“Level of Incompetence” reached?

[thereallyniceman]

I was once told that in the business world people are promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. Judging by those at higher levels in organisations I have worked for, this seems to be true.

 

Unfortunately I am beginning to wonder if I have reached mine in banjo playing. Some weeks ago I decided to arrange a medley of 1920’s dance tunes. All went well until I tried to play it. After about 1000 times through I still couldn’t get it clean so abandoned it to transpose Fred Van Eps’s performance of “Sitting on Top Of The World” from a 1926 recording (which can be heard in the onsite JUKEBOX).

 

Here lies the problem. I have been practising this over and over for ages now and still cannot get it anywhere near suitable for recording. Perhaps it is beyond my capabilities. I feel that I may be  becoming demoralised with playing the banjo and wonder if I have hit “THE WALL”.   To all you other players out there how on earth do I get past the Wall?

 

The more I practise the worse it seems to get and I am neglecting other pieces so have forgotten them too. Perhaps I have just reached my “level of incompetence” and cannot improve any further.

 

HELP….   Moral support is needed for poor Ian !!! 

 

[Mike Moss]

Fred is beyond all our capabilities... you can't rush a Van Eps piece! Give it a few more months ;-)

[Trapdoor2]

I believe the business principle you're thinking of is called "The Peter Principle".

To get past the wall, you have four choices. Walk around it, climb over it, dig under it or crash thru it. I have found that if I encounter a wall, I usually need to walk around it (work on something else). Attacking it sometimes helps but I think I've gotten too old to climb/dig/crash thru it. I sat down and studied/worked on the trio for "Fun on the Wabash" this past weekend (I've never been able to get thru it without stumbling...and I've worked on the piece for ages). It was the only thing I practiced, 3hrs Sat and 4hrs Sunday. What did I get? I can now play the first 4 measures (of the trio) from memory. At that rate, I shall have the whole thing memorized sometime in 2032, should I live that long. :-(

I suspect I've reached my brain-cell limit. I'm running out of memory!

I know, I'm not helping...but misery loves company, eh?

[Jody Stecher]

Ian, without hearing exactly at what point your playing ceases to sound as you intended I can only make some general comments. Here are 2.

1) I've been teaching since I was about 16 or younger. Before I was 20 I had heard enough student and professional musicians to realize that there was no such thing as random mistakes. All problems in execution had a pattern.   If the player who wishes to improve can identify the pattern and address *that* it doesn't matter what the individual instances are, a hundred mistakes are corrected by addressing the root cause. Some examples. Student A stopped breathing when approach a difficult passage. this caused a problem with blood flow and effective use of the hands. The solution was to discontinue Non Breathing. Student B sped up whenever playing a passage he perceived as difficult. It seemed he never had enough time to get in all the notes. The reality was that he did not give himself enough time. The solution was to discontinue rushing.   Student C was no worse than any other but she criticized herself severely. Every time she made an error her admonitions against herself were far worse than the musical problems. She was debilitated by self-criticism. The solution was for me to prescribe our functions explicitly. Her job was to play. My job was to listen and if there was a problem I would address it. Her job was not to play and judge. It worked. It works every time.

2) every passage of music that does not go well has 3 sections: the transition from what went well into what didn't, the passage itself, and the transition out of the trouble spot. In most cases it is one of the transitions that is really the problem. If one focusses on getting the transitions smooth, the whole piece starts to sound better. It's effective to slow down the trouble spots and also to attempt them at the right speed. 

[Steve Harrison]

Hi Ian..you're not the only one..as I've aged, my fingers don't always do as I tell them.. sometimes I think they have minds of their own...I find that when playing a piece of music sometimes my eyes and brain are at least three bars ahead of my fingers. To overcome the obvious frustration that this causes, I tend to concentrate on the less demanding tunes that I can play well or just slow my playing down a bit. I still enjoy it and that's what matters. I don't think you will ever get over 'The Wall' but you can adapt your playing to maybe get around it.

[Trapdoor2]

"Discontinue non-breathing" I need to remember that!

I also like the transitions theory. Very astute, Mr. Stecher. I have attacked transitions specifically for years but never thought about it like that.

See, it pays to hang out around here. I wish I could convince my wife of that... ;-)

[Jody Stecher]

It sounds awkwardly put but if I said "breathe" or "keep breathing"  inevitably what happens is the student breathes unnaturally. I just want to gently remove the obstacle. 

Trapdoor2 said:

"Discontinue non-breathing" I need to remember that!

 

[thereallyniceman]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.  Lots of things to take on board there Jody.. thank you.

Taking a breath and analysing the problems is exactly what I need to do. Attempting to play the easy parts too fast and then falling over or blurring notes in the tricky parts has always been my problem.

Oh, and not breathing, grinding teeth and self criticism as the obstacle approaches... I know those too!

I will take a step back today and see what is going wrong rather than getting annoyed by it!! 

Fundamentally and in a nutshell, I can't play like Fred Van Eps !!!   BUT I WANT TO !

 

[Richard William Ineson]

The key phrase here, is "The more I practise the worse it seems to get" the answer to this problem is staring you in the face.

I think it was Chico Marx - the one who played the piano with one finger, who just used to put his hands in a bowl of warm water for five minutes each morning, and after pulling them out and drying them, said, "That's enough practising for today".

