100 Hours of Practice & Underwhelming

[RichardW]

Where did you think you'd be after 100 hours? Playing John Paul Jones' line from The Lemon Song? Out-slapping Larry Graham?

I picked up the bass at 45 and played by myself for five years before I felt ready to play with others in a band. During that time I took weekly lessons and practiced daily. I didn't count the hours, but I also didn't get discouraged because as slowly as I progressed, at least I was progressing.

I agree you might want to find a new teacher who can focus you a bit more. My teacher always asked what song I wanted to learn, but he always had appropriate theory and technique lessons in hand to help me learn that song.

Otherwise, give yourself a break. There's no timetable for this stuff. As long as you enjoy it and are getting better little by little, that's all that matters.

 

[arbiterusa]

By the "harder stuff" I mean, I told him I love Rush, Primus, Yes, Zeppelin, The Who and so on.

Gotcha. Some of my faves as well. Well, I started out learning Rush tunes by ear but I'd already been playing music for more than five years, just not on bass. It's not an approach for most people, and if your teacher is trying to teach you this level of material at your stage of development, you're just going to get frustrated and quit, for good reason I might add.

I'd have your teacher dial it way back and work you on some basic blues (Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode. It will give you an underpinning that, as I said before, will comprise most of your working career no matter what you do. Even Rush pulls the ol' I-IV-V on their old stuff!) some Stones and some Who - early Who stuff is GREAT for beginning bass players. You don't have to nail every detail of John's's playing, because you can't, hell, I can't, just play along with Pete. Good songs, good changes, good rhythms, everyone knows them.

I will be honest though. I took lessons from Kai Eckhardt for a few months. At one of my first lessons he asked me what I wanted to work on. Having played for about 20 years at that point I had a good idea what my weaknesses were. Mainly rhythm. So he gave me a handout with every rhythmic permutation from eighth notes to thirty second notes and taught me konnikol. I still haven't gotten through the handout but it has helped.

At your level or mine lessons are a different ballgame. I can tell a teacher what I'm weak on, because I know. So do you. A beginner doesn't know enough about music or playing to be able to do that. I'm about to go back into the fire and start taking violin lessons again. THAT is going to be quite a humbling experience. I can still play but I'm not good at it, and I want an old-school symphonic ballbuster Nazi teacher to get my technique back and then and only then start working on material.

I picked up the bass at 45 and played by myself for five years before I felt ready to play with others in a band. During that time I took weekly lessons and practiced daily. I didn't count the hours, but I also didn't get discouraged because as slowly as I progressed, at least I was progressing.

I was hoping a late-life starter would weigh in here. OP, this will be the most useful post on the entire thread. This guy has done it.

 

[rufus.K]

You should develop your ear so you can learn songs by ear. You'll learn a lot on your own by learning songs that way.
1st, learn to tune the bass to itself by ear.
2nd, find a song that is in either E, A D or G, and learn to tube the bass to that song.
3rd, find an easy band like the Ramones for example or Black sabbath, and play along until you can pick up those by ear. After that, you will be able to use your ears to teach you loads. This isn't a substitute for a teacher, but a plan for you to augment what your learning and speed up the rate.

 

[bolophonic]

Personally, I believe that anything that makes you want to have that bass in your hands is good. Not everyone learns the same way... I had plenty of theory training on piano, but I started out on bass by just figuring out songs that I liked and playing with progressively better band mates. Bass lessons bored me to death, but learning in a band setting lit a fire in me.

Also, six months is really no time to be assessing your progress or future progress at all. At some point, you will pull something off that shocks you and then you will know you are moving in the right direction. You can't predict that moment.

 

[Rogatien022]

Keep it fun. You're 48 and have a 40+ hours job schedule per week. All you can do is have fun at it, pick up some tunes and play with friends, maybe even do a couple of gigs. Keep it simple.

Play with much better musicians than you are, it's gonna be free and you'll learn a lot by doing so.

Have fun, keep it simple, just play.

 

[Lobster11]

Where did you think you'd be after 100 hours? Playing John Paul Jones' line from The Lemon Song? Out-slapping Larry Graham?

I picked up the bass at 45 and played by myself for five years before I felt ready to play with others in a band. During that time I took weekly lessons and practiced daily. I didn't count the hours, but I also didn't get discouraged because as slowly as I progressed, at least I was progressing.

I agree you might want to find a new teacher who can focus you a bit more. My teacher always asked what song I wanted to learn, but he always had appropriate theory and technique lessons in hand to help me learn that song.

