Your biggest leap

[mo.ziegler]

After being in an awful rut for the past couple of months, I thought i would ask my fellow musicians:

What was the single most beneficial thing that improved your playing, and really pushed you to the level you are today?

I'm curious to hear about all the fun, interesting, and possibly quirky things that have made you the musician you are today.

[BlakeJustBlake]

Playing with other people, learning about chord spellings.

[BobOnBass]

Playing with others for sure! Technically I am average at best, playing with others made me groove and that improved me soooo much. For me, this showed me that, thankfully, it is groove first and technique second.

That said, I am sure knowing more about music theory can only be good and it's still something I hope to learn more about.

B.

[BlakeJustBlake]

I think knowing more about music theory is one thing, but having it internalized is what really makes it useful.

[oerk]

Learning how to determine in what key a song is, and how they interact with the chords.

This really did turn my understanding of theory around, and I'm constantly improving my playing because of it.

[MalcolmAmos]

I came to bass from rhythm guitar and it is true we getards do fill our bass lines too full. Nothing wrong with roots and R-5's. Band I'm in - just the two of us - the rhythm guitar and vocalist wings his progression, I never know when he will move to the next chord. If I'm winging my bass line also we produce some really bad "noise". If he is going to wing it, and he will, I need to furnish the foundation, taken awhile to work this out, I watch his fretting hand and change chords when he does. He leads I follow with a steady beat. We do sound better.

The leap I'm talking about - you gotta work it out, do what ever sounds best. If it sounds good it's good.

[Low Sound Love]

+ infinity +1 for playing with other people, or in a completely different setting. Whenever we feel like playing in our grunge/alt rock band is getting in a rut, the guitarist/singer and me go work on some acoustic songs for a few days, where it's just him playing acoustic and singing and me accompanying on bass or electric guitar.

change your playing environment, find some other cats to play with, play a genre you don't usually play. that'll force you to do things differently from what you're stuck doing all of the time. good luck!

[nysbob]

Recording. Nothing helps you understand how a track works like hearing yourself on playback.

As far as technical playing, when I switched to right hand 3 finger back in '73 enabled me to physically execute what I was hearing in my head.

[WalterBush]

Being accountable to a group, especially if that group's purpose is for something besides fun; my jazz combo in college, for instance, who wanted good grades, or a band who has to learn hours of material in a short time or turn down paying gigs. Putting myself in those situations is what helped me more than any single other thing I did.

Pressure's a good motivator to practice

[stjohn1299]

It may not have been necessarily a big BASS leap forward, but forcing myself to learn to play and sing at the same time has been a huge benefit in the context of a band. I've got a long way to go, but I'm miles ahead of where I was. There's no magic formula to it either: you just have to do it. One benefit on bass from doing that, though, is it does force you to learn more about how your basslines fit in with the context of the vocal melodies, as far as the beats to play on and so forth.

[joelc1319]

+1000 playing with others. my biggest leap was learning to play jazz...and being FORCED to do it on a gig! I fared well enough for the gig but it really put my knowledge of the instrument, and theory, to the test!

[Already In Use]

Answering an ad for a bass player. Another vote for playing music with live people.

[G0rilla]

Met one drummer who lives about 45 mins from me, we play in band together, and we jam alot together. We even have played few spontaneous jams in few bars

[JTE]

A. Learning music, not the bass. It took a while, but I finally figured out that the real key is to play music on the bass, not play the bass. So, learning basic functional harmony, how to spell chords, how to harmonize the major scale, etc. was much more useful than learning how to play faster, or doing "exercises".

B. Playing songs with just the drummer and me. The key here is to play it just like you would with the whole band kicking, and avoid the temptation to add more because it sounds empty. This allow both of you to focus on being tight.

C. This is the technique section, not the theory section so learning to keep my thumb down in the back, paying attention to how my hands and wrists felt, and practicing with a metronome only clicking on 2 and 4 were the best physical things I learned. But the best thing I ever learned is that the physical aspect of playing are utterly the least important.

John

[YellowJacket]

Acquiring a bass and taking a lesson.

This is instrument #4 for me so I already understand music, how to spell chords, etc etc. I always dabbled and it was obvious that I had a natural gift to play bass but I just needed a bit of direction with my technique. (My right hand was all wrong) I think as a musician we need to know how to play notes and also what notes to play. As people have touched on, picking the right note is as important as being able to play notes cleanly and accurately.

So, acquiring a bass and taking a lesson? Well, I was trying to use finger technique like I was playing guitar. Plucking the string vs rubbing the string makes for week and uneven tone as well as uneven rhythm, which is a sin on bass. I now have my thumb safely anchored on the pickup and I am practicing 'rubbing' the string to create a solid tone with lots of core and to built up callouses. I also realize that bass is very much a rhythm instrument, moreso than any other aside from percussion. So, I have been doing regular metronome practice with various rhythm exercises on my scales to try and build up coordination and accuracy.

[Spraeg]

+1 on playing with people, but also breaking out of your comfort zone, and playing with people who force you to do so. I learned playing blues, then went on to punk (since thats what I listened to at the time), then found myself playing in a metal band, and it forced me to play differently. My next band, again, forced me to play differently, as well as my current band now forces me to do things that I normally would shy away from, all of which broadens your range and opens up your playing. Taking up drums as a side instrument also helped alot, especially early on with timing and understanding how drum lines work and how to work better and around a drummer.

[mambo4]

+1 to playing with others.
specifically: Playing real gigs with others who were more experienced and knowledgeable. on the job training trumps all.

[251]

Originally Posted by mo.ziegler

After being in an awful rut for the past couple of months, I thought i would ask my fellow musicians:

What was the single most beneficial thing that improved your playing, and really pushed you to the level you are today?

I'm curious to hear about all the fun, interesting, and possibly quirky things that have made you the musician you are today.

I was asked to provide 2 hrs of music at a local Farmer's Market on Saturday Mornings. I recruited my ensemble music lesson & most of us showed up most Saturday's.

Most people don't stay in the Farmer's Market for more than 20 or 30 minutes & they don't listen closely. We all just relaxed & suspended judgement on what we were playing. Then we noticed we could hear each other while we played & began to interact; crescendo/decrecendo, coping each other's riffs, double time tempo ...

Being able to hear while we played changed the way we played & what we played. Doing so where we could be heard, basically an open rehearsal, gave us the confidence to stop thinking & let the music come out. There is a lot to be said for playing in front of an uncritical audience. Especially if they occasionally applaud. 8-)

[stuhammfan]

I would say practicing my weak areas. Stanley clarke said those words years ago in a interview and he was dead on. He stated not to practice things your good at,(which we all like to do) Instead, target your weak areas. In my case, it was reading and theory. So ive pushed myself to read and i do believe its made me a better overall player. Funny thing is i rarely ever have to do it. And hanging out with a very close friend who is a guitar virtuoso( just got his bachelor's in music, working on his masters) has been a huge help. He's classically trained and pointed out something very basic to me. Correct my left hand finger position. I never really payed close attention to the details my friend pointed out, such as "arching" your fingertips with your left(fretting) hand. It immediately made an impact on my playing.

[Li Shenron]

Originally Posted by mo.ziegler

What was the single most beneficial thing that improved your playing, and really pushed you to the level you are today?

Probably Jamie Andreas' articles, particularly the one about discovering relaxation.