Getting emotionally tired of practicing.

[Acoustic356]

Bass for only 21 months? You've been playing something else waaaaaaaayy longer. Looks good...!

I was a very BAD keyboard player... and an even worse guitar player. I could would out cowboy grip chords... that was about the extent of it.

Bass was the first instrument that I actually understand... and my wife lets me practice about 3 hours a day. I studied under Anthony Wellington and Scott Devine at Scott's Bass Lessons... and instead of learning songs, all I do it work theory and dexterity.

I also try to play with any band that will let me show up on a regular basis... it all helps!

 

[pingvuiini]

Here's some oddball advice. YMMV.

Take a break. Really! Take a week or two off and don't even touch the bass. Work in the garden. Go to the gym. Take a road trip to Vegas. Build a model. Paint the house. Walk the dog. Swim the Drake Passage. OK, maybe not that. But when you return to the bass after one or two weeks you may find that you will play better and more solid than when you stopped. I don't know the name of this phenomenus, but its been known to happen a lot with any physically skilled endeavour like music, performing arts (i.e. dance) or sports.

Don't be afraid to play along with prerecorded music. I dove in head first and learned from playing Exit...Stage Left by Rush and wore out two vinyl copies, three cassettes and two CD's from playing it so much till I got an iPod. I was able to listen, learn and play the music I liked and, in a sense, Geddy Lee became one of my 'teachers'. But you don't have to start out at such a difficult level. Lots of times I also enjoyed playing early Police like 'When the World is Running Down..' which is a simple pattern repeated over and over and over and over going up the fingerboard and serves as great hand exercise. Even if that is too much just hit the root notes of the chord changes in time with the music and work on adding the notes till you get the melodic pattern down. Whether you realize it or not, Neil Peart, Stewart Copeland et al are all metronomes.

Sing the song! Not the vocals, but actually try to sing the bass lines, the guitar solos, drums, piano, saxophone....everything! I always enjoy singing out loud the two solos on David Lindley's version of 'Mercury Blues' or Joe Walsh on 'Life's Been Good' or Billy Gibbons on 'Just Got Paid' for three examples of the top of my head. Drums can get kind of funny and weird, i.e. try singing the beginning drum intro to 'Over the Mountain'. Singing all parts of the song will help you learn it faster, and especially singing the drum parts will really help you internalize the beat and rhythm of a song which you will find essential as a bass player.

 

[physics]

I think that the progress you make, however small it is, has to be the reward in itself and anything beyond that is icing on the cake. I practice everyday and put a lot of time and effort into it but I very often get frustrated with myself for regressing sometimes on things that I think I should have down cold. I get a little depressed when I sometimes wonder if I'll ever be able to play as a competent bass player, but then sometimes, out of the blue, I'm able to get my fingering and timing right and play some lines that actually sound decent. Maybe I'll never be another Jack Casady or JPJ but that's okay. I'm doing what I like to do and I'm happy for the progress that I am making and for being able to meet some of the great people I've met in music.

 

[alaskaleftybass]

Travis, a friend of mine, created a "Practice Manifesto"

Practice Manifesto

Focus - Do not engage in "Zombie practice".

Outside your Comfort Zone - Learning doesn't take place inside of it.

Fail Constantly - Failure is learning.

Always Learning - Visualise your fretboard, sing a melody, work out a chord progression on the radio - learning can still happen away from your instrument.

Process not Product - Be fully engaged in what you are doing and not where you are going.

Analysis - Constantly assess what you are doing and how it can be improved.

Weakest Link - You are only as strong as your weakest link - this should always be your focus.

Details - Break everything down into small detailed chunks and work back up to the end goal.

Breaks - Take short 5 min breaks for improved focus & learning.

Find your own voice - Be the bass player you want to be, not the one others expect you to be.

Problem Solving - Come up with your own solutions and create exercises.

Criticism - Take on board constructive criticism and use it to grow musically.

Planning - Regularly set goals and plan for optimum improvement.

Find the joy in everything - If you're not engaged & having fun are you really learning?

Amen to all of this.
When A then very young Eric Clapton joined the Bluesbreakers, his fist job was to practice 8 hours a day. He couldn't afford to be tired or exhausted. If you are young and you want to do this with your life, you need to put great effort into it. Success is a jealous lady that desires all the effort you can give her.

 

[unbrokenchain]

When I was a kid id play along to my favorite records all night. That and some technique, scales etc did me well

For me, this has been the secret to securing bass playing as a safe haven from the stresses of the world, to the extent that I think about it all day and can't wait to get home to play. I spend 20-30 minutes doing scale routines and trying to touch every note on the neck at least a couple times just to build muscle memory, then I turn down the lights, open a beer, have a smoke, make a playlist with some songs I'm into at the moment, and just turn it up as loud as I can without getting the cops called, and play along. Headphones also work. Turn the bass EQ down on your stereo if you want to be the only bass player

 

[BMGecko]

Hey man! Just cut back to maybe two "practice sessions" of no more than 15 minutes where you actually practice the basics and try to play creatively in 15 minute increments with 5 minute breaks between them. If you start to wander away from what you want before the 15 minutes are up, then take a break.