Otherwise, give yourself a break. There's no timetable for this stuff. As long as you enjoy it and are getting better little by little, that's all that matters.

I was halfway through typing a post almost identical to this one when this post appeared. I don't think you have to change anything other than your perspective.

First, as @RichardW said, you have to be realistic about your expectations. You've been working at this for just over 4 months. There's a lot to learn, and it isn't easy. You just need to be patient.

Second, it sounds to me like you're actually making very good progress given how long you've been at it. If you can put on a Pandora station and play along to whatever comes on, and stay in key while improvising, you're way ahead of a lot of people who have been playing much longer than you have. It's easy to underestimate how much progress you've made because the change is slow: You're probably better now than you were last week, but not by enough to have noticed. If you listened to a recording of your playing from two months ago, you'd probably be amazed. As @RichardW said, give yourself a break!

 

[hrodbert696]

Honestly, I'm not hearing why you're afraid to join a band. It sounds like you're interested in it but not confident enough in your abilities. But from what I'm hearing, you're hitting a plateau, and that's a perfect point to go play with some other people. You don't have to jump straight into a Dream Theater tribute band. just go to a blues jam or something. If you're learning to play Jane's Addiction you'll be able to keep up in 90% of the rock cover bands out there. And once you start playing with a group, you'll have more to go back to your teacher to learn - "How do I do THIS part....?"

 

[geowis]

Jane's Addiction-Three Days doesn't seem slouch to me. I just listened to it and hear a mix of 1/8, 1/16 and 1/32 notes. And if you can improvise after just one year, you're ahead of most. I subscribe to Ultimate Guitar, which is a tab site. I've found that learning a bass line to a song and then adding my own improvision while playing along with my eyes closed has been very helpful. It forces you to think ahead with upcoming cord changes and why most of the time trying to add extra notes doesn't help the song, but actually hurts it. Another amazing thing about this techniques is most of the "good stuff" often doesn't fall on the whole beet. I think UG offers trial memberships.

 

[Bodeanly]

Some of my greatest "bass lessons" occurred while playing in a band. I have always believed that a person becomes a great musician by playing with musicians who are better than themselves. If you are only playing with yourself, you are only playing with yourself. YMMV

 

[Lobster11]

Honestly, I'm not hearing why you're afraid to join a band. It sounds like you're interested in it but not confident enough in your abilities. But from what I'm hearing, you're hitting a plateau, and that's a perfect point to go play with some other people. You don't have to jump straight into a Dream Theater tribute band. just go to a blues jam or something. If you're learning to play Jane's Addiction you'll be able to keep up in 90% of the rock cover bands out there. And once you start playing with a group, you'll have more to go back to your teacher to learn - "How do I do THIS part....?"

I don't recall him suggesting that he's afraid to join a band, though it seems he doesn't feel like he's quite ready for that yet. And he may be right. But he did ask:

Should I be practicing with my wife and friends more?

....to which the answer is an enthusiastic Yes! Nothing will help you learn faster and keep you motivated better than playing with other people. Playing with others will give you a (fun) context in which to try out what you've learned, and will give you a focus and goals to work toward. As @hrodbert696 said, after spending a couple of hours playing with others, you'll come away with plenty of question to ask your instructor next time.

 

[ESPweasel]

Okay, I'm getting the idea and I'm feeling better than I did last night.

My wife's a professional singer but a beginner guitarist. I do have friends that play and there's an Open Jam Session this Sunday that I want to go to but yeah, I lack confidence at this point.

I don't live in fear. If anything I'm an adrenaline junky, I just don't like looking silly and I don't want to be 'that' guy

 

[Rogatien022]

Well, we're all "that guy" at some point. Nothing to be ashamed about.

 

[ESPweasel]

Where did you think you'd be after 100 hours? Playing John Paul Jones' line from The Lemon Song? Out-slapping Larry Graham?.

Good one!

Well yeah and I should be able to copy Les Claypool note for note by now.

 

[hrodbert696]

I don't recall him suggesting that he's afraid to join a band, though it seems he doesn't feel like he's quite ready for that yet. And he may be right.

It seemed to be the natural conclusion to draw from this:

I want to keep having fun and if someone asks me if I want to play along with them I want to be able to. Last weekend at my friend's house he asked if I wanted to play and I declined cuz I didn't know what to do.

 

[EatS1stBassist]

I knew that was going to be the first reply

I want to keep having fun and if someone asks me if I want to play along with them I want to be able to. Last weekend at my friend's house he asked if I wanted to play and I declined cuz I didn't know what to do.

