Getting the most out of my practice time

[KingRazor]

So between church, school and work, I don't have a lot of time to practice bass.

I have no idea where to start when it comes to improvisation and such, I've been told a few different things but so far none of it is making any sense, so I'm not going to bother with that right now.

The thing I'm working on now is improving my technical ability, increasing the dexterity of my fingers.

Since I don't have a lot of time to practice, I want to know how to get the most out of my practice time.

What are some good techniques to practice for improving dexterity? I've been playing a lot of scales, just going up and down on various spots on the fretboard, but that get's dull REALLY fast. I need some variety.

Any suggestions?

[the general]

the only way is practice. pick some challenging songs and play. i notice an improvement just taking a fairly tough song and playing it over and over and over til i was satisfied that it sounded good. there is no way around it. might i suggest some avenged sevenfold tunes. some pretty good dexterity building songs IMO, but i'm sure there are better ones

[KingRazor]

Originally Posted by the general

the only way is practice. pick some challenging songs and play. i notice an improvement just taking a fairly tough song and playing it over and over and over til i was satisfied that it sounded good. there is no way around it. might i suggest some avenged sevenfold tunes. some pretty good dexterity building songs IMO, but i'm sure there are better ones

I know you're trying to help and I appreciate the effort. Unfortunately, this doesn't help me at all.

I'm looking for exercises to practice, not songs, I have a few songs that are too difficult for me to play and I'm slowly working on them, but I want to speed up the progress by just working on purely on dexterity.

[Michael Campbel]

This is more meta-advice than anything concrete, but what has helped me is a quick set of rules for my practice. YMMV of course, but I seem to get more out of practice when I do a little, often, rather than marathon sessions. Here's what I do to help with that:

If what I'm practicing is something that is to "move up the continuum" in ability; that is, something that doesn't have a specific "I've got it" endpoint, I give myself a time period to practice it. Sometimes that's as small as 5 minutes. Examples here are:
* Right hand exercises. I have a kitchen timer set for 5 minutes. For 1 minute I play 4 sixteenth notes on the B string, then 4 on the E, then up and down every string, back and forth until the timer reads less than 4 minutes remaining. Then I do triplets on every string. Then 2 notes. Then 1 note per string up and down for the last 2 minutes of the initial 5.
* Learning the notes of the fingerboard, as I describe here: Learning the Fret Board

To keep the feeling of improvement going, I do these with a metronome. When I feel I'm /pretty close/ to getting comfortable I up the metronome 5%-10% or so. I like to always feel just a bit out of my depth but able to barely handle whatever speed I'm working on.

The beauty here is that with a time limit as you get better you end up doing more repetitions in that time.


If the exercise has a specific end point like doing whatever "thing" for the entire fretboard, I don't set a time but rather do it till the end; sometimes multiple times. As I get better and it takes less and less time to do the exercise I might start repeating it.
Examples here:

* left hand exercises from the bass fitness book: http://tinyurl.com/2cxyyll; up and down the entire fretboard
* running scales using the 'box' method as Pacman describes here: Pacman's sure-fire scale practice method (I am lucky enough to have the same instructor Pacman did when he learned this.)
* sight reading - I use a trombone book and take a couple measures or a couple lines and play the measure or line or whatever section 5 or 10 times.

[KingRazor]

I don't really need any practice learning the fret board anymore. I know it well enough for my purposes.

My church has rehearsal every Sunday. I'm usually there as a sound tech. This week I brought my bass with me and played along with the band while they practiced. One thing I noticed is that I don't have a lot of stamina yet. Playing for even just 20-30 minutes straight left my fingers raw for the first time in months. That's definitely an area where I need practice in, I'm at the point where 5 minutes of practice is no longer doing me all that much good.

I'm going to try to put in a half hour to an hour of practice every day (or at least every other day) but I want that time to be used as wisely as possible.

I'm looking for ways to increase the dexterity of both hands together. My left hand can move pretty fast on its own, as can my right. However, when I use them together I can't go very fast really.

Don't take what I'm saying the wrong way, I'm not saying all I want to do is be able to play faster. It's just that I want to be able to play some bass parts that require a good deal of dexterity, and I'm not quite at the point where I can play those parts. I'm practicing them, but I want to do some more stuff to supplement that practice.

