Only picked up the guitar to review intervals today, and it was really late, so didn’t actually play. Yet I felt very rejuvenated from not having to go through the typical practice routine (yesterday’s was a typical example).

I stumbled upon this great article by Joshua Foer about memory techniques written from a participatory journalism viewpoint. I’ve encountered many of the principles behind effective memory techniques discussed before, but one thing that I found powerful and inspiring was the discussion of the plateau. As an example from the article, most people maintain the same typing speed after learning initially, even though they theoretically could be perpetually improving.

It’s often believed that there’s a limit to what one can do, but according to some fancy scientists referenced in this article, the only thing holding us back are beliefs of our limit at that particular point.

The strategies that top achievers employ to get to the top are:

1. focus on technique
2. stay goal-oriented
3. get immediate feedback after performance

The timing of me reading this article couldn’t have been better, because I’ve been thinking these past couple of days that maybe I simply can’t play certain pieces at the speed they were intended to be played (and other such . This has brought back the confidence to keep pushing myself.

I hadn’t talked about my quest to improve relative pitch. Relative pitch is useful for transcribing tunes, as well as for playing with other folks (ultimate fun!). So I downloaded a pre-made Anki deck with a couple of chord progressions, and started to add my own as well. Some progressions that have been kicking my ass are

i-IVMaj7-iv
I-IV Can you believe this?