May 22, 2025 • 12 mins
Every guitarist knows that dreaded feeling of hitting a wall—practicing regularly but seeing no real progress. In this candid discussion, Steve Stein from Guitar Zoom Academy tackles the frustrating phenomenon of guitar plateaus head-on, offering practical wisdom that can transform your playing journey.
Steve breaks down the primary causes of plateaus with refreshing clarity. The culprits? Lack of structure, where random YouTube tutorials create a disjointed learning experience. Ineffective repetition, where players go through the motions without truly focusing on improvement. Absence of feedback, leaving players unable to identify their technical blind spots. And the comfort zone trap—the tendency to stick with what we already know rather than challenging ourselves with new material.
What makes this episode particularly valuable is Steve's no-nonsense approach to breaking through these barriers. He emphasizes the need for clear, specific goals rather than vague aspirations. He advocates for focused practice sessions where quality trumps quantity. And perhaps most importantly, he highlights the transformative power of community and feedback—those "aha moments" that can only come from interaction with more experienced players who can spot what you're missing.
Whether you've been playing for months or decades, this episode delivers the wake-up call many guitarists need. As Steve says, "There's no magic pill here. You have to do the work." But with the right structure, focus, and guidance, that work becomes infinitely more rewarding. Ready to break through your plateau? This conversation is your first step toward renewed progress and passion for the guitar. Connect with Guitar Zoom Academy to build your personalized roadmap to guitar mastery today!
Links:
Check out the GuitarZoom Academy:
https://academy.guitarzoom.com/
- Steve’s Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/stinemus...
- GuitarZoom Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/guitarz0...
- Songs Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/GuitarSo... .
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steve (00:00):
Hey, Steve Stine from the Guitar Zoom Academy.
Here and today we're going tobe talking about why guitar
players wind up having a plateauand what we can do to try and
break through that.
So first thing we need to do is, as a guitar player, kind of
define what that means to us.
What is a plateau?
Oftentimes, it means that we'replaying, we're practicing
regularly, but we're just notseeing the improvement that we'd
like to.
(00:20):
Now, why does this happen?
Well, there's all sorts ofdifferent reasons.
The first thing we're going totalk about is lack of structure.
Okay, sometimes what happens isyou know you, you've been
learning random things, you knowYouTube videos or whatever it
might be, and you might, youknow, connect with something,
but in the bigger picture,you're really not.
You're not making the progressthat you want, and so you know,
(00:46):
randomizing all of thesedifferent things.
What I try and remind people todo is, if you really want to
make forward motion with yourplaying, there's a few things
that we can look at, but one ofthem is thinking about what your
foundation is.
What is it that you really wantto try and achieve?
Okay, and then being verycareful of all of the other
stuff, right?
So let's take a very simpleexample.
Let's say, for instance, yourgoal was to learn how to connect
(01:10):
chords better.
Okay, so you're trying to play.
You know G and C and E, minorand D, or a bar chord or
something like that, and you'restruggling with elements of this
.
You're struggling with movingfrom G to the bar chord, or
you're struggling with the barchord itself, or C is difficult
for you to play.
So you already have ideas inyour head of what needs to be
(01:32):
done to be able to achieve thisfoundation of playing these
chords and playing the song orsongs that you want to be able
to do.
But you find yourself thenpracticing.
You know tapping or somethinglike that, or you're learning
triads on your guitar orsomething.
Now, again, I'm not saying thatany of that is bad.
It all has to do with how muchtime you have, whether or not
(01:56):
these different kind of levelsof study are completely
disconnected or whether there'ssome sort of connection between
them, and then whether or notyou know you have enough
availability in your brain interms of space to be able to do
all of these different things.
Again, if you're practicing andyou're loving what you're doing
(02:17):
and everything's feeling good,who am I to say that you're
doing anything right or wrong?
If it's working for you, that'sgreat.
The reason why you're probablywho am I to say that you're
doing anything right or wrong?
If it's working for you, that'sgreat.
The reason why you're probablyhearing this right now is
because maybe things aren'tgreat, maybe you are kind of
lost and you're not really surewhat to do and you do feel like
you're on a plateau and you'renot really getting anywhere.
That's where the problem is,you see.
So you have to be a little bitcareful with how much stuff
(02:40):
you're trying to do and whetheror not the things that you're
trying to do are connected insome way that can benefit each
other.
So if you're trying to learn howto play these chords and then
all of a sudden, you're workingon Eddie Van Halen tapping, it
might be motivating for you, buthopefully you can understand
that there's a vast disconnectbetween what's happening with
your chords and your strummingand all that kind of stuff and
(03:00):
the fact that you're trying tolearn how to tap.
