Do you practice till perfect?

[kiwlm]

I have been trying to spend 30 minutes of my 1 hour practice routine on techniques, and for the past month, I have been doing speed/muting practice on the intro of RHCP's Around The World. From the starting of it that I can't seem to finger that lick accurately even at 70% speed, until now that I am "pretty comfortable" playing that lick at 100%.

In general, I would say that if I play that lick 10 times over, I will have mistakes in 1 or 2 runs of the lick, sometimes missing the notes, sometimes not muting when I am supposed to.

My question is, how "perfect" do you practice until? And I mean technical, not musical. Do you set a goal to say that "I should be able to play it 10 times without any mistake.", and until you have done that, then you switch to practice other technical things instead? Or maybe as "I should be able to play it 4 times right after I pick up by bass without any warmups"?

I forsee some of you guys are going to answer "its really up to what your goals are." type of question, for this, could you guys share what your goals are? I am a novice bassist who currently have no band and never had a gig before, just trying to have fun. And sometimes I wonder how do the pros practice something until they are comfortable doing it in gigs.

And lastly, could you actually "lose" the ability to play that lick again in the future if you don't practice it back from time to time?

Thanks in advance.

[FaithNoMan]

Flea plays "Around the World" with a pick, so don't get too discouraged..

[mimaz]

It's often been said.......the difference between the amateur and the pro is.......the amateur practices until he gets it right, the pro practices until he can't get it wrong.

Makes good sense, I think that's the goal we should all be working towards.

[GSRLessard14]

Practice doesn't make perfect...

Perfect practice makes perfect.

[Josh Raines]

Originally Posted by FaithNoMan

Flea plays "Around the World" with a pick, so don't get too discouraged..

No he doesn't....

I saw this quote that I really liked; it goes something like this:

"An amateur practices till he gets it right, while a pro practices till he's never wrong."

[JimmyM]

As a pro, I can honestly say that this "An amateur practices till he gets it right, while a pro practices till he's never wrong" business is all well and good until you get a half hour rehearsal at a soundcheck with an act that has difficult charts, then you only have time to eat and change before you have to play. At that point, the motto should be changed to "An amateur practices until he gets it right, while a pro practices until the food is ready."

Anyway, Kiwlm, if you are having trouble playing something perfectly, then you need to practice it at a much slower speed until you can get it perfect, then gradually increase speed until you're at record tempo. Mistakes are inevitable, even with stuff you know backwards and forwards, but practicing at slower speeds can minimize the mistakes. Strive to be perfect, and don't panic when you make a mistake.

Also, you can absolutely lose the ability to play a lick if you don't practice it.

[WillPlay4Food]

+1 on what JimmyM said. If you can't play a lick at slow speed you'll never play it at full speed. Play it slow so you know what every muscle needs to do for every note. Play it until you can play it right a few times in a row, then notch up the metronome and play it again faster until you nail it. Keep doing this until you're playing at speed. You'll also need to keep the song in your practice routine and play it from time to time or your fingers will forget how to play it.

[pointbass]

Sometimes the goal of practicing until you have "perfected" the run/lick/chart leads you to robotic playing. Too many players worry so much about getting all of the notes right that they forget about injecting some "feel' into the music.

Yes, there are times when you need to play exactly what is written, i.e., classical music or certain theatre/show charts, and that's where schooling and training pays off. Even better is being able to play exactly what is written and having the ability to inject feeling into the notes (which is what most classically trained people can do).

JimmyM's story is all too true ... when you have about 10 minutes to quickly eyeball a chart and about 10 seconds to pray, the last thing you're worried about is getting every single note right ...... And I very much agree with JimmyM's other suggestion, start slowly and work your speed up slowly, and don't panic when a note is missed ....

[VanillaO]

as for 'losing the ability to play that lick over time' or whatnot... yes and no... as someone who learned that intro after only 2 months of bass playing, maybe i'm some sort of bass genius and just don't know it yet... but realistically it's just practice.. do you forget how to eat after years of practice? a little extreme, yes, but my point is that once it's engraved in your brain, you shouldn't forget it anytime soon... (to be honest I have a stupidly good memory, so that may also have ot do with it... maybe you're better off ignoring me)

[Kickin'Fruit]

Songs are like people:

The more reasons you have to remember something the more you'll remember it. If you remember the second note location, sound, feeling and the notes that come before it after it, you'll always remember it. It helps if you like it, don't be with it every second of the day because it'll drive you crazy and force you to resentment. Compound that with more information on it and you'll never forget it.

[morf]

I practice even when I think its perfect, thats how I find out it never is.

