Am I pathetic? Part 1.

[mjcarp79]

Am I pathetic and hopeless that this bass line is tough for me?



It is not complex, or even very fast. The trouble is that the continual driving pace wears me out before the end of the song. Its a stamina issue.

I have been practicing this for a while, and I can play it well at first, but I have yet to be able to play all they way through and keep every note perfectly in place.

I feel that I must have really poor stamina. Opinions? Thanks!

 

[Stylee Mousse]

Stamina comes in plateaus. Keep at it.

are you playing too hard? Are you tense?

 

[mjcarp79]

Stamina comes in plateaus. Keep at it.

are you playing too hard? Are you tense?

Thanks for the reply and the advice!

Not sure if I am playing too hard, but I will be mindful of this while practicing. Yes, I definitely notice tension while practicing this. I have the bad habit of tensing up when playing something that seems, or is, difficult. I will try to work on that.

 

[Real Soon]

That tune really does drive!

If there are any passages in the song that you feel might cause tension to start building, it's worth devoting serious time to isolating those and slowing them down, and consciously relaxing your body and mind as much as humanly possible while working on them. Like, print out a sheet of paper reminding you to relax if need be!

For the endurance grinds, I find I can repeat a lick a certain number of times, then start to fatigue. Then I rest a bit, then can repeat the lick again, but a shorter number of times. Rest, shorter set of repeats. It's a very human way the body & mind work, and can be increased by consistently working at it while not forgetting to rest.

 

[nightchef]

Anything that involves doing the same thing over and over without alteration or interruption seems to make me tense up and tire out, even if the thing in itself is not that challenging. I think it’s probably a very common reaction.

I’ll probably get struck by lightning for saying this, but the way I would handle that kind of problem in performance is simply to cheat: don’t play every single eighth note. Leave out an offbeat here and there to “reset” your hands. (The best candidates for omission to my ear would be the offbeats of one and four in the first bar of the riff, and two in the second bar.) Don’t leave the same one(s) out every time or you’ll change the feel and lose some of the drive. But if you leave a few out randomly as you go along, no one will be the wiser, and you’ll get through the song.

 

[Stylee Mousse]

Another one: switch to something else after a bit and use that to reset. In band rehearsal I hated playing the same riff for too long while working on an original. Sometimes we would just do that at “half power” light and quiet with no focus on tone.