Oftentimes this happens toobecause there's such a
disconnect in your ability atthat point, if I'm talking to
somebody who's been playingguitar for two months or three
months and all of a sudden ourconversation goes to you know
string tapping or something likethat.
They might not be technicallyready for that.
(03:21):
Not only you know, mentallyready for whatever that is.
They don't know scales.
None of this is going to makesense.
The technique or the art of theactual tap isn't something that
they've developed yet.
They're still trying to learnhow to strum.
So Just think about that alittle bit.
So common causes of plateau oneis the lack of structure.
We're all over the place.
The next thing is ineffectiverepetition.
(03:44):
We practice the same thingsover and over and over, but
we're not really payingattention to the specifics and
the struggles that we're havingand how to improve those.
So we're going through themotion, but we're not really
(04:08):
paying attention to the detail.
So let's say you were practicinga riff of some sort, some song
that you like, okay, and you'reworking through it.
But you know, think about whatgoes into that.
There's the visualization andthe memorization of what you're
trying to do, and then there'sthe execution of what you're
trying to do, the picking, theaction of the pick, whether it's
(04:29):
down picking, alternate picking, changing strings, whatever it
might be, and then there's thefingers needed to be able to
play the riff.
And then there's timing, right,there's tone, there's all of
these different kinds of things,there's dynamics.
So you know, sometimes we justsee the obvious.
Okay, here's this riff and youknow it goes two, four, five or
something like that.
Okay, so we memorize that,we've got that down, but then we
(04:51):
need to work on the executionand then we need to work on the
quality of what we're doing aswell.
So learning how to kind of deepdive into it with a focused mind
so this is something else thatI try and get people understand
too is when you do practice,practice with intention and
practice with focus.
You know, don't justhaphazardly practice with the TV
on and the phones ringing andyou know you're making something
(05:14):
to eat and then you've got anextra five minutes to try and
fit in there while you'rewatching the news.
If it's something that'sautomated, that you you know
again a practice element thatyou're just doing a warmup of
some sort that doesn't requireall that thought, hey, that's
great.
But if right now, what you needto do is be practicing
something to try and develop itto, you know, get out of this
(05:35):
plateau that you feel likeyou're on you need to focus.
You know it's not always abouthow much time you spend,
although that again, the balanceof how much brain space you
have available versus how muchtime you have and how many
things you're going to attack.
That's kind of the main sectionthere.
But even if you only had fiveor 10 minutes, you could still
make progress by really learninghow to focus on whatever it is
(05:58):
that you're trying to develop.
The other problem I see is thatoftentimes there's no feedback,
so you don't know whether or notwhat you're doing is working
right.
Or you need someone to tell youhey, you're missing this.
Or if you tried this a littlebit differently, it might be
easier for you.
Or as I'm watching you play,I'm seeing that you know your
(06:19):
arm is bent this way and maybe,if you try to do this, or you
know, as I watch you play thatriff, I'm seeing that you're
down picking, you're strugglingwith your down picking, or
whatever it might be.
So assessment is reallyimportant.
When you don't have anyfeedback, it's hard to know
whether what you're doing isactually working for you.
Okay, and the other thing Iwould mention too is the comfort
zone trap.
(06:39):
Okay, you keep playing whatyou're already good at Okay.
So you're not really trying toexpand the palette, you're just
you're just staying in thatcomfort zone.
And I find this a lot when itcomes to scales, for instance.
You know, maybe the pentatonic,and again, the pentatonic is an
amazing scale and there's amillion things we can do with it
.
But sometimes what happens issomebody develops, you know, the
(07:01):
first position of thepentatonic scale, or a couple of
positions, and then that's it,or they memorize the notes on
their sixth string, but thenthey never bothered to memorize
any other notes.
You find that kind of halfwaypoint where you've learned
something that's kind of usefuland or very useful for that
matter, but then you're notreally wanting to expand that
(07:23):
because you've already felt whatit's like to actually have to
spend the time to develop that.
So, if that kind of makes sense, that's what we do.
Now, how do we break throughthis?
Well, there's a couple ofdifferent things we can do.
Number one we can define aclear outcome, for instance a
goal I want to be able towhatever.
Now, oftentimes I hear peoplesay you know, I just want to get
(07:45):
better at guitar, I want to bea holistic guitar player, and
again, there's nothing wrongwith that.
For some people that worksreally well, but for other
people it's easier to definesomething specific.
I want to learn to play my songsfaster, more accurately, um,
you know, cleaner, whatever.
(08:05):
Whatever we want to say aboutthose things, but that's what I
want to be able to do.
I want to.
