Advice on practicing

[jonster]

A metronome is the minimum (and sometimes enough). A drum machine can be great, too. Try to get with a real live drummer and just groove. For hours! Congratulations. Welcome to the club!

Jon Liebman
Invalid Link Removed

 

[ronin614]

Congrats on giving this a try...a lot of guys want to do it but play the "I'm too old" card. And as a 41 yr old who has just returned to playing after a 20 yr lay off and also am in the process of learning to play alto sax and get my degree in music it's nice to see someone else go after what they want. Now for a tip my musicianship professor gave us last week...whenever you learn a new song, start with the last two measures first, then work up to the last four measures etc. The logic is that most people can perform the 1st part of their music really well, but then go downhill as the song progresses because they've played the beginning of the song so many more times. By starting from the end, your performance will be consistantly strong throughout. Made a lot of sense to me. Oh, and get a metronome and remember to HAVE FUN!!!!!

 

[omgurry]

Hi,
I have recently started a website for jam tracks. Although it is primarily aimed at guitarists, the latest 2 collections (25 tracks) are drums only so are perfect for bassists too. The collections cover various modern styles as well as odd time signatures - from more common meters like 3/4 and 5/4 to more challenging ones like 10/8, 11/8 and 15/16.

You can find it at www.JamTracksForGuitar.com
people guitarist (or any other instrumentalist for that matter) jamming along to the tracks to feature on the site and my YouTube channel so get in touch if you come up with something cool

Thanks.

Owen Gurry
www.JamTracksForGuitar.com
[email protected]

 

[G2K]

I'm new to playing bass and and any musical instrument for that matter. Have no music theory education or practicel playing experience. Picked up a bass several months ago and am now playing through 10 or so riffs.

Does the group rececomend buying a drum machine or some other device to play along with? I'm in my mid-50's and there really isn't anyone available to jam or practice with. Sort of limited that respect.

Just plowing through websites and a few instructional books. Any other advice is welcome. Thanks in advance.

Not sure how good this will help. I myself have just started (1 year ago, I'm 48) I have stayed away from trying to play other songs up to now. I started with the Major scale and practiced all the scales or modes in in each key. I now have a pretty solid handle on the fretboard as well as how to move between octaves. I do have a metronome and practice with it (don't like it) but it really helps with my timing. I would also seek out a good teacher to help direct you. I have not been able to find one for my needs but will continue to look. This is a hobby/dream for me. I guess the first thing one must do is decide what their aspirations are. Enjoy your journey, I applaud your efforts and wish you well.

 

[rditmars]

I started playing at 49 (56 now). I am fortunate to live in a town with an active music scene and have four blues jams a month to join. A group of three or four of us get together to jam once a week as well.

My teacher (still taking lessons) works a lot with the Aebersold series of books ( www.jazzbooks.com ) to play along with. The bass is always on the left channel so you can defeat it and play along with the piano and drums. Transcribing the bass lines on the discs has been a great exercise as well. The TASCAM bass trainer is a big help with that.

If you don't have anyone to play with, definitely check out the Aebersold sets.

 

[the engine]

I taught bass for several years, as many as 32 students at once. If you can't (or don't want to) find a teacher, then get a VIDEO! VISUAL aids are the best. You can find beginner bass videos for around $20. My next advice is as follows...do the boring stuff! If you get a video it will no doubt start with some boring finger excercises on the bass. I understand that they are no fun. But if you try to jump right into music AND finger stuff at the same time your head may explode. HAHA! I've seen it too many times. Anyway... The point is that if you get your fingers moving in the right direction (using boring fingers stuff and scales and what not) then it won't be so hard to add the music in later. I would say that about six weeks of boring about 30 minutes plus a day should do it. Best of luck!!!!! Please feel free to shoot me a message or whatever if you have any questions!


P.S. I know how to read music but I haven't done so in YEARS! So it may or may not help you (depending on what styles you want to play).

 

[bassalo]

After trying to teach myself on and off for about a year, I signed up for lessons about a month ago. My instructor corrected me on some critically important technique issues he saw. The top one being, "leave no finger left behind" technique. Don't wire your fingers all over the fretboard with your fingers dancing like spider legs, keep them down.
Translation: when your pinky is fingering a note, all 4 fingers are ON the strings. when your ring finger is fingering a note, your middle and index are ON the strings as well....and so on. I can't tell you how much this has improved my playing (and speed) in just over 3 weeks. Wish I knew this a long time ago!

