A song or exercise is “Mastered” when...

[Bassist59]

When working on a piece of music, whether it’s a complete song or exercise, when is it considered “mastered”?

3 TIMES IN A ROW
If I remember correctly, a virtuoso musician, possibly guitarist Steve Vai, considers something mastered when you can play it 3 times in a row, full speed tempo, with no errors. That actually sounds like a fair test.

STANDING AND SEATED
If you can play it seated, can you also do it standing? If you can only do it one way, do you really have it down?

WITHOUT LOOKING
I think if you can make it all the way through a song or exercise without looking at the fretboard, you’ve really nailed it. This might not be realistic if you have a piece with a lot of shifting, but if you don’t have to look, that’s great.

IN FRONT OF A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE
I guess this is the real test. It is for me, anyway because I have stage fright and it sometimes affects my playing.

When do you consider a piece mastered? I recall my kids’ orchestra teacher, maybe it was the piano teacher, stating something has to be played a thousand times or so to really get burned into your subconscious.

I am just an amateur/hobbyist bassist so I’m curious what you real musicians think.

 

[misterCRUSH]

I don't ever consider anything ever truly mastered. There is always room for even the smallest little improvement. I do think that playing and recording the same exercise on a regular basis can let you not only hear where you can improve, but also show you your progress in a really visceral way. My current project is to record myself playing along with Brad Mehldau's version of "all the things you are" once a month. I can hear little differences as each month goes by. But i by no means have it mastered.

 

[BrotherMister]

I don't think any of the categories comes close to mastered.

For example, if it's taken you 10 attempts and you've messed up getting the next 3 perfect don't count as mastered. I fully agree the answer lies consistency but the definitive numerical aspect of it isn't such a good benchmark. Perhaps if you were playing it 10 times a day and each day all 10 times were excellent and this continued for a week or 2 then it's safe to say you are on much firmer grounding.

Seating or standing is absolutely irrelevant to any mastery.

Without looking I also don't feel counts all that much. Sometimes you might need to look at whats going on and others you don't. I can sight read entire shows without looking at my neck but I'm not a master in bass, reading or the material. I'm just able to juggle those 3 demands to a high level at a given time.

In a room of people is actually a good assessment, not fo mastery but often for how much is actually in your being. I always say to students it's one thing doing it alone in your room, it's another doing it with a group of musicians, and it's another doing it on stage. The on stage real time with audience aspect more often than not is the truest indicator of your control because other factors come into play.

Please don't take any of this personally, I do think each of those has some merit in the learning process and is a good way to begin to move forward. Even if you've slaughtered it 10 times and play it excellently 3 times in a row that is improvement and a measure of progress that you are capable of doing it. Not looking at your neck is a measure of you beginning to trust that you actually know and have control over the instrument enough to not need to constantly look at it and trust your ears. These are important micro goals to have in the quest to find the macro.

Unfortunately I don't have the answer to your question because it's ultimately a philosophical question. I'm of the opinion no musician has truly mastered anything because any great musician will tell you the more you know the more you realise you don't know and the technical aspect of something doesn't equal the musical aspect. A great example is Glenn Gould playing the Goldberg Variations at the start and end of his career. The earlier record made his name and is technically brilliant but the later one is far more musically in depth. I daresay if he was still with us he would have no doubt revisited them again, even in his own time, and found yet more things to be discovered in the music and his playing. That to me is a masters mentality, which is perhaps the closest we could ever get.

 

[Lobster11]

Some thoughts from a fellow amateur/hobbyist bassist (playing in two pretty-good amateur/hobbyist bands), and who is also nearing retirement:

First, I'm in this totally for the fun, not for "mastery." I just don't even think in those terms. All that matters to me is that I can play a song well enough with a band that it's fun and sounds good. For any given song/part, my goal is just to keep improving, not reach some specific benchmark.

Second, if I do think in terms of "mastery," it seems to me that this includes much more than being able to play the correct notes in the correct order (and/or without looking, etc.). To me, "mastery" involves things like being able to express/elicit feelings and emotions in ways that are impossible to measure, as well as being able to improvise the details while retaining the right feel/groove. Fortunately, neither of my bands is concerned about playing songs note-for-note per the original, and one of them plays a lot of original songs for which there is no standard against which to judge anyway.

