Will it ever happen?
I am 30 and started playing during the pandemic (mostly self thought, but I finally started taking lessons). Last April I started playing in bands and I am now in a metal cover band, and a jazz group from my local music school that covers mainly bossa nova stuff. I never played out yet.
I practice every day, and spend a lot of time perfecting the material I play with both bands. Sure enough, I still have to play a single piece perfectly at reharsal. Either I miss the drummer slightly, fret a note poorly, mess up the dynamics, play the wrong note, sometimes even plain forget how the next part goes. I can feel when I get ‘in the zone’ and everything is just perfect, but most times I am either overthinking, or getting stupidly distracted and then the mistake happens.
The other cats seems to be happy with my playing, but I really want to be able to play perfectly ‘most of the times’ as opposed to ‘most of the tune’… Some times I think it’s no biggie and I will get there, since I am still a green player with little experience…Othertimes I get discouraged and think it will never happen: it’s just beyond me, I am not really cut for this and all that stuff…
What do you people think? Any word of advice? Did you also struggle with consistency? When did you stop making mistakes? Or do they just keep happening and we just learn to mask them and live with it?
As was already said and will probably be said many more times: You will never play perfect all the time. You’ll never stop making mistakes. Nobody does. Even the greatest of the great will tell you they make mistakes. It’s a thing I hear in interviews all the time.
I think one of the things great players are able to do, and it’s something I think you’re somewhat aware of, is get “in the zone” really easily and stay there. Some people call it the zone; some call it a Flow State. Some call it other things. Regardless of what it’s called, it sometimes seems like it’s some mystical place you accidentally arrive, but you can actually train yourself to turn it on actively and deliberately. It’s a skill that takes practice just like all the physical aspects of playing bass.
For me it’s less about focusing on the bass playing or the music, and more about “thinking in music.” Less about clearing my mind from other thoughts and more about not having them. (A bit woo woo sounding, I know, but it’s not as woo woo as it sounds.)
It’s kinda like when a baseball player gets up to bat and they do their routine: tap the plate, dig in their foot, shake their ass, batter’s stance. The “ritualistic” motions put their brain in “batting mode.” They don’t have to actively think about batting. They’re in batting mode. Their brain just thinks batting.
If there’s a small deliberate routine you can do before playing, your brain will begin to associate that with Bass Playing Mode.
For instance, for me, almost every single time I play at home I start with the Staple Singer’s “I’ll take you there.” Since I play it every time, not only is it my warm-up tune, but it puts my brain in Bass Playing Mode. It turns on the zone. So any time I play, even if I can’t play the whole song, I’ll play the riff from that song once or twice (even with the volume off if i have to). If my instrument is already on stage before I play, before I go on stage I’ll close my eyes and visualize myself playing it, audiate the bass line, and move my fingers, all without the bass. Still works.
It doesn’t have to be a song. It can be a riff or a certain set of motions like a baseball player.
In time, I figured out how to catch my brain when it dropped out of the zone and now I usually can just turn the zone back on. I usually catch myself dropping out of the zone because I notice a couple “mistakes.” Because I make mistakes. We all do.
All that aside, you just started playing within the past 3 years, during the pandemic? That’s nothing! And I don’t mean that in a demeaning way. I mean that in a really great way: You already have 3 years or so under your belt and You’ll keep getting better. You have the rest of your life to keep getting better, and if you keep deliberately practicing and learning and loving music, you will. So don’t sweat the mistakes. Once a mistake is played it’s lost to time. You can’t go back and change it, so keep playing. (Of course, if you’re learning something or practicing it, stopping and doing it again slower until it’s correct is important. You don’t want to practice mistakes repeatedly and thereby train mistakes into muscle memory. Proper practice is important.) But when you’re playing with other people, don’t think about the bad thing you just played. Think about all the good ones you’re going to play.
And I think the best musicians make their worst mistakes sounds like great on-purposes. That’s what I gotta figure out how to do.
