
First and foremost, practicing makes your execution skills improve, this is why we do it. You develop "muscle memory" for certain notes and phrases.  

Muscles do, of course, strengthen as the result of exercise but neurological changes also happen inside your head.  Stuff actually moves around inside your brain - for example, nerves need to grow new synapses.  The ability for humans to do this, especially post-childhood, is called neuroplasticity.  This takes time ... sometimes weeks or maybe months.

Learning to listen (ear training)
During practice, you are also training your ear (and associated neural circuits).  For example, anybody that has tried to learn a bluegrass instrument will wonder what the chords are as they are learning a song.  Which chords sounds good, which ones sound dissonant?  After a while, you won't need a chord chart anymore - you can start to hear and anticipate chord changes as they are occurring.  Even for new songs that you haven't heard before.  Your ear has improved.

Furthermore, when you practice, ear training is happening at a far more detailed level than just learning to recognize chords.  You are learning how the music is supposed to sound at a very granular level.  For example, when you try several variations on how to execute a phrase, your ear starts to recognize that a phrase doesn't have quite the right timing or emphasis.

Your "ear" is getting better.  Much better.  On many levels.

Differing Rates of Learning
Let's compare how fast your muscle memory learning can happen with the speed that your "ear" develops.

Ear training can be fast - for example, well before you have mastered a new series of notes (or a "lick"), you will be able to recognize and identify it when someone else plays it.  You will probably be able to tell if it is being executed properly long before you can play it up to speed.

However, developing muscle memory to perform that lick at speed takes time - muscles and nerves need to grow, synapses need to form.  It can take months!

Plateauing
You will start to realize that you really suck!  Think about it.  

With your newly improved ear, you can now start to hear things that need to be done that you can't do (yet).  Your muscle memory training hasn't caught up with your ear.  And it won't catch up for quite a while.

You will be on a "plateau."

And, the more you practice, the worse you sound!?  Yep, as you practice more, you could even sound worse to yourself as your "ear" outpaces your muscle memory improvements.

Further, if you get discouraged and quit for the time being, the neuroplasticity processes happening inside your head will likely continue, for at least a while. And your execution will continue to improve.  Go figure!

OK, so I probably have exaggerated things a bit.  In the real world it won't be this simple.  But it makes for a good mental model, one that might be able to get you through the hard times of plateauing.

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