Finally, I strongly advise joining or assembling a (hobby) band to play with regularly. With the right group of folks (which admittedly is not easy to find), playing in a band is infinitely more fun than sitting at home learning how to mimic recordings. If you do this, I think it will dramatically change your thinking about the "mastery" question.

 

[Bassist59]

Finally, I strongly advise joining or assembling a (hobby) band to play with regularly. With the right group of folks (which admittedly is not easy to find), playing in a band is infinitely more fun than sitting at home learning how to mimic recordings. If you do this, I think it will dramatically change your thinking about the "mastery" question.

Agreed. There is no substitute for jamming with others. I’ve done this off and on since the 1980s. Coincidentally, I might be playing with some other musicians again soon!

Bandmates will be depending on me as the bassist to be solid which is all the more reason for me to up my game. The bottom line is, we’ll want the audience to say “wow, those guys are good.” I think definable goals are needed for a musician to improve. I don’t think attempting mastery of a piece of music can hurt anything.

Music is not a contest, or an athletic event, but putting in the work and nailing it, comes through to the audience. My focus is competency as others are depending on me.


Bottom line....have fun. If everybody’s into it, it’s fine. Good luck, keep playaing!

 

[AGCurry]

I know I have mastered something when the challenge is gone and it starts to bore me.

On the other hand, that is when I know I can really "sell" the piece in performance.

 

[Bassist59]

Check the clip below out for practice motivation. I like the how he kept at it, over and over until he got it.

I like to apply that determination to the things I’m trying to nail on bass.

 

[CatOnTheBass]

If I can successfully get through the song one time, from beginning to end, then I move on to the next song on my list. That's probably not what you mean by "mastery" but life is short, and there's a lot of songs I want to learn. If I can't learn the song in an hour, then it's too hard for me, and I'll come back to it someday when I have more skill.

 

[Groove Doctor]

Mastery is playing the bass line note-perfect while dancing on stage without looking at your fretboard, singing harmony lines to the melody, watching & listening to your band mates, and interacting with the audience.


An amateur practices until they get it right. A professional practises until they never get it wrong.

 

[TOOL460002]

Closest answer for me on there is "play it live," because I feel like if you've got a song pretty much down you should have the confidence to do it live. However, another metric would be "can sit in the studio and record back to back to back, maybe changing some parts, but having it mastered where you can play 10 cool versions in a row (10 is arbitrary).

 

[Klangfarbe]

I think a Song and an Exercise are two different things, however you can both master them.
Mastering an Exercise to me means, that it becomes a meaningful part of your musical Vocabulary. So when your Arpegio/ Triadexercise turns int something like Anestesia/ Pulling Teeth. Or when a Lick becomes so fluent that you can play it any Song and Key. It becomes some kind of a musical reference that enables you to make a statemant and that you can Explore.

Mastering a Song on the other Hand means that the Audience can Emotinaly connect to it. It will make them Lough, Cry, Dance or whatever. It doesn't have to be perfect or "without Mistakes" but rather convieneint in its whole. (However, it must have to GROOVE by any means necessery).

 

[jmattbassplaya]

Of the choices listed... being able to play something perfectly in a live setting is the closest indication of mastery. However, you can always make something tighter.

 

[Bassist59]

Mastery is playing the bass line note-perfect while dancing on stage without looking at your fretboard, singing harmony lines to the melody, watching & listening to your band mates, and interacting with the audience.


An amateur practices until they get it right. A professional practises until they never get it wrong.

I think you nailed it right there. Let’s take something like “A Portrait of Tracy”, or Rush’s “YYZ” for example. Maybe you can sit down in the guest bedroom on the edge of the bed and play those bass lines to perfection.

Playing standing up, on a stage with lights in your face and pretty girls looking up at you might be a different story. Yeah, you’ve got to move around, get the audience involved, wink at the girls after hitting a harmonic, etc.

