How much actual playing should occur during a bass lesson?

[Vandelay]

I've been taking lessons from a local instructor for a couple of months now. Lessons are generally going fine, but there's one thing that seems a little strange: in a typical 30-minute lesson, I'm probably playing the bass for about 5 minutes of that time. We spend the rest of the time in lecture/discussion mode. Is this common? While I'm finding some value in the discussion, it seems imbalanced -- I'd rather spend more time playing, even if it's the same drills over and over.

I'll probably approach my instructor about this, but I wanted to find out what a more common playing/talking ratio might be.

For background, in my "pre-bass" life I played guitar, mostly self-taught "by ear" for 15+ years, with occasional gigs for 7 years. I switched to bass last year.

[Jim Carr]

Ask the instructor to listen to your playing of whatever it is that you
have prepared. IMHO, there should be a rapid fire give and take of "I
play, you play," when there is a lecture happening.


Ask the instructor to give you a chance to try the things being taught,
right then and there. It is your money, your time, and your bass lesson.
Always be respectful, it goes a long way to foster student/teacher trust
and communication.

[Charling]

^^ agreed, its your money so if you want to play more ask him to hear how you would approach what you are talking about and advise etc.

mainly talking is fine if its what you want, i pay for 2 hour double bass lessons and sometimes I wont even touch my bass, sometimes we'll just sit in the kitchen talking about ideas and im more than happy to do this. i know I can play, and I know that the stuff we are talking about is not stuff I would get and be able to use fully in a 2 hour session.

instead I write down the main points and over the next month or so try and integrate them into my playing.

as i say this works for me because thats where I am, but the important thing is I asked him for it to be like this, and being a good teacher he said 'sure'!

so you should do the same, if he's worth his salt as a teacher he will be able to adapt his lesson depending on how the student wants to learn, and theres nothing wrong with saying 'I want to do more playing'. if you explain to him why as well he will be able to really focus on what you want to work on (which I believe is of 50/50 importance of what he thinks you need to work on), and hopefully you'll get allot more out of your lessons!

[dave_p]

what are you studying at the moment?
in the beginning when i was getting started with lessons there was a lot of repeateing excercises i was shown to get the fingerings down. so my instructor could judge my tecnique, or if there were particular positions or fingerings he was showing me. this also happened when new scales or chords were being taught, or time signatures.

as we progressed into things like tritone substitutions, chord extentions and ii v i studies it was more a matter of explanation, quick rundown, look at some charts and discuss practice strategies and sometimes repeating an excercise for him before i left. i would have an agenda to study for the week and do much of the rote excercising during that time.

and the other thing i was told was:
'practice this at home until you want to puke, but dont think about it all when you are on the bandstand'

[lowenduser]

I've one or two students, and usually give hour long lessons (I find concentration tends to go after about an hour, especially with younger students), and try break the lesson into three parts: theory (on paper - harmony, transposition etc.), practical theory (scales, modes, etc) and I usually run through a few songs, pointing out any interesting theory bits as we go along. I find this tends to break the lesson up and keeps the student somewhat interested.

On saying that, and it has happened on occasion, I have sat for almost the full hour on almost purely theory if a student is having a particular issue with something. IMO learning any instrument involves actually playing it as well as learning the theory end of it, and whatever way an instructor wants to break it down, both sides are as important.

Incidentially, I have a student on Sunday evenings who seems to be taking off. After what can be best described as a slow start, he's now asking questions such as "I was working out a fill during the week. I wasn't sure of the name of that interval. I checked your notes and discoered it was inverted". I also had him transcribing the bassline for the first few bars of Fur Elise. After playing the first three notes, he came out with a line I didn't expect. Something along the lines of "Oh. That's that power chord interval - what was it - Perfect fifth. Doesn't metal and grunge use that as well? I didn't realise they invented it way back when THAT piece was written". A little self giggle was had as he realised theory crosses all genres of music!

[202dy]

Participating in lessons is a lot like getting married. For a marriage to be successful two things must be present. The first is commitment. The second is knowledge and agreement of where the partners are coming from. One must ask lots of questions before tying the knot.

Some of the questions in choosing a teacher should be:

What can I expect to learn?
What do you like to teach?
How do you structure your lessons?
Do I play a lot? Or do I listen a lot?
What kinds of techniques do you teach?
Do you play during the lesson?
What styles of music do you play?
What styles of music do you teach?

You may devise many others.

Notice that the word "can" is not in any of the questions, as in, "What kind of music can you teach?" It is a trap that many students and teachers fall into. For instance, the teacher says he can teach the blues but doesn't play or like the blues. He may have a hard time with the rhythm or the feel. In this example, the student may find himself being patted on the head for playing with the wrong feel. Or the teacher may skip the subject altogether because he does not like, feels intimidated, or is unable to teach the genre.

It is true that the money is yours but your buying decision should be based on what and how the instructor teaches not on how you feel he should teach. Some teachers teach one way, some another. You can always ask if they are willing to adapt their syllabus and style to you. Some will be flexible. Some will not. Have a backup plan and be ready to walk.