A sudden increase in ability--ever had one?

[Doug_Tipple]

For several years in my life, when I was younger, I used to play the classical guitar three hours + every day. I had dreams of being a concert guitarist. Occasionally, I would slip into "the zone" where I was able to play virtuoso pieces without error. However, when I picked up the guitar again the next day, I was right back where I had been previously.

I have also had this experience many times when I was hiking in the desert mountains of Arizona. Starting the climb, it felt like hard work. But after hours on the trail, I would slip into "the zone" where the climb was effortless and exhilerating.

I wish I knew how to stay in this awareness throughout all the activites in my life.

[Denny]

I wish I knew how to stay in this awareness throughout all the activites in my life.

Don't we all!
It is grand when it is working though!

[Chang He]

I wish I knew how to stay in this awareness throughout all the activites in my life.

I've noticed this same feeling too, usually whilst lost in art or music, and I believe the point of meditation (Zen meditation at least, which is all I have experience with) is to cultivate exactly this sense. It would be wonderful to be able to extend that to one's entire life, I agree.

[lesl]

Sorry to be picking up on this thread so late. I've heard our Mr. Baggins
here play, and he's sounding real good!

I've progressed with the leaping-plateau spurts and also the other kinds of
slow or vanishing/reappearing steps mentioned in this thread. Aren't the
leaping ones the bees knees! I've been re-reading the Inner Game of
Music lately and been reminded there that it's all a matter of how much
we let interference get in the way of learning and making music, or doing
anything really. For staying in the awareness/asethetics band, an anti-
interference switch would sure be a nice thing.

Lesl

[fluti31415]

For some reason I have suddenly experienced almost over night, a very noticable increase in my breath control, tone, and ornamentation ability--it's really freaking me out. For the last five months I've been practicing most every day (though I have been playing for a couple years), and all of a sudden it's like I've had a break through. Has anyone else had one of these? I'm asking I guess because I'm afraid it'll go away. Perhaps this is just the natural result of much practice, but the immediacy with which this spurt happened is strange.

congratulations -- that's what happens when you practice every day!

You will also have times where you feel like you're getting worse, but the idea is to follow the long term trend. Because of that, it's good to keep a music journal. (This is something I learned from my major professor in math, but it works in everything that we want to really master, I am finding.) Every so often, look back to where you were and what you were doing a year ago, two years ago, five years ago. Even if you are playing worse than you were a month ago, the journal will show you that you have an overall upward trend.

[Wormdiet]

For some reason I have suddenly experienced almost over night, a very noticable increase in my breath control, tone, and ornamentation ability--it's really freaking me out. For the last five months I've been practicing most every day (though I have been playing for a couple years), and all of a sudden it's like I've had a break through. Has anyone else had one of these? I'm asking I guess because I'm afraid it'll go away. Perhaps this is just the natural result of much practice, but the immediacy with which this spurt happened is strange.

congratulations -- that's what happens when you practice every day!

You will also have times where you feel like you're getting worse, but the idea is to follow the long term trend. Because of that, it's good to keep a music journal. (This is something I learned from my major professor in math, but it works in everything that we want to really master, I am finding.) Every so often, look back to where you were and what you were doing a year ago, two years ago, five years ago. Even if you are playing worse than you were a month ago, the journal will show you that you have an overall upward trend.

Also. . .what seems like "getting worse" is very often your own discimination becoming more fine-tuned - you're developming a better ear and noticing more flaws, rather than making more.

[Cathy Wilde]

Also. . .what seems like "getting worse" is very often your own discimination becoming more fine-tuned - you're developming a better ear and noticing more flaws, rather than making more.

Exactly.

[Cynth]

That is a very helpful way to think about the "getting worse" thing which is something that plagues me. I will try to work on that approach. I haven't practiced for over a month now because of a number of really frustrating sessions, and now I'm having a problem getting back to it. Why does it have to get so intense and emotional? This happens to me every time I try something.

[Cathy Wilde]

I call it "the curse of caring." I think whenever you're more than casual about something, you'll get to suffer over it sometimes. However, I like to think the rewards are somehow greater, too -- i.e., when the joy comes you're not numb to it. Instead, because you do care, you're awake and fully experiencing the WHOLE process. It's a risk, caring & being alive and aware and what may come with all of it, but overall I think it's good -- it's like living in brighter colors.

Hang in there ... it's a spiral, but it's moving upward (even if said movement seems infinitesimal sometimes)!

[Chang He]

I've noticed dramatic improvment in my own playing lately. I have an M&E R&R, which was pretty easy to get a sound out of right away, but I'm amazed how much of a difference it is making as my embouchure improves. I'm also learning to play it like a flute, and not like the whistle I've been playing for so many years now. Lots of fun. Way more fun than work, in fact, which is tough, because that's where I have to go now that lunch is over. Cheers.

[Kelpie]

A friend of mine used his mini dv cam to record me - he wanted some practise recording sound and when I watched the resulting footage I realised that all the mistakes that I was aware of were very difficult to pick up and my friend said ' what mistakes' . I know I've got a long long way to go but the hours and hours of practise I've been putting in lately are paying off - not so much an ability spurt, more like a few more paces towards being a little happier with my own efforts.

[chas]

This is just tangentially related to this thread, but not worth a new thread.

I've been really trying to work on getting a solid sound at the bottom end. I just realized that I HAVE been getting a solid bottom, but only in context, and in fact only in certain contexts. It seems to me that all the progress I've made on the flute in the last two years (which is how long I've really been putting effort into it) has been driven by music, and by specific tunes. The solid low end I just noticed has been in O'Rourke's Feast; modulation in volume came from one air; A rolls from the Humours of Ballyloughlin, B rolls are coming from a Deanta reel.

I guess this is just a roundabout way of saying that I think I do learn in fits and starts, but that it's always context-driven.

[jdevereux]

Certainly; my playing improves ten-fold every time I pick up an Olwell!
Jack Devereux

[baggins_21]

Amen to that!

[dwinterfield]

I'm only beginning to play the flute while continuing with the whistle. On both instruments I see overall improvement in plateaus and I see improvement in individual tunes after I've been away from it for a few days but not too long.

A classical master (maybe Vladimir Horowitz) said something like--- if I don't play for a day I notice my mistakes. If I don't play for two days, everyone notices my mistakes.

My instincts tell me it's mostly a perception thing, but I wonder if it also has to do with muscles. I work out on nautilaus type equipment at the health club. The general rule is to work a particular machine every other day to allow muscle recovery after the strain of working to muscle. Doing this does, in fact, lead to constant gradual improvement. However, sometimes, if I'm away for a week, when I return I experience the same plateau-like improvement.