Anybody else have an issue with regression in consistency?

Playing Technique
#1

Here’s how it’ll go for me: I learn a phrase. I practice it and work it up to my goal speed. I nearly master it, about 90 percent consistency in playing it flawlessly at the goal speed of, lets say, 170bpm. Hell, let’s say I can sometimes play it at 190bpm. Sixteenth notes.

I’ll start working on other things because I then feel good about my technique and want to apply it to something, like learning a song, and I don’t practice the original phrase in question much any more. A week or so goes by and I try to play the phrase again after not religiously practicing it for a while and boom hand sync totally off, sounds like shit, lacks the same speed and consistency.

A good personal example is this lick from the beginning of the Volcano seminar. I got it up to 170 bpm, sometimes hitting as high as 190, and then a week later as I’m working on learning a song, I can’t play the parts of the song that I’ve been working on as well as I was able to days prior, and then I come back to this lick and it feels twice as challenging as before, with the hand synch being very sloppy. Alternate Picking – The Pop Tarts Lick – Cracking the Code

This has happened to me with just about any fast sequence that pushes near my limits of speed, and seems to be more of a problem the more string changes there are in the sequence. What is up with this? For those of you who’ve been in my shoes, what’s the silver bullet to extinguish this annoying problem?

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#2

Happens to me all the time, but specifically some days I wake up and can’t pick on a single string. Improves over time though. It’s much worse if I’m overtraining a few licks rather than just… playing for fun

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#3

Happens to me, too. It’s frustrating, but try to take it in stride, as it seems to be part of how motor learning takes place. Troy mentions it in the primer video on improving wrist speed, how he nailed a certain tempo one day, couldn’t do it the next, didn’t practice it for a week, then tried again and could do it.

In a book I have on practicing that was written geared towards classical musicians, it warns against expecting a previous days’ success the following day, and just says “control will happen when it happens.”

The YouTuber Claus Levin from Guitar Mastery suggests to just keep going through a plateau period.

He is 100% correct that progress is best measured over longer periods of time rather than day to day. As far as his suggestion, I think it can work as long as you’re not chasing a random success constantly.

I’d even suggest having a large variety of things to cycle through. So when one thing looks like it’s becoming frustrating you can maybe put it on the back burner a little and cycle through something that feels more fresh, then go back again.

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#4

Great perspective, thank you.
Would you say that I should be a little suspicious of my technique and make an effort to learn other movements to see if any of them can push past the plateu, so to speak?

#5

Yep, for me it’s on the high E string especially. Sometimes I try to tremolo pick it and the pick just doesn’t wanna go back and forth smoothly. Must be an intermediate player’s struggle as the plateus creep their way in.

#6

No, it’s not a cause to be suspicious of your technique. Motor learning takes time to bake in and become consistent. If you had a previous success with your movements, don’t change it.

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#7

Gotcha. So even if the technique doesn’t reach goal speeds of 200bpm yet (more so because the fretting hand can’t sync up to that speed of pickstrokes yet), I should keep it?

I ask these questions because Troy’s “don’t build up to speed, start with it” mantra has always kind of confused me. I bet he’s just referring to baseline speed, like if it can do 150bpm, it’s capable of more.

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#8

Do you have the pickslanting primer? If you do, you should definitely watch this video, because it goes over how improving speed with an existing, working motion happens:

A motion that can hit 200 bpm with ease for a few bars is definitely working. Don’t confuse the inability to sync your left hand as a sign your right hand isn’t doing something right.

I mentioned this in another post in some other thread, but there’s definitely this sense on the forum that you just need to find some magic motion and bam, you’re shredding like Paul Gilbert overnight. It’s so not like that. A motion that works for you just means you’ve got something to build on top of. It’s still going to take practice and time to develop hand sync, vocabulary, the ability to just drop those hot lixx on a dime without warming up, etc.

From what it sounds like, you’re just experiencing motor learning. Be patient and keep going. Try to have things to practice and work on that you legit enjoy that don’t demand the absolute top end of your technique all the time. I remember a friend of mine (also a highly proficient player) who asked me one time “dude, don’t you just ever wanna bang out some Judas Priest riffs and have fun every so often?” Replace Priest with whatever bands you like that have music you can play for actual enjoyment and not just to “work up” technique constantly.

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#9

I have absolutely no idea WHY this is the case…

…but this is something I’ve seen with a fair amount of consistency in my own playing. Sometimes, I’ll be practicing something, and making progress, and making progress, and making progress… and then soert of feel like the wheels are coming off and if anything I’m suddenly regressing.

And then, not really by design, but sometimes just because it’s disouraging so maybe I don’t pick up a guitar for a few days, or sometimes because something comes up and I’m out of town or too busy or whatever, sometimes a week will go by and I just don’t even touch a guitar.

And then, I pick a guitar up after a break… and, bam! Immediately whatveer I was struggling with feels effortless.

It could be as simple as a reset of my expectations… but idunno, maybe just try stepping away for a couple days and not playing, and then see how things feel.

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#10

This Is A Good Post

I have an entirely unfounded hypothesis that this is because mental practice is MORE effective than physical practice.

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#11

This is a great reply. It’s great to get these insights from a more experienced player. Thank you

#12

That’s a good suggestion, and an interesting personal anecdote. Thanks for the insight

#13

Ahhh, elaborate on this. I’ve an interest here, for sure.

#14

i just provided a counterexample by coming back to guitar after a week overseas, having felt quite good before I left, and being unable to pick on a single string, so … that’s that :joy:

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#15

Cool thread, an interesting issue for sure!

#16

I believe the issue is due to our brain constantly making and reinforcing connections, and disregarding others, it’s the same reason you need a warm up. In your everyday life you do a countless number of physical activities that all have their own activation sequence.
The more you focus on one thing the more connections/reinforcements are made to activate that motion.

It’s just like memory, if you focus on one thing for a long time, say watching a tv series, you can follow along, but if you have a break and do something else, like for days, you lose that flow, and you lose your place. and need to be reminded of where you were.

The same thing happens with physical motion, if you do one activity, your brain adapts to it and becomes efficient, if you do another, if adapts to that. The warm up time is the brain regriping onto the old connections, and setting up the timing ect…

The silver bullet is warming up. Almost every guitarist does it.
It feels like just moving your hands, but there is a lot going on in our brains we don’t feel that ultimately comes out as being warmed up, or getting a flow going.

If you’re talking about overtraining, that I think is from a lack of excitement from the motion, it becomes blunted, and dull, and you start to train in that dull movement. Lacking the inital spark it had when you first started learning it.
possibly why people who play the same song for years start to lose that snap and agression that it once had, you become relaxed in the motions and trained in that relaxed movement.

The brain is always adapting to whats most efficient, Thats its blessing at the start and its curse at the end. Warming up isn’t just getting into the groove, it’s forcing that life back into the movement, forcing that snap into movement.

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#17

Totally. There is a spectacular line from Troy buried in the “Notes” section on one of the Cascade seminar lessons. He says something to the effect of approaching the practice of a specific line or riff and having “no specific timeline for mastery”. It is a zen teaching. I might find it and tattoo it on my forehead.

#18

Not sure if the “forgetting curve” applies to motor learning, but whenever you memorize something, there is a fairly regular process of forgetting that happens over time. If you renew the memory (rememorize or even just use the information), it staves off the forgetting. There are systems of remembering that are paced at gradually larger intervals, based on the forgetting curve, to try to deal with it. Perhaps you could try to use a system of spaced repetition to refresh the skill so that it doesn’t deteriorate so drastically.

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