• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Do you think you practice enough?

#41
Running your fingers along the fretboard, watching TV and playing, and noodling isn't practicing. Nothing wrong with any of it, but there is a lot of confusion about what practice is. Playing along to ZZ Top's Tush for the 10,000th time is fun, but it's not practice. The fastest way to get good is to spend time actually practicing.

Lots of good discussions on what practice is on the forum so I'm not going to rehash it here.
 
  • Like
Reactions: R&B
#42
Buying a little one guitar stand has increased my playing time an awful lot. It's by my desk to in between whatever I'm doing, or if I have a youtube video on or whatever, I pick it up and play. Sometimes I turn on my amp, sometimes not, depending if I'm focussing more on something else or the bass.

I don't really do any regimented practices, never have cared for it. I learn songs, and write them. Skills and abilities grow as you do that anyway if you intend to do anything slightly interesting.
 
  • Like
Reactions: The BurgerMeister
#43
I don't practice enough, I never have and I've been playing bass for over 40 years now. Laziness is all it is. :whistle:

It helps to set aside a fixed time every day. Right now I do one hour every weekday morning before going to work, or at least I try to...sometimes I have to sleep in or go to work early. In my music room I have a bass out and ready to play at all times. Everything is set up, music stand, stool, amp with cable to plug in my iPod or laptop for play-alongs. I come in with a cup of tea, sit down and start playing. I'll take a break about a half hour in. If I have time on weekend mornings, I'll also practice and maybe go longer...90 minutes, two hours.

At this point I mainly work on things that are causing me problems at gigs. I might take a passage from a song I have been having trouble with and work out different fingerings, play it in all 12 keys, etc. If you're gigging you probably can think of a number of songs that you could work on :rolleyes:

The last few months I've been reading out of a book on playing rhythm changes in all 12 keys. At no point was I playing up to full tempo nor did I play any of it 100% perfectly. The goal was to work on my reading, work on my fingerings in areas of the neck I am not using often and to get the sound of various bass line approaches to that particular chord progression in my head. I just started another book with melodic exercises in all 12 keys based on jazz standards. Just today I pulled out two licks that caught my ear and spent a half hour working them in all keys, trying some rhythmic variations, etc. I expect it will take me a year or more to get through the entire book, I'm doing about a page a day so far.

In your case, if your right hand is what you want to work on, develop some exercises. Work on scale and arepeggio patterns or just pick a song with passages where you have difficulties and work on those passages slowly until you can execute them cleanly and then slowly speed it up. Don't expect overnight results! I have a few riffs that I have worked on for years trying to improve my speed and endurance.
 
#44
Pat Metheny, who is arguably one of the best guitarists of the last 40 years, once said it perfectly.

He went to Berklee for awhile and taught there briefly before joining Gary Burton and then forming his own Group. Berklee invited him back years later to give the graduation address and he received an honorary degree (because he never graduated). He said something to the effect of:

This is a great honor and I've had a great career and received a lot of awards, honors, Grammy's etc. But what I am thinking is "I should be home practicing".
 
  • Like
Reactions: Oddly
#46
Do I practice enough? Well, enough to do a good job on my gig, yes. I'm prepared with the new tunes, I clean up rough spots in old tunes, come up with a new fill or two, cop some backing vocal parts. Yep.

Enough to advance my chops and ear? Well, yeah--but barely enough. Slow progress.

Hmn...so what am I doing surfing TB..? Having fun with my cyberbuddies, learning new things to try, by way of EQ, right hand technique, cab/amp combinations...

Awright, awright. Back to 'shedding Marcus Miller's awesome part on Run for Cover!
 
#47
Theozzycometh said:
Yeah but I'll watch a documentary on Jimi Hendrix or John Frusciante talking about practicing hours a day... I mean how? How do you keep entertained for that long EVERY day. Yeah some days i'm feeling it and will tear shi* up on the bass then sometimes days go by and i haven't even touched it
Click to expand...

