When you think about musical progress, doesn’t it feel like it should at least somewhat resemble a halfway straight line?
Step 1: Practice → Step 2: Improve → Step 3: Mastery?
Yeah…not quite.
Growth is often nonlinear. Progress can feel frustrating, unpredictable, and full of plateaus or sudden bursts of success. This came up in conversation with my wife over the weekend, as she was explaining how her running pace (number of minutes per mile) continually springs up and down. It can seem logical that someone who is running an 11-minute mile (and is regularly working out) should expect to soon break a 10.75-minute mile, rather than suddenly ricocheting back to a 11.5-minute mile. But that’s just not how it always works and (I know, I know) it can be frustrating.
This concept has been explored in fields ranging from psychology to sports science and everything in between, and it absolutely applies to musicians, too.
The truth of the matter? Musical progress is often more like a jagged line or a messy spiral. There are loops of setbacks, bursts of inspiration, and long stretches where nothing seems to happen…until suddenly it does.
And that’s okay.
Every Day is a Winding Road
Progress in music is certainly far from a straight line.
Think about when you first picked up your instrument. Maybe your progress felt super fast and obvious at first. But as you advanced, the day-to-day improvements became smaller and more difficult to even notice. You worked just as hard (or harder) but the visible results seemed to slow…or stall entirely.
That’s not failure. It’s just how growth works.
Instead (assuming we keep practicing in the good times and the bad) we feel that we make progress in a particular session…then come back and can’t seem to play it anymore…then work on it again…then things feel a little better…but next time we’re at maybe 50% on a given exercise…then 75%…then 60%…aaaagh! Up and down, up and down, backwards, up, up, down. It can be annoying and downright disappointing.
Why it Feels This Way…
There are several reasons why your progress might seem so nonlinear and unpredictable.
Plateaus:
After a burst of improvement, you may hit a plateau where visible progress slows. The thing to keep in mind here is that this is often a sign that your brain and muscles are consolidating skills before your next breakthrough. Plateaus allow your mind and body to solidify muscle memory and deepen your understanding of concepts that you’ve been absorbing. Without them, growth would be only surface-level and temporary. Definitely not what we’re after.
Skill Integration:
Sometimes progress is happening internally, you just can’t see it yet. Your brain is hard at work behind the scenes, connecting patterns, refining muscle memory, and preparing for the next leap forward.
The Dip Effect:
Author Seth Godin describes The Dip as the challenging middle phase where things feel toughest. Artists sometimes call this The Murky Middle. Again, this is often right before you bust through to a new, higher level.
…and How to Reframe It
I won’t lie and say this is easy but, if you’re stuck at the moment, try to remind yourself that this doesn’t mean that you’re not growing. It actually means that you’re on the brink of something new!
The dips and setbacks in your progress aren’t setbacks at all. They’re opportunities for growth. Facing creative blocks, performance struggles, or technical challenges helps you develop problem-solving skills, patience, and adaptability.
Tell yourself that this über-frustrating musical plateau is just building resilience and creativity. This mindset shift is what separates the good musicians from the great ones.
How to Work Through It?
There’s no way to know exactly how long you may experience the plateau and feel the accompanying funk. There’s also no single foolproof method of getting beyond it. But as you journey through from this side of it all to the other, here are a few things you might consider trying.
Track:
Keep a journal and note all of your small wins in practice and performance (“I nailed that 16th-note triplet fill” or “I recorded three solid vocal takes”).
Listen:
Review old recordings from practice time, rehearsals, or live shows. This can really be eye-opening…growth is sometimes far clearer in hindsight.
Mix It Up:
Vary your practice routine. If you’re stuck on a plateau, change it up for a while. Work on a new style for a week. Try that lick at a drastically different tempo. Switch from technical exercises to creative play for the rest of the session.
Reflect:
Stop. Breathe. Meditate on the progress you have made…not just today, but over time and over the long haul. Ask yourself: Am I better than I was 3 months ago? Better than a year ago? What am I able to play right now that I used to think would be possible?
Recover:
Just like with improving that running pace or increasing weights at the gym, musical progress often happens during rest time, not just during practice time. Again: Stop. Breathe. And step away from the instrument.
Take a day or two to focus on other activities. Go hiking. Revisit the art museum. Finally clean out that closet. Yeah, even that top shelf way up there. Volunteer some time to a community service organization.
Rest, recover, recharge.
Not practicing might seem counterintuitive and counterproductive. But making some time for you can provide clarity and perspective, will reset your creativity, and may very well bring about some of that elusive musical development.
Always keep the big picture in mind. A better aim than expecting to see minute daily progress might be to see yourself trending in an upward direction over time. Like holdings in the stock market, you may see lots of jagged ups and downs, fairly level stretches, and messy spirals. But more important than any of those minuscule moments in time is seeing a growth trend when viewed with a wider lens.
Keep those regular investments in you and your playing coming, my friend!
Small Wins celebration time: What’s one musical skill you’ve grown in (maybe without even realizing it for a while)? Reply below and share about it!
Happy music making–
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Comments
2 responses to “Why Growth Feels Like a Messy Spiral (And How to Make Peace With It)”
My sneakiest plateau acted like it was two and a half years long. I didn’t notice that something was up until one day my station randomly played the first song I learned to sing with a teacher. When I was first learning, progress was very noticeable and the dopamine was rolling in. Once it felt like the progress had stalled, I got bored, then annoyed, then pathologically avoided that song as I moved on to a new one. Next plateau, next song. Rinse and repeat. Fast forward two years, and I found myself singing along without the difficulty I remember from when I learned it. I rerecorded myself singing it, just to make sure it wasn’t my imagination, and it was not! I had sung it with ease and skill that I wasn’t there before. I came to realize that I had still been training my ear, still establishing muscle memory, still honing my breath support and control. I had actually been making progress that entire time, but I was having a hard time seeing it because I was constantly changing my point of reference. I don’t know when I actually climbed out of that slump, and I don’t know if it was because I wasn’t paying attention or if I was just so thoroughly convinced that I couldn’t. I think I will take the time to revisit a few other “dead ends” from the early days. Maybe they aren’t as dead as I thought they were.
YES! I love hearing how happenstance brought you back around to that particular song…and that you found yourself in such a different place with it this go-round. Here’s to much more of THAT in the future!