Achieving perfection in any art form is difficult, the playing of the finger banjo even more so; I aim to get about seven notes out of ten right, some people aren't so fussy as me.

What I am trying to point out is that you can try too hard and sometimes, actually not playing the banjo for a few weeks will work wonders with your technique, that's what I tell myself anyway. 

Playing the banjo should be fun, why try to drive yourself crazy? Relax, who's bothered if you play a few wrong notes ?

My Granddad was a really bad banjo player, he used to say, "The man who never made a mistake, never made anything".

If it cheers anybody up, I freely admit that I play more bum notes than practically anybody, but I do occasionally get through a tune without making any mistakes, when this happens, it doubles the pleasure of the achievement and really surprises the people who are listening, because then, they think that I make the mistakes in other tunes to make them laugh, a la Les Dawson.

You can fool some of the people all of the time etc.

[thereallyniceman]

Richard, seven out of ten notes right eh?   Wow, you are good :-)

 Since I was young I have been cursed by "Perfectionism". I know it is  silly and I can't help myself. If I do something I want to try to be as good as the best.  Now this includes learning to play the banjo  so if Ossman and Van Eps could do it, so I should be able to.

Unfortunately, this is where it all goes wrong... I CAN'T  :-)

But, I also have the second worse curse, "Dogged Determination" so I can't give up either.  I guess that there is no hope for me really and I guess that I will continue to drive myself crazy!

You are right about having a short break, as I have played (a little slower) through the piece I am struggling with, and  HEY PRESTO most of the notes were approximately in the right place, so watch out Van Eps!

Does anyone else suffer the dreaded Perfectionism??  You have my deepest sympathy.

Some years  ago as part of my "midlife" crisis I almost found a cure for my Perfectionist gene. I took up Karate training and studied 4 nights a week, 3 hours a night and reached Brown Belt after 4 Years... but eventually  I learned that getting your lights punched out 4 nights a week for 4 years was leading nowhere, so I gave up :-)   At least the banjo only hurts the ears !!!!!

[Trapdoor2]

I have decided that I want to play like Olly Oakley. That way, if I miss any notes, I can say that I'm giving a historically accurate performance. ;-)

[Sylvia]

Perfectionism, yes I can identify with that. Why do you think I havn't posted any more videos , I'm never satisfied with any piece that I play, I sit here and listen to you guys and think " why the heck can't I do that".  I only have to make one mistake and the piece is relegated to the bin. I'm like Jodys student C always beating myself up .... however today I had a banjo lesson and tried very much not to be like student C and I hope it worked. Quite seriously I have found all of the comments on this problem helpful,so thanks guys.

thereallyniceman said:

Richard, seven out of ten notes right eh?   Wow, you are good :-)

 Since I was young I have been cursed by "Perfectionism". I know it is  silly and I can't help myself. If I do something I want to try to be as good as the best.  Now this includes learning to play the banjo  so if Ossman and Van Eps could do it, so I should be able to.

Unfortunately, this is where it all goes wrong... I CAN'T  :-)

But, I also have the second worse curse, "Dogged Determination" so I can't give up either.  I guess that there is no hope for me really and I guess that I will continue to drive myself crazy!

You are right about having a short break, as I have played (a little slower) through the piece I am struggling with, and  HEY PRESTO most of the notes were approximately in the right place, so watch out Van Eps!

Does anyone else suffer the dreaded Perfectionism??  You have my deepest sympathy.

Some years  ago as part of my "midlife" crisis I almost found a cure for my Perfectionist gene. I took up Karate training and studied 4 nights a week, 3 hours a night and reached Brown Belt after 4 Years... but even I learned that getting your lights punched out 4 nights a week for 4 years was leading nowhere, so I gave up :-)   At least the banjo only hurts the ears !!!!!

[Jody Stecher]

I learned the technique of no self criticism from Zia Mohiuddin Dagar.  His was the 18th generation of a family of musicians and music teachers of the ancient Dhrupad music of north India. He was sort of an amateur psychologist and would teach by finding whatever strong points a student had and would reinforce these and build on them. Whenever a student would criticize his/her own playing (including silently) he would kindly say: Look, it's MY job to correct mistakes. You are wasting energy doing my job for me. Your job is to play/sing as best as you can. I am listening. Even if I say nothing I am listening and I am noting which parts need some help and I *will* help at the appropriate time. Right now I want to hear you play. But instead of playing you are playing AND criticizing. That's too much for your brain. This is hard music to play and you need all the brain power you can muster. Please don't divide it by wasting your attention on evaluating your playing. Just play. I'm here.  

And this was said with humor and kindness. All resistance would melt away in the student and one came to accept that it was appropriate for a student to sound like a student. With the mind freed to concentrate only on  the music and to some extent on the mechanics of producing it one naturally began to play better.  And sure enough practical advice was given by the teacher but the main thing was the freeing of the mind from counter-productive evaluation.  Instead of condemning one's own playing one came to notice that there were errors with an equanimous attitude. Then one took steps to correct the problems. The beauty of it all was that the student didn't have to adopt or pretend to adopt an "eastern philosophy". It was a simple matter of directing attention in an effective manner.

Sylvia said:

Perfectionism, yes I can identify with that. Why do you think I havn't posted any more videos , I'm never satisfied with any piece that I play, I sit here and listen to you guys and think " why the heck can't I do that".  I only have to make one mistake and the piece is relegated to the bin. I'm like Jodys student C always beating myself up ....