Hand Excercise
 

Hello Adam,

Recently I joined Michael Harris Tranz-Fusion for some upcoming shows which means I am spending the next month trying to get my performance execution up to Adam Nitti studio level for the tracks you did :-)
Being mostly a funk player in my past I have rarely pushed myself to execute the more intricate arpeggios/runs on a regular basis.
I am interested in what short term and long term routine you may suggest for stamina and articulation?
(Currently I am working the actual material every other day and sticking to just metronome guided whole tone stretches and varied timing arp sweeps.)

Really enjoying the challenge btw, love the work.

hi rikk!

great to meet you. michael is awesome... so cool that you'll be working with him! i had an absolute blast playing on that stuff. thanks for the kind words regarding my parts. i really appreciate that!

for stamina and articulation i always liked to do a lot of 'speed burst' work. for example, concentrating on a particular passage or segment of a passage and working it in a cycle of 3 iterations slow/1 iteration double time continuously. in other words, let's say that i was working up a 1/16th note challenging passage and trying to get it up to 140 bpm or something... i might start with this routine/cycle

50bpm:
play passage using 8th notes 3x followed by passage at 16th notes 1x
(the 16th note passage would essentially be a 100bpm)

then raise the tempo to 55bpm:
play passage using 8th notes 3x followed by passage at 16th notes 1x
(the 16th note passage would essentially be a 110bpm)

etc, etc, until you get to 140 bpm and beyond...

as you get better, increase the number of double-time iterations to 2x, 3x, and beyond. that is the stamina part. obviously, keep everything perfectly clean with even dynamics before increasing tempo.

hope that helps!

adam nitti

Perfect.
I tried this approach on an intro part I struggled with last night. After an hour or so I was clean on the part. Then I picked it up this morning and the muscle memory had really kicked in.
It is so rewarding as a bassist to be able to observe physical gains like this. Thanks for the tip, I would have never thought of that approach.
Glad I found your forum.

total awesomeness!!! thanks for the update, rikk!