I want to learn how to do that.
Or I want to learn how toimprovise melodically, so when I
play it doesn't just sound likeI'm playing through a scale.
Or I want to develop moreunderstanding of my fretboard,
the scales, the chords, you know, arpeggios, all of those things
that are happening on myfretboard.
(08:26):
I want to learn to visualizethose better and understand the
theory behind them.
There's a lot of differentthings.
So the next thing is isdeveloping a focused plan, okay,
that works into this goal,developing a path, excuse me, or
a roadmap, if you will, to tryand develop into this goal or
these goals that we have.
(08:48):
The other thing I think thathelps with a breakthrough is, as
I said before, assessment,looking for someone to hold you
accountable, looking for insight, those aha moments that you can
have when you're actuallytalking to somebody.
I've always told people if youwant to get really good at darts
or you want to get really goodat pool, the easiest thing to do
is, you know, go to a bowlingalley and bowl with really good
(09:12):
bowlers.
Or, if you play pool, find somefriends that are really good at
pool and hang out with them andplay with them.
And you might not be certainlythe best pool player right now,
but you're going to learn a lotby hanging out with other pool
players versus just, you know,reading a book on how to play
pool or watching a video on howto play pool.
Again, those can be very, veryvaluable, there's no doubt about
(09:34):
it.
But if you're actually hangingout with somebody and you can
interact with them and you canask them questions and they can
respond, and you go oh, I neverthought about it that way, you
can get a lot.
There's a lot of aha momentsthat can happen from that.
Okay, and just you know, bottomline, stay open to change.
Okay, plateaus often mean it'stime for you to evolve in your
(09:56):
practice.
If you start feeling likethings are kind of stuck, you
have to reflect and see whatyou're doing, see what you need.
Again, think about yourfoundation.
Trim the fat if you need,because, again, the foundation
versus all this other stuff outhere, is dependent on how much
time you have to practice.
You know, again, if you have 10minutes or 20 minutes or 30
minutes, you might not have timefor all these other things.
(10:17):
But overall, the more you canmake these things and this fit
together, the more progress youcan make.
Certainly, when you practice,make sure that you're focused
and try and find, you know, someway of having communication.
So just remember, if you know,we here at the Guitar Zoom
(10:37):
Academy that's what this wholething is about is building you a
game plan, a roadmap, so youunderstand a practice routine of
what it is that you're supposedto be working on, weekly
assessments of your playing andthen just being available, you
know, literally on a daily basis, to be able to have
conversations with you, to giveyou clarity and understanding
(10:58):
and then get you right back towork.
Bottom line is is that nothinghappens unless you're working on
it right.
There's no magic pill here.
You have to do the work.
The difference is is if youdon't know what to be doing, it
can be a struggle, and the otherpart is is if you don't know
how to get out of the mud, ifyou don't know how to get
unstuck.
That's where we get into aplateau and we get confused.
(11:21):
So, being able to haveconversations with people you
know, you and I sit down and weactually talk about something
and you tell me what's going on,or you show me what's going on,
that's how we get you out ofthere.
So, anyway, take care, staypositive and be sure to check
out Guitar Zoom Academy.
All right?
Hey, Steve Stine from the Guitar Zoom Academy.
Here and today we're going tobe talking about why guitar
players wind up having a plateauand what we can do to try and
break through that.
So first thing we need to do is, as a guitar player, kind of
define what that means to us.
What is a plateau?
Oftentimes, it means that we'replaying, we're practicing
regularly, but we're just notseeing the improvement that we'd
like to.
(00:20):
Now, why does this happen?
Well, there's all sorts ofdifferent reasons.
The first thing we're going totalk about is lack of structure.
Okay, sometimes what happens isyou know you, you've been
learning random things, you knowYouTube videos or whatever it
might be, and you might, youknow, connect with something,
but in the bigger picture,you're really not.
You're not making the progressthat you want, and so you know,
(00:46):
randomizing all of thesedifferent things.
What I try and remind people todo is, if you really want to
make forward motion with yourplaying, there's a few things
that we can look at, but one ofthem is thinking about what your
foundation is.
What is it that you really wantto try and achieve?
Okay, and then being verycareful of all of the other
stuff, right?
So let's take a very simpleexample.
Let's say, for instance, yourgoal was to learn how to connect
(01:10):
chords better.
Okay, so you're trying to play.
You know G and C and E, minorand D, or a bar chord or
something like that, and you'restruggling with elements of this
.
You're struggling with movingfrom G to the bar chord, or
you're struggling with the barchord itself, or C is difficult
for you to play.