Other advice - take lessons, even if it's for a month.
LEARN THE NOTES ON THE FRETBOARD
LEARN THE NOTES ON THE FRETBOARD
LEARN THE NOTES ON THE FRETBOARD

 

[Jack Clark]

I ordered a HL book called "The Definitive Jazz Collection" with 80-some jazz standards. I told the book seller I played the bass and so needed a bass clef version. He sent me a trombone book. At first I thought it was a mistake. But then the light went on: I didn't expect it to come with bass lines anyway--just a one-note melody line--and the trombone line was perfect for soloing on bass since you probably want to solo mostly on the two upper strings anyway. I see where a couple of other posters here have recommended using trombone books for practicing sight reading, which is the same idea. For soloing you can start with the straight trombone line and bend it from there. It's funny that I haven't seen that touted anywhere else yet--just here.

 

[afromoose]

I'm new to playing bass and and any musical instrument for that matter. Have no music theory education or practicel playing experience. Picked up a bass several months ago and am now playing through 10 or so riffs.

Does the group rececomend buying a drum machine or some other device to play along with? I'm in my mid-50's and there really isn't anyone available to jam or practice with. Sort of limited that respect.

Just plowing through websites and a few instructional books. Any other advice is welcome. Thanks in advance.

If you're new to it, the only way is up right?

I think anything you do is going to make you improve in the beginning. Just go for whatever you feel looks like fun.

What practice you should do specifically is related to your i) musical aims - what are they? And ii) your weaknesses - but if you're new to playing instruments, then this is kind of irrelevant, because everything needs to be worked on (in the grand scheme of things)!

Just have fun, learn what you want to start. When you start to plateau or run out of things to do you'll know about it. Then address the imbalance by adding things to your practice routine.

There are certain things you don't want to do though, like learning bad technique early on - if I were you I'd have a look on youtube like people are saying and copy something that looks like it'll be comfortable for you. Don't strain your left wrist too much, and build up slowly.

I recommend for a text, the Bass Bible by Paul Westwood. It's great - loads of cool riffs one after the other, in many many different styles, and no nonsense exercises and theory covering all the basics.

 

[paul_wolfe]

Band in A Box is great software to practice along with. You can use it as a simple metronome, or an advanced metronome (playing 'clicks' on selected beats), you can use it to generate drum patterns, or you can use it to generate chord progressions so you've got somethign to practice with that's got rhythm (drums) and Harmony (chords) so you're getting some 'ear training' too.

 

[mid_life_crisis]

LEARN THE NOTES ON THE FRETBOARD
LEARN THE NOTES ON THE FRETBOARD
LEARN THE NOTES ON THE FRETBOARD

This is great (albeit obvious) advice, but it is also quite daunting. This as the goal when you are older and quite frankly don't commit things to memory as fast as you once did is more than a little overwhelming.


Edit: I just realized how old this thread is. Call it Lazarus, I guess.

 

[Stumbo]

LEARN THE NOTES ON THE FRETBOARD
LEARN THE NOTES ON THE FRETBOARD
LEARN THE NOTES ON THE FRETBOARD

This is great (albeit obvious) advice, but it is also quite daunting. This as the goal when you are older and quite frankly don't commit things to memory as fast as you once did is more than a little overwhelming.


Edit: I just realized how old this thread is. Call it Lazarus, I guess.

Here's a pretty easy way to learn the notes on the fretboard:
Free downloadable interactive fretboard learning tool for Microsoft Excel or Open Office spreadsheet

 

[billoetjen]

Hi,
Like you I started on bass pretty late in life. It's the only instrument that ever called to me. Since timing is crucial for bassists, something that will train you to keep good time is essential. Nothing wrong with a metronome.

Learn that fretboard.

Start with good, versatile technique. Find a good teacher and treat yourself to a couple of good lessons. Now. Before you learn bad habits.

Avoid trends.

Practice EVERY DAY. For as much time as you can afford.

Keep pushing yourself to master new stuff, to the point where it hurts.

Make yourself play with other musicians.

Cut yourself some slack. It takes about a hundred times as long to learn something new when you're an old fart. But you will learn what you need. I'm well acquainted with both those facts and okay with them.

Oh, and most important, try to have fun. Otherwise, it's just more suck time.

How's your speed/accuracy?

Did I mention having fun?

 

[gachupin]

I have a life, a busy life, but whenever I have time for myself (which is usually taken off from sleeping) is never the right time for anybody else to come down home and jam, then I found www.ninjam.com and I jam with people from all over the world, different musical backgrounds, all kinds of instruments, etc. take a look at it, may work for you as well, and if you have any questions or a hard time setting up let me know and will be more than glad to help you out

 

[mid_life_crisis]

In my case, I owned the bass for two weeks before I even picked it up. I was so afraid of starting out wrong that I waited for my first lesson to play it other than a very little seeing how it felt kind of thing.
The school I go to has a small stage and has a "jam night" at least once a month where they put together students of similar skill level and get them to perform together. They really encourage not just playing by yourself. I think it will be a long time before I get comfortable enough to join in though.