Playing live isn’t the litmus test, it’s playing it live well that’s probably the true test. Moving, looking at the audience, not your fretboard, not missing any notes. That puts it at a whole different level.

Probably most of us play until the challenge is gone and boredom sets in. Maybe the key is pushing through the boredom and continuing the repetitions until you can play it in your sleep.

My daughter played many piano recitals as a kid and performed many uber-complex classical pieces in front of everybody to perfection. A few years later, she can’t remember any of them. What was the point? I think a part of true mastery is getting it burned in so deep you’ll never forget it.

 

[luciens]

None of the above. Mastery is achieved once you're finally sick of it. You can get sick of anything if you do it enough times, including a technique or a piece of music. Music is supposed to be fun, not something you're sick of playing 80 billion times.

So I think the trick is to get just good enough at it to be able to play it all the way through reasonably consistently so that you can gig it, but it's still fresh enough that it still dings your bell to play it. Then soak it for all its worth on the gigs. When you've finally achieved mastery of it, meaning everyone can't stand it anymore, time to take it off the set list and get some new material.

L

 

[Guild B301]

I’ve never been anything other than a professional musician.
A part is only ‘good enough‘ when it can be:
Played at 3 x speed, without looking, sitting or standing, in front of an arena full of people.
It will never be ‘mastered’

 

[Bassist59]

I’ve never been anything other than a professional musician.
A part is only ‘good enough‘ when it can be:
Played at 3 x speed, without looking, sitting or standing, in front of an arena full of people.
It will never be ‘mastered’

Brutal! But true!

There’s also another little caveat...once you do get a complex piece of music down cold - it doesn’t stay that way, unless you keep at it.

I studied shredder guitarist, Rusty Cooley’s books and CDs, and he states plainly, you have to play every day to stay on top of most all of his material. The same applies to any complex physical skill.

 

[pogipoints]

This is what I say to myself:
When you can play it right the first time, every time, then it's "under your fingers".
When you can you can use it in different contexts, it's "good".
When you don't have to think about it and it just happens, then maybe it can be considered "done".
But mastered? I haven't gotten to that point in my playing.

 

[jamro217]

As we're all imperfect humans living in a fallen world the very concept of mastery implies that perfection exists and is attainable. Highly unlikely. Pencils are equipped with erasers for a reason. Mastery could be considered the ability to perform a tune with no mistakes in a variety of keys and tempos. In that sense, most of us have "mastered" Mustang Sally. Not that lofty a goal, really. Simply getting through some songs without making a complete a fool of yourself is a huge victory by comparison. The vicious nature of this exercise is that once a certain song is mastered there is a new one to replace it. It never ends and each musician's list is different. One player may stumble at one phrase while another breezes through it only to get caught at the next measure. Player one catches up and doesn't even blink at the point where player two got hung up. As individuals we tend to perceive our world in different ways and this becomes apparent through our music. That's why there is no right and wrong where expression is concerned. This is not to say that taking liberties with structured scores can be passed off as "expression", especially when the "expression" is due to lack of preparedness or talent. Hacking your way through someone else's life work in this manner is the ultimate insult. If you aren't up to the task better to just leave it alone. If you have a novel approach to a tune and you understand what makes it tick, that's another story entirely. Sorry if this sounds condescending, but when dealing with divas who think they are more important than people who actually took the time to learn how music works instead of preening themselves in front of a mirror all day... but I digress...

 

[Bassist59]

...Simply getting through some songs without making a complete a fool of yourself is a huge victory by comparison...

Lol! That’s MY goal 99% of the time. If I look out and see people dancing or moving while I’m playing...well at that point in time, I’m a musician.

I know a lot of tunes, a lot of scales, chords, exercises...but I’ve “mastered“ very little. If I record something, usually it sounds terrible.

I guess mastery or perfection was never really the purpose when picking up a guitar or bass. The purpose for me is just the joy of playing. If somebody listening likes it - even better.

 

[pravus]

Mastery to me is when you can play a piece accurately without having to think about it. You should be able to pick up an instrument and perform the piece at any time under virtually any conditions any number of times. This will be a reflection of the time spent in practice transferring concentrated learning into muscle memory.