Bass and the Art of Zen

[PerlNinja]

So, as a noob bass player I found out something funny. My practicing isn't really structured, so sometimes it devolves into noodling around, but usually my routine involves listening to music and trying to play along; ear training, and trying to figure out "how the heck does that progression go". Not sure if it's the best method ever but it's what works for me.

What I found out is kind of weird for me; if I start thinking about what I'm doing, I'll gack things up horribly. The minute I turn off my brain and just stop giving a rats ass about what I'm actually doing, my fingers just do what's needed, and I can bang out some decent renditions. The minute I start thinking again about "how the hell did I do that"... it's back to messing things up.

Now I think this is pretty weird, so ... am I nuts or is this normal?

[perfectarc]

It's normal to pay attention to what you are doing but if you get stuck in the self-watching mode you kind of separate yourself from the actual activity of playing (you-the subject, are watching your hands on the fretboard-the object).

This subtle sense of separation from the activity can lead to frustration when your hands don't seem to be meeting the expectations of what you want to do on the instrument. As a result, you may tend to focus even harder, and this "hard focus" can lead to an even greater sense of distance between player/music. There is an old term "paralysis by analysis" that describes this well.

So, the big question: how do you stop this from happening, or as you say, "turn off my brain"?

If this description is accurate, let me know; I might have some ideas on how to work with this.

[reedo35]

You need to read "The inner game of music" by Barry Green.

[PerlNinja]

Originally Posted by perfectarc

It's normal to pay attention to what you are doing but if you get stuck in the self-watching mode you kind of separate yourself from the actual activity of playing (you-the subject, are watching your hands on the fretboard-the object).

This subtle sense of separation from the activity can lead to frustration when your hands don't seem to be meeting the expectations of what you want to do on the instrument. As a result, you may tend to focus even harder, and this "hard focus" can lead to an even greater sense of distance between player/music. There is an old term "paralysis by analysis" that describes this well.

So, the big question: how do you stop this from happening, or as you say, "turn off my brain"?

If this description is accurate, let me know; I might have some ideas on how to work with this.

Pretty accurate yes, but I think it's not even to the point of the observation itself making it happen, it's the minute I start thinking about what I'm doing that it goes wrong.

Like, I have a few background drum tracks for some simple blues tunes, and if I just sit down, turn it on, and start playing it works out. If I start thinking about "oh there's a changeover coming" or things like that, then I start messing up bigtime; all of a sudden my fingers stop doing the "right" thing and it forces me to think more about where to put them, which leads to disaster

I think it has a lot to do with wanting to do it perfectly, it's a character flaw of mine, I'm a perfectionist to the extreme. Works fine in my day job, but I don't think it works very well for playing.

It sorta proved itself last night, I have one of my friends over (guitard) and he brought some of his gear so we could sit and jam a little; as long as he started off on something, it wasn't a problem to put a groove behind it, and with having to listen to what he was doing, I didn't have time to think about what I was doing, and it worked out fine. It wasn't technically perfect but it sounded alright.

Not entirely sure if that's what you're talking about though... I think some of it has to do with me setting the bar too high for myself, something I can do when it boils down to my day job, but I don't think learning to play bass can be equated to learning a new programming language

[PerlNinja]

Originally Posted by reedo35

You need to read "The inner game of music" by Barry Green.

So noted, I think I can get this off my e-book supplier of choice, so come payday, shop time

Thanks

[Gintaras]

Originally Posted by PerlNinja

So noted, I think I can get this off my e-book supplier of choice, so come payday, shop time

Thanks

I went to Amazon and read reviews on the this book. The first review was by a person who has ADD and has had it before their was a diagnoses for it. It said that it also helped dramatically with his ADD. I am one of those and my son who plays piano and is a junior in High School also is ADD. Just ordered to book for a multitude of reasons.

[perfectarc]

So, what seems to be happening is you are playing a tune, then realize that a part coming up you are uncomfortable with. This creates a momentary doubt, maybe some anticipatory anxiety. Possibly in order to deal with the uncertainty or doubt, you may shift into a mode that works great for you at your day job: the thinking mode. While this is helpful for problem solving and analysis, it tends to gunk up the works in a performance setting.

The thinking mode is helpful for learning but once something is learned, there is no need to engage in this level of cognitive activity. For instance, after we learn to drive a car safely, we no longer have to constantly think about what we are doing. Instead, we are now wired to just automatically respond to what's coming up while we drive. The trick is to come up with a way to disengage from the thinking mode and instead engage in the feeling/creative mode.

I haven't read "the inner game of music" but I checked it out on amazon. It was co-written by Tim Gallwey, the author of the "inner game of tennis". He really is a pioneer in the field of performance enhancement and I would recommend any book that he has a part in.

Remember: practice until it isn't practice anymore; the right note is only one fret away!

Originally Posted by PerlNinja

Pretty accurate yes, but I think it's not even to the point of the observation itself making it happen, it's the minute I start thinking about what I'm doing that it goes wrong.

Like, I have a few background drum tracks for some simple blues tunes, and if I just sit down, turn it on, and start playing it works out. If I start thinking about "oh there's a changeover coming" or things like that, then I start messing up bigtime; all of a sudden my fingers stop doing the "right" thing and it forces me to think more about where to put them, which leads to disaster

I think it has a lot to do with wanting to do it perfectly, it's a character flaw of mine, I'm a perfectionist to the extreme. Works fine in my day job, but I don't think it works very well for playing.

