Are you your own worst enemy? [Bad practice habits]

[El_Charro]

@comatosedragon Having myself avoided ear development in the past I can relate to your current situation. You may want to check out this video for an effective way to start developing your musical ear.

The most effective thing I did to improve overall playing was to get lessons with a good teacher. I found a great one online that I meet with over Zoom and ever since, I have improved faster than ever. Ear training is one of the things we are working on now and I am using techniques described in this video. It's working.

Some can effectively learn bass on their own, but after a while in the vortex of trying to do that, it wasn't right for me. I need the structure and someone to push me forward.

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That was a super helpful video (thank you for posting).

Thanks! \m/

 

[ObsessiveArcher]

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I haven't tried Rockbass but looked at it a while back (I think there is a PS-4 version of it). Lol-In which case I need to ask my Wife how to turn on the PS-4 bc I'm not much of a gamer.

Joking aside- Thanks for the recommendation- I will take another look at it now that I'm a little more serious about playing.

I also am going to start trying to play along to songs I'm already somewhat familiar with without using tabs and see how that goes.

At some point I'm going to need to get myself away from playing tabs if I'm serious about learning, so might as well start working on that now even if it's just once or twice a week.

Thanks! \m/

It's also available on the PC or Xbox if that helps
Once I got used to it, I started to watch youtube videos of others that play along with it. That might be easier than firing up the ole' PS4

 

[EddiePlaysBass]

I think in some ways, Talkbass has ruined it for me. A while back I took a long, hard look at myself and asked: "Why exactly am I spending time learning to sight read latin bass lines?" I am self-taught and reading takes forever, so in the end I was spending a LOT of time and gaining VERY little.

Having said that, yeah I do have bad habits. I tend to scatter my topics of attention too much. Ear training today, sight reading tomorrow, walking jazz bass the day after. But very little actual progress...

These days, I play ukulele far more than bass. Cos I am having more fun. I am working from 4 books, but with focus and direction. And I am making progress.

Bass isn't going anywhere and I still come back to it every week or so. But for now, fun prevails a bit.

@El_Charro I started running fairly "seriously" last year. Worked my way up to 2 half-marathons and this summer I intend to run a full one. Every now and then I have to remind myself WHY i run. Not to best my PR (though I finally run a sub 30min 5k after all this time - approaching 40 and still overweight so happy with that!) but to relax, take my mind off things and have fun.

That's why I started to play bass in the first place...

 

[PaulYeah]

Here are some of the things I've decided not to work on in the past, making the excuse "that's too hard" or "that will take too long." Of course here I am, 31 years later and still playing bass, so I may as well have tried.

* Practicing broken intervals beyond thirds, as well as doing them ascending and descending.
* Knowing the name of every note as I'm playing it. This would help me achieve knowing the notes in every scale, arpeggio, and mode backwards and forwards.
* Learn every note on the fretboard.
* Transcribing jazz solos.
* Really learn how to read music.

I'm now working on the first two items, which I'm hoping will lead to the third. Knowing the notes in every scale inside and out I am considering a prerequisite to reading music.