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Essay: How To Measure Progress On The Guitar Measuring the progress you make on the guitar is a scientific process. As with all scientific experiments, there are two kinds of observations and comparisons you can make: quantitative ones, and qualitative ones. Quantitative Observation A quantitative observation has to do with something that can be “quantified”, that is to say it can be counted or measured by some physical process or tool. The following things are examples of quantitative thinking: • What is the maximum metronome speed at
which I can play this exercise without missing a note? The answers to all these questions will either be a number or a clear yes or no. The answer can also be independently verified by someone else. For example, you can measure speed by looking at the metronome. You can measure what fret you’re at by looking at the fret. You can count exercise repetitions, and if you route the audio playback through a wave editor you can get a visual depiction of a note’s start time, end time, and peak-to-peak volume, and measure very precisely the time at which everything occurred. It’s very easy to track quantitative progress. Just keep track of the numbers and watch as they change over time. Quantitative progress is fun to graph. However, your progress will not be uniform over time. You will experience three stages. First you will have at least one burst of rapid growth as you focus attention on the exercise. Some of the improvement will come from the fact that whatever is measured tends to improve because you pay attention to it. The second stage is characterized by plateaus of slow growth interspersed with intermittent bursty gains even if the time you spend doing the exercises remains constant. First you invest the time and effort, then you get a burst of payoff. The size of the bursts gradually decreases. The third stage is characterized by extremely slow growth particularly in terms of speed. You have to fight for every extra bit of improvement. If you want to use quantitative measurement as a way to grade the efficacy of my instruction, you can do more than just graph the changes in the maximum speed of your favorite exercise. Try graphing your maximum speed (or whatever thing you’re tracking) as well as its first-order differential, compared to the amount of time, in minutes, that you put into the exercise over the previous month. The speed-to-time-invested ratio shows you the payoff from the practice you’re putting in, and the first-order differential-to-time-invested ratio will show you whether your practice is becoming more efficient. If the latter graph is doing anything but decrease exponentially, your practice is becoming more efficient over time. Qualitative ObservationQualitative observations are not as cut and dried as quantitative ones. A qualitative observation cannot be quantified, and has to do with relative comparison or subjective criteria. • If I record myself and listen to the
tape, can I hear the difference in tone between my up and down pick
strokes? Even when there’s a maximum speed involved in these observations, there’s still a subjective component such as what “good” sounds like. The more sophisticated your ear becomes, the more you will notice things to improve in your playing. This is not an easy type of measurement to delegate to someone else. A more experienced listener will hear things that a less experienced one won’t. The way to measure qualitative change is to take recorded snapshots of your playing once a month. Listen back at the end of the month and determine whether you can hear an improvement. Or, when trying to reduce muscle tension or improve playing form, simply write down your observations and compare them to your level of tension and your quality of form a few weeks later. Important tools for
measuring progress: • Metronome (most important quantitative
tool)
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