It sorta proved itself last night, I have one of my friends over (guitard) and he brought some of his gear so we could sit and jam a little; as long as he started off on something, it wasn't a problem to put a groove behind it, and with having to listen to what he was doing, I didn't have time to think about what I was doing, and it worked out fine. It wasn't technically perfect but it sounded alright.

Not entirely sure if that's what you're talking about though... I think some of it has to do with me setting the bar too high for myself, something I can do when it boils down to my day job, but I don't think learning to play bass can be equated to learning a new programming language

[RickC]

My take - the art of letting go, of letting the music "play itself" is something we all strive for. Or at least I do. I've read countless interviews with other musicians who talk about the exact same thing, so I don't think I'm the only one .

When you get out of your own way, you perform at your peak. The Inner Game books describe this in depth. So as a noob, your skills aren't that fully developed yet, and you "gack up things horribly" when you think too much about what you're doing. And your playing becomes elevated when you stop thinking too much.

Eventually, you're skills will get better, and you won't gack things up when you think. This is good thing. Imo, really great players think when they need to, turn it off when they don't, and generally use a combination of the two. Finding and maintaining that balance is a lifelong project.

/rick

[PerlNinja]

Originally Posted by perfectarc

So, what seems to be happening is you are playing a tune, then realize that a part coming up you are uncomfortable with. This creates a momentary doubt, maybe some anticipatory anxiety. Possibly in order to deal with the uncertainty or doubt, you may shift into a mode that works great for you at your day job: the thinking mode. While this is helpful for problem solving and analysis, it tends to gunk up the works in a performance setting.

Pretty much yes, since my day job is being a programmer, that's where the thinking helps. Or rather, with the work I do, it *has* to be as perfectly done as possible, because in some cases if I frak up on what I did, it's going to cost someone a 5 digit figure. I guess subconsciously I apply that to my playing as well as soon as I start thinking about it.

Guess that some of it also is a form of anxiety; I know I want to play bass, I also know it will most likely always be a hobby (whether it's one of those "out of control" hobbies remains to be seen). The problem there is that many musicians around my locale have this thing going that if you aren't 100% committed to being a full-time musician, they don't want to even bother talking to you. Then to a lesser extent there's places like TB; there's a lot of great bassists here, and to a novice like me this can be very intimidating. Not that anyone's heard me play, but given that bass playing is essentially a hobby and not a career for me, I don't want to come across as yet another noob who's just noodling around for sh*ts and giggles; I do take it more seriously than that... I think :P

The thinking mode is helpful for learning but once something is learned, there is no need to engage in this level of cognitive activity. For instance, after we learn to drive a car safely, we no longer have to constantly think about what we are doing. Instead, we are now wired to just automatically respond to what's coming up while we drive. The trick is to come up with a way to disengage from the thinking mode and instead engage in the feeling/creative mode.

I haven't read "the inner game of music" but I checked it out on amazon. It was co-written by Tim Gallwey, the author of the "inner game of tennis". He really is a pioneer in the field of performance enhancement and I would recommend any book that he has a part in.

Remember: practice until it isn't practice anymore; the right note is only one fret away!

I took a look at the various reviews and one way or the other it seems like a pretty good read, definitely getting it next week. Hope that at least manages to convince my brain that it needs to stop analyzing things

Now if only I can get this #$%^ strap adjusted right...

[perfectarc]

Well said, RickC!

PS: I checked out the Peacheaters site and really enjoyed your playing (great guitar playing too!).

Originally Posted by RickC

My take - the art of letting go, of letting the music "play itself" is something we all strive for. Or at least I do. I've read countless interviews with other musicians who talk about the exact same thing, so I don't think I'm the only one .

When you get out of your own way, you perform at your peak. The Inner Game books describe this in depth. So as a noob, your skills aren't that fully developed yet, and you "gack up things horribly" when you think too much about what you're doing. And your playing becomes elevated when you stop thinking too much.

Eventually, you're skills will get better, and you won't gack things up when you think. This is good thing. Imo, really great players think when they need to, turn it off when they don't, and generally use a combination of the two. Finding and maintaining that balance is a lifelong project.

/rick

[RickC]

Appreciate the compliment. I'm definitely "not thinking" in a lot of those videos

/rick

[PerlNinja]

Hey Rick, well said Also went for some happy youtubing and that's some nice playing there, I'm going to get there one day

I have the book ordered but it's going to take a while to show up here, if it does at all (Indonesian customs have this habit of "misplacing" things until you cough up the requested "finders fee"), but I managed to "not think" for a little bit today when jamming with my friend, simple 12 bar blues and it just worked out.

I'm starting to think that the whole letting go/not thinking bit is something you can achieve easier if you're playing with people, I do find that practicing by myself has it's benefits for the technical end of things, but I see why people say that you learn much more by sitting down with some other folks and have a good time while trying to learn something new.

Will let you know when the book shows up; I've got some more books on order about things like this, because they'll be useful for my day job too. I think I'll treat this as an interesting programming problem, except now it's my own brain that needs a touchup

[shwashwa]

ive heard from people who have read both that the inner game of tennis is actually better. that book preceeded the inner game of music.

[RickC]

Originally Posted by shwashwa

ive heard from people who have read both that the inner game of tennis is actually better. that book preceeded the inner game of music.

I would tend to agree. Inner Tennis was the initial idea; it then got spun off and applied to a bunch of other topics. Inner Tennis does a great job of presenting the basic concepts, and its not hard to figure out on your own how to apply them to other areas.

I actually own the music one too, but never got very far through it. I've probably recommended the tennis one to more people than I have any other book.

/rick