So you already have ideas inyour head of what needs to be
(01:32):
done to be able to achieve thisfoundation of playing these
chords and playing the song orsongs that you want to be able
to do.
But you find yourself thenpracticing.
You know tapping or somethinglike that, or you're learning
triads on your guitar orsomething.
Now, again, I'm not saying thatany of that is bad.
It all has to do with how muchtime you have, whether or not
(01:56):
these different kind of levelsof study are completely
disconnected or whether there'ssome sort of connection between
them, and then whether or notyou know you have enough
availability in your brain interms of space to be able to do
all of these different things.
Again, if you're practicing andyou're loving what you're doing
(02:17):
and everything's feeling good,who am I to say that you're
doing anything right or wrong?
If it's working for you, that'sgreat.
The reason why you're probablywho am I to say that you're
doing anything right or wrong?
If it's working for you, that'sgreat.
The reason why you're probablyhearing this right now is
because maybe things aren'tgreat, maybe you are kind of
lost and you're not really surewhat to do and you do feel like
you're on a plateau and you'renot really getting anywhere.
That's where the problem is,you see.
So you have to be a little bitcareful with how much stuff
(02:40):
you're trying to do and whetheror not the things that you're
trying to do are connected insome way that can benefit each
other.
So if you're trying to learn howto play these chords and then
all of a sudden, you're workingon Eddie Van Halen tapping, it
might be motivating for you, buthopefully you can understand
that there's a vast disconnectbetween what's happening with
your chords and your strummingand all that kind of stuff and
(03:00):
the fact that you're trying tolearn how to tap.
Oftentimes this happens toobecause there's such a
disconnect in your ability atthat point, if I'm talking to
somebody who's been playingguitar for two months or three
months and all of a sudden ourconversation goes to you know
string tapping or something likethat.
They might not be technicallyready for that.
(03:21):
Not only you know, mentallyready for whatever that is.
They don't know scales.
None of this is going to makesense.
The technique or the art of theactual tap isn't something that
they've developed yet.
They're still trying to learnhow to strum.
So Just think about that alittle bit.
So common causes of plateau oneis the lack of structure.
We're all over the place.
The next thing is ineffectiverepetition.
(03:44):
We practice the same thingsover and over and over, but
we're not really payingattention to the specifics and
the struggles that we're havingand how to improve those.
So we're going through themotion, but we're not really
(04:08):
paying attention to the detail.
So let's say you were practicinga riff of some sort, some song
that you like, okay, and you'reworking through it.
But you know, think about whatgoes into that.
There's the visualization andthe memorization of what you're
trying to do, and then there'sthe execution of what you're
trying to do, the picking, theaction of the pick, whether it's
(04:29):
down picking, alternate picking, changing strings, whatever it
might be, and then there's thefingers needed to be able to
play the riff.
And then there's timing, right,there's tone, there's all of
these different kinds of things,there's dynamics.
So you know, sometimes we justsee the obvious.
Okay, here's this riff and youknow it goes two, four, five or
something like that.
Okay, so we memorize that,we've got that down, but then we
(04:51):
need to work on the executionand then we need to work on the
quality of what we're doing aswell.
So learning how to kind of deepdive into it with a focused mind
so this is something else thatI try and get people understand
too is when you do practice,practice with intention and
practice with focus.
You know, don't justhaphazardly practice with the TV
on and the phones ringing andyou know you're making something
(05:14):
to eat and then you've got anextra five minutes to try and
fit in there while you'rewatching the news.
If it's something that'sautomated, that you you know
again a practice element thatyou're just doing a warmup of
some sort that doesn't requireall that thought, hey, that's
great.
But if right now, what you needto do is be practicing
something to try and develop itto, you know, get out of this
(05:35):
plateau that you feel likeyou're on you need to focus.
You know it's not always abouthow much time you spend,
although that again, the balanceof how much brain space you
have available versus how muchtime you have and how many
things you're going to attack.
That's kind of the main sectionthere.
But even if you only had fiveor 10 minutes, you could still
make progress by really learninghow to focus on whatever it is
(05:58):
that you're trying to develop.
The other problem I see is thatoftentimes there's no feedback,
so you don't know whether or notwhat you're doing is working
right.
Or you need someone to tell youhey, you're missing this.
Or if you tried this a littlebit differently, it might be
easier for you.
Or as I'm watching you play,I'm seeing that you know your
(06:19):
arm is bent this way and maybe,if you try to do this, or you
know, as I watch you play thatriff, I'm seeing that you're
down picking, you're strugglingwith your down picking, or
whatever it might be.
So assessment is reallyimportant.
When you don't have anyfeedback, it's hard to know
whether what you're doing isactually working for you.
