Stuck On A Playing Plateau

[Dominic Bonacorsi]

I have been playing guitar for about 5 years now and I stopped progressing about a year ago. I learned about all I can and hit a barrier where I cant progress in solos I am trying to learn. Ill start learning a solo at 50% speed and Ill get it up to around 80% then I cant bring it up to speed any further. Does anyone have any tips for moving further with my playing?

 

[Joe Giumarello]

Try a regimen. So you could do chromatic alternate picking up and down the neck for x amount of minutes, legato chromatics up and down the neck for x minutes, you could practice sweep patterns but only at a speed that you can do it cleaning. All of this should be used with a metronome. Maybe try finger picking or hybrid picking if you don’t know how to do that. What techniques are you exactly struggling with though?

 

[idssdi]

I usely find songs That I really would love to learn and has New things That I did not know before and learn them in like a ween so i can combine the learning with Just having fun playing. Usely the New stuff That sounds really cook helps me away from the plateau. Or learning like a New genre or stuff like that. For example if felt like in hit a plateau and than I played gypsy jazz on acoustic for a week and that solvent the problemen

 

[Chris Robertson]

My thoughts are similar to Joe Guimarello’s posted here: take a healthy look at what is bumping you at the 80% speed, for example. Is it a particular technique that is giving your fingers difficulty? Is it more difficulty with the speed and precision of your left hand finding the correct notes in time? Is it your right hand getting caught up moving from string to string?
I’d say first: don’t get discouraged. I’ve been playing (though, not consistently practicing) for over 30 years, and I’ve been in that same situation as you a lot. Being able to identify what is giving you trouble in a specific song or solo is a great insight as to where to spend your next several practice sessions. For a long time, my issue was string skipping with my pick. So, I put a particular solo on hold for a few weeks and dug up practice parts that helped me work on string skipping… skipping just one string at first, then speeding that up, then slowing down again and skipping two strings, speeding that up, etc. After a few weeks of working on that, I was better equipped to go back and tackle the solo or song that was difficult.
Also, when starting at 50% speed: ask yourself if you’re starting to ingrain into your muscle memory “mistakes” (by mistakes, I mean things that will make playing at 80% or 100% speed difficult). Is your thumb in the best spot on the top or back of the neck to do what you need when you start speeding up, for example? Could the notes you’re fretting be played faster in a different position up or down the neck, depending on what’s coming up in the next few bars of music?
Ids Schiere’s idea is great, too – sometimes taking a new direction, even for a little while, can bring some fresh perspective.

 

[Dominic Bonacorsi]

Thanks for the replies, I looked at my playing and I think the main struggle I am having is a combination of string skipping with the pick and coordination of the pick and my left hand. I also noticed that learning the solo at %50 I tend to pick every note, and when I speed it up Ill still try to pick the note instead of sweeping or using legato. I found some lessons on here that I can use to help with string skipping and legato.

 

[Kevin Welton]

That is probably your problem, When practicing at a slower speed you still need to play it exactly the same as when playing it faster or the muscle memory won’t develop!