My scheme of practice.

Suckbird · #1 07-30-2005, 12:57 PM

What to put on it?

What's most important?

(this part will be together with my pandora, metronome)
Right now i have 1hour scales, 1hour arpeggios(in all inversions), 1hour tapping, 1hour of excercises(suggestions?), 1 hour breaking down songs.

And a couple of hours infront of the television.

What do you think?

If i'm awake 12hours a day 8hours of them is going to be with my bass, i think that's fair because right now it feels like i'm just wasting my time spending time with friends and spend time at talkbass and not more than a couple of hours a day with my bass...

jazzbo · #2 07-30-2005, 01:32 PM

These posts scare me. I don't know many people that practice that much each day unless they're professionals, even then, it might be less than that.

Check out my PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE thread stuck to the top of the General Instruction forum.

It's important to tie in a lot of different things if you're looking for a well-rounded program. Scales, arpeggios, etudes, ear-training, piano, techniques, playing along with songs, rhythm, soloing, jazz, blues, classical. That's not a bad program for making things well-rounded, but I don't see why one couldn't do that in just 4 hours, and get a lot from it.

It's in how you use your time, not the amount of time you put in. Be excited about playing bass and excited about becoming better, but focus on the playing and listening, not on the long term goals.

Further, what are you doing exactly?

Scales: One hour of scales, then one hour of arpeggios?! I'm not saying that you can't do this and make it work, but ...

What exactly are you doing in practicing scales and arpeggios for two hours? Are you playing all inversions of arpeggios and different rhythms, along with the metronome, through the cycle? Okay, so you're playing triads, 6ths, 7ths, 9ths, through all inversions, throughout the neck, at whole, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes. That takes time. Then, you're playing scales, through the cycle, at whole, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes? Is that it?

One hour of tapping everyday? What about making it a generic time for technique? Work on slapping, fine. Pick playing and finger-style. What about incorporating that with scales? What about playing your scales and arpeggios, as described above in finger style, then pick, then slap, then tap?

Exercises? Do you mean like etudes? There's a great way to get your sight reading down. You can read and play jazz heads. Check out Rufus Reid's book for more etudes. What about Arban's Trombone method for more?

Breaking down songs? You mean learning songs? Transcribing them? Deconstructing harmony? What do you mean?

Where's the diversity? Buy a Real Book and walk through changes. It doesn't matter if jazz is your thing or not, it will develop other aspects of your playing.

How about some blues? Buy some blues CDs and learn those. That'll really develop your all around playing along with the jazz.

Flatly saying that you're doing one hour of this and one hour of that concerns me. First, it doesn't tell me how focused that time is. Second, it seems excessive. Further, turn off the TV when you play. This is one thing I don't understand. Music is an AUDITORY art form. Why, oh why, would you take out the listening part of the art form and expect progress? Please don't give me the "well, I can work on technique" argument. If you're playing one hour of scales, one hour of arpeggios, one hour of tapping, one hour of exercises, and are breaking down songs for one hour, you will not accomplish anything playing while watching TV that you haven't already accomplished. Don't practice while watching TV.

groove100 · #3 07-30-2005, 05:37 PM

Quantity is always better than quality.

Have a set goal on your everyday practice.
having a 3 hour focused, concentrated practice is better than how many hours with just practicing randomly.

And just to add. There are a lot of outside factors than can help contribute to your musicianship and being musical.
Some people find inspiration from so many things.

BUT!! if your practice shed works out for you consistently, then very good.

always have fun during practice.

markus huber

Correlli · #4 07-30-2005, 06:30 PM

I agree with jazzbo. Some days I'm lucky if I get half hour of practice, excluding gigs and sessions. And even that seems to be seasonal.

For me, I feel as though I'm at a comfortable skill level, and all I'm really doing is maintaining it. Maintenence requires much less effort than developing and building to a desired skill level.

Having said all that, I do quite alot of written work, so I'm using the bass to test ideas. I may in the future use a piano to test my music.

Onece ypu've got it, you never lose it.

Perhaps you might like to get into a "maintenence phase" at some stage.

lemur821 · #5 07-30-2005, 11:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by groove100

Quantity is always better than quality.

That's wasn't what you meant to say, was it?

Daniel Baskin · #6 07-31-2005, 12:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by groove100

always have fun during practice.

+1

Never practice looking at the clock, unless you are looking at it to keep in schedule with time constraints. A lot of people advocate being really staunch and precise in their practicing, and that is awesome, but as with almost everything else, you should value the why over the what. What I mean is that rather than evaluating your time use, you should evaluate why you are spending time on things. If you find that its just because, even though you don't see the point, you know you should do it, then you need to step back and look at what about that part of your practice you don't see as enriching and fun and dedide how you will change that part of your routine to challenge yourself.

I find that when I used to practice in my early years, I barely improved, and that the only real growth I saw was when I was experimenting in jazz band or my church youth group band. Now, even though I can do a lot of things I've never done on the fly without practicing much or at all, there are many things that I can pick up very quickly as long as I challenge myself, but more importanly, that I RELAX.

dlloyd · #7 08-01-2005, 04:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Suckbird

What to put on it?

What's most important?

(this part will be together with my pandora, metronome)
Right now i have 1hour scales, 1hour arpeggios(in all inversions), 1hour tapping, 1hour of excercises(suggestions?), 1 hour breaking down songs.

And a couple of hours infront of the television.

What do you think?

If i'm awake 12hours a day 8hours of them is going to be with my bass, i think that's fair because right now it feels like i'm just wasting my time spending time with friends and spend time at talkbass and not more than a couple of hours a day with my bass...

Are you in a band? You'd learn more from that than mindlessly practicing scales and arpeggios for hours a day.

Suckbird · #8 08-01-2005, 05:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlloyd

Are you in a band? You'd learn more from that than mindlessly practicing scales and arpeggios for hours a day.

No, but i've been about to start one 2times but it's not funny to play with bad musicians... and that's why i have so much time to practice myself.

Also, i've already played 3hours now(13:00), but i think it was kinda dumb.. my ring finger hurts very bad, well it started for a couple a days ago but i thought it would be healed until today but after 3hours scales, arpeggios and tapping i can barrely move it...

**Vorago** · #9 08-01-2005, 05:33 AM

That's why I thought when I read your post; you're going to get injured. I don't know how much you practice normally, but switching from 2 or 3 hours, to 8 hours a day is asking for trouble.