No no no!! don't decline that's your next step playing with others. It will quickly show you what you need to learn and it's fun go ahead go play with others play play with anybody that you can get a chance to play some music with. Play different kinds of music a great lesson is to play along with Latin music. I once learned all the bass lines to Jim Croce' music about 63 recordings. That was like taking lessons from four different bass players.

 

[geowis]

I was just looking through my notes around my one year mark. At the time, I had just learned this by ear and was ecstatic.
It's pretty simple bass, but the bass is carrying the song big time. Being able to play 64 notes in a four-count probably won't get anyone dancing.

 

[RustyAxe]

3.5 hours of personal instruction and 134 days and 100 hours is barely a start. You're impatient. I get it. There's no fast track to virtuosity, it takes years of work. But you should be able to have some fun along the way. Perhaps suggest to your instructor to give you SONGS that demonstrate what he's trying to teach. Or find a better teacher. Very few who tout themselves as "teachers" actually are. Back in the stone age, when I learned music, it was a structured approach, and every lesson included songs and exercises to help ingrain the lesson. On piano there were "etudes".

 

[LowNloud1]

I was primarily self-taught. Spent my effort learning to play songs I liked and was familiar with. Learned patterns and how to get around the fretboard to economize movement. Then I took on more difficult, faster lines, repeating ad naseum until I got them down. Took a year but was in a band after that.

 

[Jeff Bonny]

You do need a teacher but one who understands adult beginners. You just wanna hang and play

Where to go from here?


So I took my first lesson on 1/13/16 and I’ve played every day since which is 134 days and roughly 100 hours of practice.


I’m taking lessons from a great guy. He’s a professional musician, been playing bass for 20 years, is very patient and I have absolutely no complaints.


After 7 half hour lessons and those approximately 100 hours of practice I can play a few songs. I’m working on Jane’s Addiction “Three Days” now.


I practice pentatonic and chromatic scales for the most part and spend half of my practice time playing along with Pandora (Which I completely improvise and just try and stay in tune) Currently on the Pearl Jam station just because I like trying to stay in tune with Eddie’s voice not necessarily the bass lines.


So where do I go from here? I have one more ½ hour lesson next week and it might be my last until I can justify the cost. My plan is to have him play along with me and my wife with her on the guitar just for fun so we can practice together. Other than that I’m not even sure what to ask him. He’ll sometimes say “What do you want to learn today” and right now I can’t think of an answer.


I’m also playing along to video lesson and that’s probably going to be my main instruction for a while now.


I don’t know much about “theory” but I’m trying to enroll in an online class for beginners.


I’m somewhat happy with my progress but I’m feeling somewhat unfulfilled. Should I be practicing with my wife and friends more? Reading books (I’m not a fan of instruction manuals) or bite the bullet and find the money to continue with my weekly lessons?

Oh, and 90% of my time is spent on the fretless without a pick. I have a fretted bass too and I might even own a pick. LOL


Thanks

You're on the right track. If your teacher is helping you to move forward and have fun playing stick with him. If you can't afford weekly lessons make it every two weeks but keep it a regular thing. It's harder to learn as an adult and if you don't stick with something until it's really solidly learned you can easily loose what you've gained. You can't do this on your own.

Given your situation it's understood you just want to have fun don't ever loose sight of that. It's called playing, right? If you were studying with me I'd be giving you enough basic theory to get through the kind of songs you want to play without laying down too many clams but the big thing I'd have you working on is your time. Understanding time and playing simple with good time is what will bring you and those you play with more satisfaction than anything else. You won't completely understand what Steve Jordan is saying here so you'll have questions listening to him but he's laying out a really important idea that should get you asking some of the the right questions.

.....so next time your teacher asks, "what do you want to learn today?" you should have a list you can't get through in one lesson. I once had a teacher look at me very crossly and say, "That's a bad question, ask me a good question."

Do you have an iOS device? If so spend the $30 on Drum Genius. It's library of short drum loops lifted from some of the greatest drummers in all styles and genres developed by a bass teacher as a tool for his students. Just playing straight rock 8th's on one note with John Bonham or Kenny Aronoff or Hal Blaine is some of the best schooling anyone can give you right now. It will produce noticeable results pretty much immediately.

 

[TerribleLiar23]

Practice more! From the numbers you gave, you average less than 45 minutes a day playing. Perhaps you're different, but when I first started I needed way more practice than that to learn at what I consider to be a reasonable rate. I know with work and family more practice is easier said than done, but squeeze it in whenever you can.