How do you define "mastering" a solo and being able to move on to another one? I've learned a couple of marimba solos and I'm working on my third, and I don't know when I should graduate to another one.

I've learned:
Rain Dance - Gomez
Frogs - Abe

I'm working on:
Katamiya - Sejourne

(When I played Frogs at S&E, I received a proficient and was told to keep working on it, so I'm still working on it while I learn Katamiya.)

Any opinions?

Personally, I would define mastering a solo as being able to play it consistently with all the correct notes, dynamics, articulations, tempos, phrasings, and any other sort of performance aspects, without stopping of course.

I don't think anyone could really master a solo according to your definition of it. being able to play correct notes, dynamics, articulations, tempos, phrasings, and other stuff every time would pretty much make you the best player I've ever heard. Everyone misses notes on occasion. If you can play the solo consistently and make it sound pretty darn close to what was intended then you've mastered the solo.

While it may be true that everyone misses a note once in a while (although there are players I've heard that seem to never miss a note), no one makes any progress as a player by saying "I want to perform this solo in a month or two and only hit 90% of the right notes." Yes, we all miss notes once in a while, but the solos I think that I've mastered are the ones where my note accuracy is closest to 100%.

Well, that's just my 2 cents.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't shoot for 100% percent, cause its definetely cool to get it completely right, but not one can do it all of the time. If you can play through it consistently, missing only a couple of notes, I think you should be fine.

I agree with the responses about consistency, that's definitely something I gauge my completion on. However, most of the time mastering a solo for me is a joint decision that my private teacher and I conclude on, agreeing that I've learned everything I can from that solo and that I have learned it to a point of consistently playing it accurately and being able to perform it well.

Overall just striving to play the piece correctly as well as trying to benefit from it, is how I determine if I've mastered a piece.