<spoiler> There are no questions or words of wisdom in this post. It's pretty much just self-indulgence. Feel free to skip to the next thread.
</spoiler>
So I picked up the bass again about a year ago and started to seriously get into it. I've been taking lessons and practicing fairly regularly since then, but up til now I hadn't noticed a great deal of improvement in my playing...until last night.
I was at a lesson, and my brain was fried from a rough few weeks at work, so I wasn't up for anything too mentally challenging. We put aside the theory lesson and just started transcribing a few of my favorite tunes. Had there been beer on hand we would have cracked open a few and gotten completely unprofessional about the whole thing...it was that kinda week.
Anyway, while we're going about this I noticed a couple of things:
1) I pick up new rhythms and licks much more quickly than before, such as when we're putting a rhythm on an arpeggio series. I used to struggle, but I've noticed I'm much quicker to hear and follow along with my left (fretting) hand.
2) My tone and articulation are much better. I've got a much better legato than I had when I started, and I'm getting a lot closer to being able to play each note at the desired dynamic level.
I made a promise to myself when I started learning to play bass, that I wouldn't be a sloppy player. "Just playing all the notes" isn't good enough. When I cover another bassist's bass line I try to make it to sound exactly the way they play it, so I pay close attention to all those subtleties whenever I practice. It's incredibly satisfying to see it paying off!