[Lichtaffen]

A great exercise my teacher showed me that's opened up scales for me and made it more challenging to work on them is this: make a playlist of music, put it on random continuous play, every song that comes up figure out the key and mode immediately, run through as many positions of the scale that you can in perfect rhythm with the song. You don't have to necessarily do quarter notes, eighths, etc., you can vary the rhythm or play rhythmic phrases. You don't have to stay in the "boxes", connect the boxes together and play more linear. The reason for the exercise is to make your scale playing more "musical" and less like an exercise. I always used to practice with a metronome and do the boring patterns, etc. This exercise trains the ear as well as helping to learn the function of each mode, and memorizing the patterns and fretboard. Plus you're playing with a drummer and you'll eventually want the right notes to land on the right beats making the scale "fit" the song.

[onlyclave]

Originally Posted by KingRazor

I know you're trying to help and I appreciate the effort. Unfortunately, this doesn't help me at all.

I'm looking for exercises to practice, not songs, I have a few songs that are too difficult for me to play and I'm slowly working on them, but I want to speed up the progress by just working on purely on dexterity.

If you have songs that are too difficult to play then that's what you should practice. Likewise if there are scales that are too difficult for you to play then that's what you should practice.

If you don't practice what your DON'T know, you'll never get any better. Running a 2-octave C major scale up and down the neck until you can play it at blinding speed only teaches you how to play a major scale at blinding speed. Not very funky, is it?

That's how you practice. You work _very_slowly_ on things you can't play. Suddenly one day you can magically play them.

Originally Posted by KingRazor

I don't really need any practice learning the fret board anymore. I know it well enough for my purposes.

My church has rehearsal every Sunday. I'm usually there as a sound tech. This week I brought my bass with me and played along with the band while they practiced. One thing I noticed is that I don't have a lot of stamina yet. Playing for even just 20-30 minutes straight left my fingers raw for the first time in months. That's definitely an area where I need practice in, I'm at the point where 5 minutes of practice is no longer doing me all that much good.

I'm going to try to put in a half hour to an hour of practice every day (or at least every other day) but I want that time to be used as wisely as possible.

I'm looking for ways to increase the dexterity of both hands together. My left hand can move pretty fast on its own, as can my right. However, when I use them together I can't go very fast really.

Don't take what I'm saying the wrong way, I'm not saying all I want to do is be able to play faster. It's just that I want to be able to play some bass parts that require a good deal of dexterity, and I'm not quite at the point where I can play those parts. I'm practicing them, but I want to do some more stuff to supplement that practice.

You may need to arrange to work with a teacher on the dynamics of practice. Practice needs to be goal oriented and no longer than about 20 minutes. There are a few web sites that discuss the latest discoveries of brain research.

You would accomplish more with 30 - 40 min of practice 6 days a week.

One book I can recommend - The Practice Revolution, by Philip Johnston.
http://www.amazon.com/Practice-Revol...2082447&sr=1-1

You can read excepts at: http://www.practicespot.com/pspress.php

With Classical Guitar practice I got good at creating practice warmups that used both LH & RH.

Try this (without notation it's wordy)

Play alternating i & m, or up/down with a pick,
on the G-string,
play notes on fret 1, 2, 3, 4 -
shift finger LH finger 1 to 5th fret,
play notes on frets 5, 6, 7, 8
shift finger 1 to fret 9,
play notes on frets 9, 10, 11, 12.
Now work back to the nut but using finger 4 as the lead finger.

Play scales in 3rds. c - e, d - f, e - g, etc. Just 5 min. and yes it is enough. One key per day.

Spend 5 minutes sight reading in the 5th or 7th position.

Practice ii V I progressions around the cycle of 5ths. (I don't do this yet.)

Discuss warmups and practicing on the double bass forums.

Ed S.

[KingRazor]

Originally Posted by Lichtaffen

A great exercise my teacher showed me that's opened up scales for me and made it more challenging to work on them is this: make a playlist of music, put it on random continuous play, every song that comes up figure out the key and mode immediately, run through as many positions of the scale that you can in perfect rhythm with the song. You don't have to necessarily do quarter notes, eighths, etc., you can vary the rhythm or play rhythmic phrases. You don't have to stay in the "boxes", connect the boxes together and play more linear. The reason for the exercise is to make your scale playing more "musical" and less like an exercise. I always used to practice with a metronome and do the boring patterns, etc. This exercise trains the ear as well as helping to learn the function of each mode, and memorizing the patterns and fretboard. Plus you're playing with a drummer and you'll eventually want the right notes to land on the right beats making the scale "fit" the song.

Umm, I only wish I could do that. I can't figure out a key or mode by ear. It's hard enough just figuring out the chords.

Also, playing songs that are way too hard for me to play just gets discouraging.

I'd like to set up lessons with a teacher, but it's hard to find the time.

Thanks for the tips so far. Any more?

(I realize I brought up an old topic, but I here "use the search function" so often on this site that it seems like a better idea to dig up old threads than start new ones)