What do you do when you feel you have reached a plateau on your musical journey?

(Picture courtesy of rachel)

Yesterday I have found on GuitarNoise.com forum a very interesting topic that made me think. One guy there was complaining about reaching a plateau as a guitar player and not being able to grow anymore in the last years. He asked for suggestions to overcome this.

Being a forum, people answered. My first thought was that people will give guitar related suggestions, but it was not like this. The answer he received was on an other level, was about feelings, music, expressing…

I will try to reproduce here the original question and the answer that got me started:

“I feel that I’ve reached a plateau the last 3-4 years and I’m hoping someone can give me some advice that will help me move my playing up the ladder. I suppose I don’t really know what to do with all I’ve learned, or perhaps I’m not aware of what I’m missing.

I’ve been in bands, studied college level theory, know all the technical stuff (ie bends, tapping, harmonics, sweep arpeggios, legato, etc), know tons of scales and modal patterns in all keys, and I can learn reasonable songs by tab or by CD.

I have not attempted to learn shred soloing, just because I’m in a modern rock band and don’t have a use for it. My original music just seems so bland and boring, and my lead improve seems to all sound the same.

Suggestions?”

And an other guy answered:

“Okay, first of all, props to you for learning all that, you definitely have all the musical tools you need. Now take the final step: express yourself. This might seem obvious but it’s really a whole new skill to learn and it comes with a whole new group of exercises. Here are some ideas:

• Write a chord progression using just two chords. Make it interesting so don’t come up with C-G7.
• If you did a progression in a major key do a new one in a minor key and vica versa.
• Get out a piece of paper and write down ten events of your life that are really important to you. Things that literally changed your life and made you who you are now. Don’t be a wimp so be honest.
• Take one event of that list and describe it in twenty lines.
• Take a look at those lines; every phrase and sentence should reflect how you feel about it.
• Write a melody that reflects the general feeling of that event and text.
• Write a chord progression around that melody.
• Fit the text you wrote to the melody, make sure the emphasis is on the correct words.
• Post the song here and await the criticism.

You’ll probably learn a lot in this process, not just about guitar but also just music in general and even about you yourself. Listen to what people say and repeat the process. Your only goal is expressing yourself better then you did last song. Do this ten times.

Think about a logical way to sequence these ten tracks. Maybe chronological, have it start with the oldest event and end with the most recent event. Or soundwise: start with the softer songs and slowly build to the rock tunes or vice versa. Use your imagine.

Okay, now you’ve completed a full album and we’re probably a few months down the road. Remember you as a person have a unique background. Your mission as an artist is to turn that into your own unique music, and that’s very, very difficult. It will force you to use the correct music tools to create a coherent musical experience, and you’ll have to be extremely honest to yourself.”

The original thread is here so you can enjoy it for yourself.

I just loved it and I think that is a true example of thinking outside the box.

Just that I ask myself, beside being a very interesting answer, does this help overcoming such a “plateau”?

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