[markjazzbassist]

Originally Posted by pointbass

Sometimes the goal of practicing until you have "perfected" the run/lick/chart leads you to robotic playing. Too many players worry so much about getting all of the notes right that they forget about injecting some "feel' into the music.

Yes, there are times when you need to play exactly what is written, i.e., classical music or certain theatre/show charts, and that's where schooling and training pays off. Even better is being able to play exactly what is written and having the ability to inject feeling into the notes (which is what most classically trained people can do).

JimmyM's story is all too true ... when you have about 10 minutes to quickly eyeball a chart and about 10 seconds to pray, the last thing you're worried about is getting every single note right ...... And I very much agree with JimmyM's other suggestion, start slowly and work your speed up slowly, and don't panic when a note is missed ....

+1

i agree with this guy.

[ogrossman]

My goals are different depending on the music. There are certain parts that I think are amazing and I'll work for hours trying to perfect them. Perfection in my mind means both techincally and artistically. I don't claim to be all that good but I'm willing to put in a lot of time on some things.

With other music I think more about what my audience is listening for. Most people won't know the a whole song note for note and they'll know even less about the bass part. There are certain "signature" lines in the song that they will know. If you can figure out what the signature parts are and play them well then most people will swear that you played the whole song exactly like the original.

So you have to decide: are you learning the music for the 95% of your audience who aren't listening real close or for the other 5% (or less) that might notice if it's not like the original. Personally I'm thrilled if more than half the audience is impressed with my playing... but that's me.

[stratology]

Practice so slowly that you can play it perfecly. If you keep making mistakes, you actually practice the mistakes, they get commited to body memory. Not what you want.

[scott917]

When in Jr. High and High School, our band instructor was a perfectionist. Perfect once did not cut it. We had to do it perfect over and over with no exceptions. I can't tell you how many lunches we missed or got limited time on b/c she refused to dismiss us. But here is the good news, we were the number one rated band in our division year after year. At the beginning of the semester we would bad mouth her, but then we all thanks her for being hard on us when we got the best scores at competition.

Hard work does pay off in the long run, but you also have to start slow and work your way up. Taking shortcuts only hurts you in the long run...

Scott

[FaithNoMan]

Originally Posted by Josh Raines

No he doesn't....

Oops, I read that he did somewhere..

[Sean S]

Originally Posted by FaithNoMan

Oops, I read that he did somewhere..

Around Californication, he started experimenting with picks...Parallel Universe is a good example (apologies for thread hijack)

sean

[69nites]

I practice a lot changing the tempo to speeds I am uncomfiterable with both fast and slow. I like to practice till I don't think about what I'm playing and I just feel it. Then I feel that I've practiced it enough. the most important part to me isn't not making a mistake it's being able to recover from a mistake without people noticing. when you're not thinking and you're just playing and letting it flow I find that you not only make less mistakes but the mistakes you do make are much less noticable.

I am in no way a pro and I don't even like to gig I only cover for my friends when they need me. I simply like to jam with my friends so take what I say for what it is and who it's from.

[steveb98]

As the old saying goes... To learn a lot of information fast learn a little information slowly.

Our brains are like computers its stores information but it stores bad information as well as good information. The brain stores it all. So play a scale you have been playing since you started. You should know it perfectly by now right, but I'd lay money if you played it fifty times in a row you'd make one or more mistakes. Maybe even with less repetions. Why do you make a mistake on something real simple you have practiced for ages. Well the brain is feeding your fingers with the scale you are asking it to play, but a some point in the past when learning the scale you screwed up playing and the brain remembered it. You said that was the scale and the brain remember it mistake and all. So to avoid that scale with the mistake from popping up again you need to practice the scales more and more so the odds of the bad one with a mistake is less likely to popup again.

So to avoid this from happening never make a mistake always play perfectly. You say that isn't possible, but is it. When learning something new learn it as a snails pace. Play it so slow you can correct yourself before making a mistake. Doing that your brain only knows the right way to do something. Don't worry about the speed that is something that develops on its own. It takes the body between ten and hundred repetions to learn a new physical activity. So learn it slow without mistakes. Practice it slow and let the speed come on its own.

So yes learning thing perfectly is important and should be your focus. Playing something perfectly involves playing it with the right feel, but that you do after you have it down perfectly.

Make a practice plan the beginning of your practice week. List the things you want/need to work on and split the time you have available between them. Then cover them all everyday. It is better to only spend ten minutes on something everyday, than spend a lot of time a couple days a week. Doing it everyday you will progress faster overall.

Hope this helps.

[DaemonBass]

^^^
I was gonna argue with the "always play perfectly" part of your statements, however, after reading the entire post and getting the drift, I will just give a

+1,000

to your statements and I agree with 100% of what you have said.