I've been playing for 26 years and is the best advice I've gotten re: study. Also, play with better musicians and other musicians as much as you can stand!

 

[Vollblut]

I read a nice sentence from a motivational speaker, weirdly enough: "passion is not everything. There are people who are passionately incompetent." Many times success and progress comes when you're on the edge, stressed and tired. So when one says "I hate practicing!", do it anyway. Your hands and muscle memory doesn't care if you're bored.

Doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy what you do, but that's simply not everything.
How many big time musicians making hundreds of gigs per year are passionate all the time for the rest of their lives?
No one can tell me there wasn't a moment in the life of Grandmaster XY going " I could've been a regular joe living with my family on a lake in frogballs, Arkansas, what am I doing here?" But guess what: they practiced anyway for hours at a stretch.

On a side note: I play for 13 years now, but can't slap 8 bars straight even if my life depended on it. I love to slap, I love the sound and it would enrich my songwriting. But it's a pain to practice all those dead-note techniques left and right hand. Or slap-pop-pop triplets.
So what did I do?
I've put me in front of my computer, headphones on, a big YouTube playlist and my bass on the lap. And I did triplet patterns, over and over, mechanically, paying more attention to some documentary about China's Kowloon walled city.
Eventually, when I finally did a good, fast, clean pattern, i jumped up and said " I did it!".
I doubt it would've gone faster if I would've practiced it mindful, but frustrated with my incompetence.

 

[BigJohnAZ]

I admit that my practice sessions are far from structured, even though I do try to pick something to work on. What I do when I'm just not feeling it is throw on a backing track and noodle over it. At the very least, it helps my fretboard/scale knowledge and I try to incorporate something different into my noodling. I am not very accomplished when it comes to soloing so I try different styles, slowing it down, arpeggios, stuff like that. Like others have said, no matter what you are doing, we play music for enjoyment. Even just noodling, I still learn something.

 

[mr13ump]

This is all just from my experience, which is probably different from yours and everybody else's, but i have been playing for years and have been told by many people that I am the best bass player in our local scene and I would be the one they'd call if they needed anyone, and I have never once used any form of exercises to improve technique. I don't mean for this to sound arrogant, but it is the truth. The very first day I got my bass I spent probably three or four hours attempting to play "Dazed and Confused" by Led Zeppelin, and I went from there. What I have always done was find songs to learn or write bass lines myself that force me to expand my technical ability. That was I am never just "practicing", I am learning new nechniques as well as note phrasings and parts. The only things I have ever really drilled are my scales and sometimes picking/plucking/slapping speed.

 

[bassinplace]

To build a strong, beautiful building, you gotta dig some ditches first. It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it. If you don't, no one else will. Ya gotta dig in the dirt before you get to the glory!

 

[Sav'nBass]

Hi, I am a beginner. I usually have about 1.5 free hours a day for practicing and feel like it is not enough for me to get better. But when I somehow manage to practice more then 1.5 hours a day it just doesn't go well. I start feeling emotionally tired, lose passion and my practicing turns into ineffective self torture. Even if I split my time in parts. Physically I'm still ok.
Any thoughts on this? Am I just being lazy or we actually have some daily limits or something?

Im no pro, so take my words with a grain of salt.
I would think an hour or so a day is good practice time. I know some people practice longer, but for me personally, it can be anywhere from 5 minutes up to however many hours I feel like. If I don't feel like playing, I don't. Breaks are important. Don't burn yourself out.
Also, there's some good stuff online about practice routines. What's your routine like?
Whatever you do, I think the main thing is to have fun. If it's not fun it will feel like school or a job and you won't want to do it. I'm sure some will disagree because it does take work to get better, but you can work at getting better without making yourself feel worse. Know when to step away and come back to it later.

This.... It is important to have fun.

As a beginner I'm focused on basic technique, fretting hand stretching and fingers independence. So now I mostly play different variations of spider excercise and scales at very slow tempo with metronome. I don't play any particular songs while practicing because it would make no sense with such low tempo.
I'm also in a band now, so I play their stuff at rehearsals. But I don't consider it as a part of my practicing because I play it very sloppy and it doesn't add anything to my technique improvement.
And yes, I have already noticed how mutually exclusive are these statements about "being relaxed and just having fun" and "working hard to get better".

Whether you realize it or not you actually are practicing when you play with the band. Since you already know those songs, I'd practice those on your own and work on getting the timing and precision down, then you'll notice it's easier(and sounds better) when with the full band.
Like I said, I'm no professional, but I think playing is the best practice. Because ultimately that's the goal, is to play. So what better way to get good at playing than by doing.
But besides practicing your bands songs, I'd keep learning scales. And if you're feeling unmotivated, try a new scale. Also, I wouldn't rule out learning a song you really like. That is essentially how I learned to play. By learning and understanding what others do with bass in a song, you will understand what to do. And you'll start connecting all those scales to how they work in a song.
Hope any of that helps man. From one beginner to another lol.

This.. And do not forget the joy of playing. It is nice sometimes to play songs that you like. Songs that you don't have to learn that you just like. You need to mix up practice. If it is not fun anymore then stop what you are doing and make it fun again. Think of it as applying what you are practicing.