How To Practice The Bass In Your Dead Time

[Toppinambur]

Hello there! My first thread)

Have anyone tried "How To Practice The Bass In Your Dead Time" by Paul Wolfe London? Just saw it while surfing playbassnow.com

http://www.how-to-play-bass.com/dead-time.html

[RyanJD]

Welcome to TB!

I have never been to the website you posted before, but I clicked the link and read the spiel.
I've never heard of the guy or heard of practicing in your "dead time". But I'll be upfront and say it kind of looks like a ripoff.
Or at least a little fishy...

[MarkMgibson]

Yeah, I agree. There's plenty of free sites that have good stuff on them. Some of these courses are very expensive for what they offer.

[Toppinambur]

Ok, thanks a lot. I have doubt about this book too. So I appreciate your answers.

[thatotherguy]

Paul Wolfe is a member here maybe pm and he'll tell you a bit more about it

[Jools4001]

Bit of a misnomer though, by definition if you are practising bass it's no longer dead time

[RyanJD]

Originally Posted by Jools4001

Bit of a misnomer though, by definition if you are practising bass it's no longer dead time

I was thinking the same thing.
And if that's the case, you might as well as pull out some music and get some real practice in?

[kevteop]

For every kind of self-improvement product you can imagine there's a web page formatted like that, 2000+ words long, blathering on about what a great product it is while carefully avoiding giving any actual information about it at all.

Whoever wrote it is a shyster and it's almost certainly a load of worthless tripe. Steer well clear.

[Ed Fuqua]

While it would be nice to see some page examples, you guys are judging in absence of any evidence. First, JOOLS, he's talking about how and what to practice when you DON'T have your bass. At first I was thinking "Jeez, you don't need a book to tell you what to practice when you can't put your hand on your bass" but, based on the above responses, I guess that's not true. But look at his 'table of contents':
VISUALIZATION - you're sitting on the train or bus, you've got the melody to Ron McLure's APRIL IN NIMES in front of you. As you read the pitches, visualize the fingering, the position shifts, where and with what finger you're going to make the attack to the string, where you'll slur etc etc. The more detailed you can do this, mentally, the easier it is when you actually have the instrument in your hands.
EAR TRAINING - sight singing new lines, singing intervals, identifying root movement of the music playing in the elevator, singing chords - you can do all of this pretty much anytime you don't have to consciously pay attention to something else (like your job), but driving you can do everything except sight singing. If you have some kind of player, you can make a CD or upload soundfiles that have chords or progressions or intervals or WHATEVER ear training you're currently working on and practice that while driving, jogging, washing the dishes whatever.
And so on and so forth. I'm not sure I'd classify that as a "load of worthless tripe"....

[_chrispy]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

While it would be nice to see some page examples, you guys are judging in absence of any evidence. First, JOOLS, he's talking about how and what to practice when you DON'T have your bass. At first I was thinking "Jeez, you don't need a book to tell what to practice when you can't put your hand on your bass" but, based on the above responses, I guess that's not true. But look at his 'table of contents':
VISUALIZATION - you're sitting on the train or bus, you've got the melody to Ron McLure's APRIL IN NIMES in front of you. As you read the pitches, visualize the fingering, the position shifts, where and with what finger you're going to make the attack to the string, where you'll slur etc etc. The more detailed you can do this, mentally, the easier it is when you actually have the instrument in your hands.
EAR TRAINING - sight singing new lines, singing intervals, identifying root movement of the music playing in the elevator, singing chords - you can do all of this pretty much anytime you don't have to consciously pay attention to something else (like your job), but driving you can do everything except sight singing. If you have some kind of player, you can make a CD or upload soundfiles that have chords or progressions or intervals or WHATEVER ear training you're currently working on and practice that while driving, jogging, washing the dishes whatever.
And so on and so forth. I'm not sure I'd classify that as a "load of worthless tripe"....

+1

[Anonymatt]

I practice mentally on the train while looking at music. It's difficult to stay focused without the feedback of the instrument. I know I'm doing it right if I make all the same mistakes.

[zenman]

Ed's right. I don't know squat about the book mentioned. But there are a ton of things that you can do to will help you become a better bass player without having a bass in your hands.

One thing I did recently was to get serious about learning all the notes on the fretboard. You can work on this easily anytime, anywhere by simply visualizing the fretboard and naming the notes up & down each string, then maybe work on the fourths/fifths across the neck or whatever.

Another really simple thing I did without the bass was to simply say ABCDEFG forwards and backwards starting first on A, then starting on B & so on. Backwards was incredibly hard at first, but it's second nature now. Try it.

If you aren't taking advantage of your time away from the bass, then you are missing out on a lot of opportunities to improve as a player. At the very least you can listen to tunes you want to learn. Most of my time learning songs is spent just listening to them.

Dennis

[DeadHeadSF]

Easy: just put on some Dead records and jam along. Works for me...