Can you evaluate my goals for the next several months?

[Matthew_84]

Hello TB'ers,

Basically I've been playing for about 4 years. For the first three all I did was play tabs, and in the last year, I worked on scales, modes, and chords, and things like that.

Well, about two months ago, I realized that my technique had some flaws in it. So I've been pounding away at doing different things. My hand / fingers are in a different position (I play with my knuckles now rather than keeping my fingers relatively straight), and I used to rake and didn't even alternate all of the time on the same string. So now I've been working on strictly alternating and paying a lot of attention to what my two fingers are doing. Essentially, I'm really just focusing on my technique until I can trust it and not have to pay attention to my hands anymore.

My goal as a bassist is to have a great ability to groove at different rhythms, have a great ear which can pick up any chord progression on the fly, and to be able to improvise well while playing the majority of the notes as clean as possible.

I like jazz so I'd either play traditional stuff or more modern funky jazz kind of stuff (like Jamerson, Jamiroquai, Cake - "I wanna Love You Madly", and a new band I just started listening to today KC Roberts and The Live Revolution), but without slapping (for now).

So these are my goals (which I'll start once I have a good grip on my technique):

1) Complete “Scales, Intervals, Keys, Triads, Rhythm and Meter” textbook
2) Complete a Relative Pitch ear training course
3) Complete “Basic Harmonic Progressions” textbook
4) Purchase Mike Longo’s book – Site Reading Syncopation.
5) Play along to songs I really like from The Real Book using Ed Fuqua’s method (REALLY Learning a tune).
6) Transcribe songs and verify through Songbooks that I own
7) Play along to chord progressions that I recorded from a keyboard
8) Jam with people
9) Complete the Perfect Pitch ear training course

The thing is that my ear is HORRIBLE, well, it's better than it was a year ago, but it still needs a lot of work. Hence the two ear training courses and I want to have my theory and knowledge down hence the two textbooks. Mike Longo's book is recommended as one of the few books that write jazz syncopation on a musical staff and I'd like to understand jazz's rhythm a little better.

Now while I'm doing these goals, I'll still play every day, and work on my chords, scales and what-not. My only concern is that I think I should be playing more songs, maybe transcribing or site reading? I just feel like the next several months is bogged down with reading and listening exercises rather than just playing and whatever I do play will be pretty robotic and well, kind of boring.

I do know that I have to work on finger-muting to really get that funk stuff going without using a mute.

I don't know, I'm kind of rambling here, and everything will be okay, I guess, but I'm humble enough to admit that the majority of you are better than I am so I am interested in what others may think of these goals I have listed out for myself.

Any opinions would be welcome. Thanks,

Matt

[sonofabass]

Shop around for a reputable teacher.

The right instructor who resonates well with you pedagogically could help you to shave off a serious load of time.

[sonofabass]

I typed that last thing (and this thing) from my phone. Hope it didn't come off 'gruff'.

Each one of the areas that you mentioned could take "several " months by itself.

My sentiment in the previous response was that if you take these things to a good teacher you can 'whittle' them down and get some more focused ways to approach some of these ideas over a period of time.

:-)

[Marty Forrer]

What he said. ^^
I also think you're being a bit too serious about it, which will become boring. You need to incorporate some fun stuff, like playing with other people in a jam situation or band.

[velalv]

+1 to getting a teacher. It was wonderful feedback. I have been playing a year and a half myself, and I learned what I am good at, and learned there were some things to work on that I had not noticed. One was relying more on index than strictly alternating. He worked with me on that as well as pulloffs.

[velalv]

I felt like I covered a lot of ground and focused in pretty quickly.

[Matthew_84]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

I do think a teacher will be worthwhile, but I'd have to find the right one and that discourages me a bit. I had a teacher once, but all he did was make me change my technique into his technique, and I don't really want my technique altered all that much, just little tip here and there are welcome but not a complete overhaul like my last teacher wanted. I probably shouldn't be so hard on teachers. I just didn't have a great experience with one. I'm sure there are other ones out there that would work better for me.

And I do agree that I'm being too serious about this and taking a lot of fun out of playing. But I do think that all of the goals I've selected will put me much closer to where I want to be.

Maybe I should jumble them up a bit, do goals 1, 2, 6, 3, 7, and then 8?

I do know that there's a huge advantage to playing with others. My problem is that I don't have any friends that seriously play an instrument. Sure, the odd guy can play the intro of a GNR song on an acoustic but we certainly couldn't goof around in the key of A major. And I don't think I play well enough yet to be in a band. A lot of what annoys me is that I've looked around and a lot of people dish out a list of 20 songs to learn in a week or two and I just don't really want to approach it like that. I'd like to be able to hear the changes and fake my through it, but right now if I tried to do that it would be disasterous. I'd really like to just jam with someone once or twice a week, no pressure, and just goof around, but I don't know who I could do that with. Maybe I'll post something on craigslist or something.

Thanks guys, and sorry for rambling and not going anywhere... Next time you see a thread started by Matthew_84, you should probably look away.

Matt

[Matthew_84]

Does anybody know if there is some sort of computer application that will generate a random chord progression and play it for you with some random drumline behind it? I'd like to use something like this to jam to.

I can make up my progressions through a keyboard and Fruityloops but it would very time consuming. I also know of a pretty good backing track website for bassists, but it doesn't tell you what the progression is, which I'd like to know afterwards to know if I nailed it.

Thanks