A good daily routine?

[bopeuph]

Hi Prof. Seaton,

What kind of daily routines do you recommend or are doing yourself?

I am a doubler; I play low brass and basses. I just compiled a book for my low brass instruments. It's twenty pages long, takes about an hour to get through, and includes play-along tracks to make the session more interesting. It gives my chops a hell of a workout; they haven't felt like this since middle school. The best part is it works for trombone, euphonium, and tuba.

The problem with jazz bass is my teachers all throughout college never really gave me ideas for a daily practice, other than learning tunes. So right now, that's pretty much what I do; I practice for the gig.

I have a stack of all of the typical technique books, and I use them for practice, but it would be great if I could do the same thing with bass that I did for my brass playing. The main aim is to lighten the load on my weight in books. Even adding tuning drones adds another dimension that not only makes practice seem more effective, but also more interesting.

It's a very different question, but I feel if I can structure a daily routine, I would get more out of daily practice. But I haven't a clue where to start. I'm trying to figure out a way that it would be interchangeable for legit, jazz, and electric basses.

I got my degree in jazz bass, but I studied more extensively in low brass, so this is really challenging to figure out.

 

[Lynn Seaton]

Here is a routine you can do. Pick a standard. Analyze the chord changes for scale relationships and make a list of those scales. Make sure to take the melody notes into account to help make your scale choices more accurate. Now practice in two parts. With a metronome, play the scales and the related arpeggios in at least two octaves up and down. Work your way up the increasingly faster rhythmic subdivisions as you go: 1/4 notes, 1/4 note triplets, 1/8 notes, 1/8 note triplets, 1/16 notes etc. while keeping the metronome constant. Start at a slower tempo and you can get through more subdivisions. Now work up a routine with a metronome where you play the melody, walk, solo, and play the scales and arpeggios in harmonic rhythm in 1/8 notes. If the tune has a classic intro or ending, include that or improvise one. Depending on how long each chord lasts, you would only play part of a scale or arpeggio. If the chord lasts 4 beats you could arpeggiate 1.3.5.7.9.7.5.3 and then move to the next chord. The idea is to do the whole thing completely without stopping. The goal is to be able to do this at the tempo the tune is played, but usually we have to start slower and work our way up.

 

[bopeuph]

Thanks. Do you pick a different tune each day, or week, or stay on the same tune as long as it takes to reach the goal? This seems like a monster routine

Nick

 

[Lynn Seaton]

Stay with it until you have it. The more you do this, the faster it will come together because you will have played many of the scales and arpeggios on other tunes.

 

[Alex Scott]

Hi, this is awesome, thanks!

how do you work on the arpeggios for the smaller note values like 8th note triplets and 16th's? Do you go to upper extensions, or just repeat stuff an octave up?

 

[Lynn Seaton]

One of the fun parts of doing this type of practice is the incredible variety of variations one can do with the routines and with the independent study of the scales and arpeggios. I usually do the upper partials of the chord in the higher octave (1,3,5,7,9 etc). Triplet subdivisions need some notes repeated. An example: 123, 456, 789, 876, 543, 211, 1 .
Part of of the fun challenge is to work some of the routines out without having them written out in a book in every key. Maybe I should do that....

 

[Alex Scott]

I hope you do write a book, I think it would do a lot for bass playing. Maybe just in one key or with changes to a few tunes. I've been trying to write some out for my own practice, and want to zero in on the basics first, which seem to be scales and arpeggios in different rythms for me. I've always wanted the jazz equivalent of Rabbath's book 3.

 

[StuFordBass]

I am a doubler; I play low brass and basses. I just compiled a book for my low brass instruments. It's twenty pages long, takes about an hour to get through, and includes play-along tracks to make the session more interesting. It gives my chops a hell of a workout; they haven't felt like this since middle school. The best part is it works for trombone, euphonium, and tuba.

you wouldn't want to share some of these exercises with a fellow doubler would you? i don't have a tuba anymore, but my baritone chops are mostly gone and i'd like very much to get them back.