Maybe you need to try to find methods of practicing that you enjoy more? I would go insane trying to just run scales and technique drills for hours per day, but I could easily spend a ton of time doing something like (1) spend a few minutes learning or brushing up on a theory or technique concept and then (2) play a bunch of music with a goal of incorporating that concept into my playing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dogbertday
#48
I use this Harmonia "Silent Bass" when hanging out and watching TV with the family. They're really cheap on eBay, like around $100 cheap.

I use earbuds to my iPad and then over ear headphones from the bass to listen to and practice to tunes.

There's not much communication with my family when I have the headphones on, but at least I'm in the same room and not locked in my man cave.
image.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: Oddly
#49
I don't think I practice enough. Lately my "practice" sessions have been to learn and brush up on material for whatever band has called me for a fill in gig. I do feel that my playing is lacking in areas and the path to travel to elevate my playing to the next level as I see it is very unclear to me. I plan on purchasing a book that is a 52 week bass workout book to help increase playing and strength. I have been able to set up a practice area in the garage that is comfortable to practice in with my rig set up and a speaker system to listen to material or reference lessons from, so I hope this segregated space will help on all fronts.
 
#50
At my peak, I practiced around 4 hours a day, more on weekends, I'd spend about an hour in the morning working on scales/ chords/ modes, theory stuff regarding notation, on my lunch break I'd head back to my room, and squeeze in a bit of jamming time, playing along to cd's and records. Then after class, I'd work on technique, learning new material, more technique, and finally I'd play for about an hour just experimenting, and writing.

I was in university, and I lived on campus so I had less obligations, and I had just had a knee injury that forced me to stop playing basketball, so I had big holes in my life, where I'd be practicing, or working out.

Now I'm barely able to practice bass for 4 hours a week, due to health problems, and other commitments.
 
#51
StudioGC said:
I use this Harmonia "Silent Bass" when hanging out and watching TV with the family. They're really cheap on eBay, like around $100 cheap.

I use earbuds to my iPad and then over ear headphones from the bass to listen to and practice to tunes.

There's not much communication with my family when I have the headphones on, but at least I'm in the same room and not locked in my man cave.
View attachment 784443
Click to expand...
An irig or similar would enable you to use cab sims and so on with the bass too, I use mine often in the evening. It's rubbish for recording due to lots of hum, but valuable as a silent practice tool at night.
 
#53
I had not practised anything for about 20 years; just played gigs on autopilot. But the reason for signing up here was actually that I've just started practising again.
The days of doing scales and exercises are in the past though. Done that already and didn't benefit all that much from it.

Now (and then too) I look for music that interests me and has something that I can't immediately do. Fast lines, odd time, unusual chords, anything. Transcribe and then learn it.
Learning things in the context of actual music works much better for me than just doing exercises.
 
#58
Ive only been playing for about 2 1/2 years but I'm really happy with the progress I've made, although I still suck to most standards, I just don't care about being super technical at all. I just never hear super difficult bass lines in the music I like to listen to and good simplicity can be just as hard to achieve IMO. although lately I've been focusing mostly on writing songs because my band is getting more and more shows. So, along with writing stuff on guitar and then writing stuff together with my band (which i play bass in) and playing shows, no I definitely don't practice enough. But were taking a bit of a break after our next few gigs so I'll use that time to do as many finger exercises and theory learning and practice as I can. I just like going in waves of how I play bass, for a few months I'll practice religiously for an hour or two everyday and then I'll just start writing/playing with other people for a while to switch things up and learn in a different way. I'd love to have the time to do both which would mostly take all day and I usually only have 1-3 hours a day to focus on music
 
#59
I try to practice once a day, unless I have a rehearsal. In that case I try to take a day off. I try to take a few days off while still knowing my stuff so it doesn't wear thin.

My problem is that once I start practicing I don't stop for 3-4 hours, sometimes more. Maybe not a problem, but it works out very well for my musical abilities, but not so well for trying to accomplish other things.
 
  • Like
Reactions: alltomorrowsparties
#60
Do I practice enough? shag no, not in my opinion. Thankfully, I wasted enough Friday nights at home that I maintain fairly solid chops and knowledge though. The chances of me hitting the shed for 3-4 hours these days is slim to nil, I do it maybe 3 times a year.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back