Okay, and the other thing Iwould mention too is the comfort
zone trap.
(06:39):
Okay, you keep playing whatyou're already good at Okay.
So you're not really trying toexpand the palette, you're just
you're just staying in thatcomfort zone.
And I find this a lot when itcomes to scales, for instance.
You know, maybe the pentatonic,and again, the pentatonic is an
amazing scale and there's amillion things we can do with it
.
But sometimes what happens issomebody develops, you know, the
(07:01):
first position of thepentatonic scale, or a couple of
positions, and then that's it,or they memorize the notes on
their sixth string, but thenthey never bothered to memorize
any other notes.
You find that kind of halfwaypoint where you've learned
something that's kind of usefuland or very useful for that
matter, but then you're notreally wanting to expand that
(07:23):
because you've already felt whatit's like to actually have to
spend the time to develop that.
So, if that kind of makes sense, that's what we do.
Now, how do we break throughthis?
Well, there's a couple ofdifferent things we can do.
Number one we can define aclear outcome, for instance a
goal I want to be able towhatever.
Now, oftentimes I hear peoplesay you know, I just want to get
(07:45):
better at guitar, I want to bea holistic guitar player, and
again, there's nothing wrongwith that.
For some people that worksreally well, but for other
people it's easier to definesomething specific.
I want to learn to play my songsfaster, more accurately, um,
you know, cleaner, whatever.
(08:05):
Whatever we want to say aboutthose things, but that's what I
want to be able to do.
I want to.
I want to learn how to do that.
Or I want to learn how toimprovise melodically, so when I
play it doesn't just sound likeI'm playing through a scale.
Or I want to develop moreunderstanding of my fretboard,
the scales, the chords, you know, arpeggios, all of those things
that are happening on myfretboard.
(08:26):
I want to learn to visualizethose better and understand the
theory behind them.
There's a lot of differentthings.
So the next thing is isdeveloping a focused plan, okay,
that works into this goal,developing a path, excuse me, or
a roadmap, if you will, to tryand develop into this goal or
these goals that we have.
(08:48):
The other thing I think thathelps with a breakthrough is, as
I said before, assessment,looking for someone to hold you
accountable, looking for insight, those aha moments that you can
have when you're actuallytalking to somebody.
I've always told people if youwant to get really good at darts
or you want to get really goodat pool, the easiest thing to do
is, you know, go to a bowlingalley and bowl with really good
(09:12):
bowlers.
Or, if you play pool, find somefriends that are really good at
pool and hang out with them andplay with them.
And you might not be certainlythe best pool player right now,
but you're going to learn a lotby hanging out with other pool
players versus just, you know,reading a book on how to play
pool or watching a video on howto play pool.
Again, those can be very, veryvaluable, there's no doubt about
(09:34):
it.
But if you're actually hangingout with somebody and you can
interact with them and you canask them questions and they can
respond, and you go oh, I neverthought about it that way, you
can get a lot.
There's a lot of aha momentsthat can happen from that.
Okay, and just you know, bottomline, stay open to change.
Okay, plateaus often mean it'stime for you to evolve in your
(09:56):
practice.
If you start feeling likethings are kind of stuck, you
have to reflect and see whatyou're doing, see what you need.
Again, think about yourfoundation.
Trim the fat if you need,because, again, the foundation
versus all this other stuff outhere, is dependent on how much
time you have to practice.
You know, again, if you have 10minutes or 20 minutes or 30
minutes, you might not have timefor all these other things.
(10:17):
But overall, the more you canmake these things and this fit
together, the more progress youcan make.
Certainly, when you practice,make sure that you're focused
and try and find, you know, someway of having communication.
So just remember, if you know,we here at the Guitar Zoom
(10:37):
Academy that's what this wholething is about is building you a
game plan, a roadmap, so youunderstand a practice routine of
what it is that you're supposedto be working on, weekly
assessments of your playing andthen just being available, you
know, literally on a daily basis, to be able to have
conversations with you, to giveyou clarity and understanding
(10:58):
and then get you right back towork.
Bottom line is is that nothinghappens unless you're working on
it right.
There's no magic pill here.
You have to do the work.
The difference is is if youdon't know what to be doing, it
can be a struggle, and the otherpart is is if you don't know
how to get out of the mud, ifyou don't know how to get
unstuck.
That's where we get into aplateau and we get confused.
(11:21):
So, being able to haveconversations with people you
know, you and I sit down and weactually talk about something
and you tell me what's going on,or you show me what's going on,
that's how we get you out ofthere.
So, anyway, take care, staypositive and be sure to check
out Guitar Zoom Academy.
All right?
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