HOW DO WE MEASURE PROGRESS?

Welcome! Continuing our focus on the how and why rather than just the what, one of the things that a lot of us really struggle with when learning an instrument is how to meaningfully measure our progress. How do I actually know that I’m getting better? And what do I do with my observations about my own playing that will help me target my practice at measurable progress outcomes for my playing?

Music is a tricky beast in this respect, largely because in research terms, the most important outputs are qualitative, not quantitative. We could spend our time measuring how fast we can play a particular line, and indeed there are occasions on which reaching a particular tempo for a given passage is absolutely essential for the music to work—particularly in styles of music that often rely on speed and dexterity for their impact, such as fusion or death metal.

If we have a fixed idea of how a particular piece should sound, any deviation from that in the moment will most likely feel like failure

However, when it comes to groove, tone, our ability to deploy particular aspects of our theory knowledge in context to make great lines, improvisation, soloing, or how we apply any given