Stumbo, I downloaded that app the other day. I don't have Excel so I downloaded a spreadsheet viewer from Microsoft. The interactive part doesn't work, although the review sheets could be very helpful.

What guys like me really need is an interactive program that shows you a measure of music (starting with one note and as you get better, the number increases to provide more of a challenge) and you click on both a list of notes by name and once you had the right name, on a fretboard to show what you would actually play. It would keep track of your time and repeat the ones you have the most trouble with. Ideally you could select different scales when you open the program. It would be extra helpful if it highlighted different areas of the fretboard so you had to learn more than one place to find each note. Maybe I should dust off my old coding manuals.

billoetjen, my speed and accuracy at this point are very poor, so I'm practicing riffs that move really slowly so I don't feel bad about my speed. You know, like the opening measures of Sunshine of Your Love kind of thing.

 

[Michael Campbel]

What guys like me really need is an interactive program that shows you a measure of music (starting with one note and as you get better, the number increases to provide more of a challenge) and you click on both a list of notes by name and once you had the right name, on a fretboard to show what you would actually play. It would keep track of your time and repeat the ones you have the most trouble with. Ideally you could select different scales when you open the program. It would be extra helpful if it highlighted different areas of the fretboard so you had to learn more than one place to find each note. Maybe I should dust off my old coding manuals.

It's not free, but "Absolute Fretboard Trainer" does basically this (and other stuff too).

http://www.absolutefretboard.com/aft/bass.asp The website is a little shlocky but the software is pretty solid. I believe they offer a freebie limited trial too to see if you like it.

 

[mid_life_crisis]

It's not free, but "Absolute Fretboard Trainer" does basically this (and other stuff too).

http://www.absolutefretboard.com/aft/bass.asp The website is a little shlocky but the software is pretty solid. I believe they offer a freebie limited trial too to see if you like it.

This looks interesting. I downloaded the trial version. If that seems to work well, I'll get the full release.

Edit: Played with the Lite version on an XP machine and it is just what I need. Humbling, but just what I need. The website does not list Win7 as supported, which is what I have at home, so I'll need to try it there and see what happens. If it works on my home computer, I am getting the app. I might even set up a dual boot with XP if I have to.

 

[billoetjen]

To the OP:

I'd call you "mid" but we only do bass around here.

I admire you for taking this on as a middle-ager. If you give it a reasonable shot and learn that it's not for you, that's fine, too. At least you can say you tried.

You might find out that you can't put the thing down, end up in three different bans, owning a collection of axes...... and gaining the admiration of all around you.

Honestly, speed is about the least important factor in playing. If you hang around music stores, instead of playing (which is how you should spend every available minute) you might get the mistaken impression that speed is important. It is, but only for wankers. I know guys who show off playing a million notes a minute, but when they have to go slow and take it two or four beats per measure, their tone sucks because they're not used to muting and producing well defined tone. Also, they can't sit in the pocket and drive the music forward.

If you have to play slowly, make that your strength! Focus on clean, distinct playing; feel the groove all the way down to your toes. That's how the bass was meant to be heard.

Try out lots of ensemble situations. You'll learn a lot making music the way it's supposed to be - with other people.

Hope this finds you having fun.
Bill

 

[Michael Campbel]

This looks interesting. I downloaded the trial version. If that seems to work well, I'll get the full release.

Edit: Played with the Lite version on an XP machine and it is just what I need. Humbling, but just what I need. The website does not list Win7 as supported, which is what I have at home, so I'll need to try it there and see what happens. If it works on my home computer, I am getting the app. I might even set up a dual boot with XP if I have to.

I'm pretty sure it works on Win 7; I can't recall what I had when I tried the freebie trial, but I think it was win 7.

Before you go to the dual boot option, IF it doesn't work in Win 7 try just running it in XP compatibility mode. That's a quick and easy thing to test before you go mucking with your machine, and more often than not it works.

 

[George Harvey]

I'm new to playing bass and and any musical instrument for that matter. Have no music theory education or practicel playing experience. Picked up a bass several months ago and am now playing through 10 or so riffs.

Does the group rececomend buying a drum machine or some other device to play along with? I'm in my mid-50's and there really isn't anyone available to jam or practice with. Sort of limited that respect.

Just plowing through websites and a few instructional books. Any other advice is welcome. Thanks in advance.

You can get a good metronome APP called Soundbrenner. I am a drumeer first and new to the bass. Highly recommend a clic track!