Can improvement stop ?

[Ethan Winer]

I have been playing guitar for nearly fifty years. During the first,say, fifteen years, my playing skill developed rapidly. After that it slowed. During the last fifteen years it has plateaued.

Sure, at some point your fingers can't go any faster. But your sense of musicality and understanding of harmonic structure etc can always continue to evolve.

--Ethan

 

[Beerhunter]

I think you keep learning until you start teaching...

 

[citizen77]

I think you keep learning until you start teaching...

Nah, once you start teaching you only then begin to learn how much you don't know.

 

[VomitHatSteve]

I often tell my students this example:

Even if I was the greatest guitarist in the world, I would still take lessons - but I would take lessons from vocalists, cellists, even drummers. There is something always available to learn from others and their experience. Even if I was the greatest teacher in the world, there are always going to be different and developing pedagogical schools that have something to offer.

This!

I've found that every time I learn to play a new instrument, my bass-playing skills jump up several steps.

I'll bet it's possible to get to the point where your own improvements are only noticeable to other audio engineers...

Also this!

 

[BradDollar]

I think you can constantly improve. However, once you're 80% there, every advantage you gain means that you tragically broke something as you were experimenting and had to fix it. If its good, its a result of throwing a wrench in the works. It's just hard to make huge changes after a certain point. And then there's the unforgiving factor of time. Thats really the deciding factor of how much you can work on something. Also, one could argue that if you chisel long enough, you sculpt away the marble. Same is true of music. In the end? There's no rules.

Brad Dollar
[San Francisco Bay Area Recording Engineer Producer Studio Audio Mix Master]

 

[grimtraveller]

Brad, what you say there is intriguingly vague; can you explain what you mean ? It seems potentially fascinating and I get bits of it but I want to understand exactly what you're trying to get across.