Getting older

[WI Short Scaler]

Everyone is an individual and affected their own way.

Just turned 55 here and I always considered myself an active and relatively fit guy. I walk an average of 3 miles per day, whether outside or on a treadmill depending on weather and I watch my weight.

But along come the ravages of time and things are getting difficult. I have osteo-arthritis in both hands that I've dealt with for some time.

And now I'm recovering from cervical stenosis surgery, that has not been easy.

Going forward I'm looking at different and better padded straps so that I can more comfortably keep my Fenders. And I just purchased an Ibanez AGB260 bass as a lightweight alternative to make gigs more comfortable.

 

[jtg]

I used to be able to play all the notes. Now I focus on playing the right ones the right way at the right time and good riddance to the others.

 

[Rip Van Dan]

...arthritis, peripheral neuropathy... do what you can do... I just move my fingers as best I can on any given day...

About a year and a half ago I came down with a really bad case of psoriasis that progressed into psoriatic arthritis. Couldn't straighten out my fingers, fingernails and toenails coming off, the whole enchilada - not much fun. After trying a lot of different things the doc finally found something that works although I have to get tested a few times a year to make sure it hasn't killed my liver.

Controlled the psoriasis pretty well but I still have some of that arthritis in my hands and it can make things difficult at times. Ibuprofen will help with the pain and stiffness and I can even play regular guitar again. I couldn't play guitar for about a year because I couldn't curl my fingers tight enough to play most chords. I did manage to play bass throughout though.

Lost a lot of the flexibility of the fingertip of my middle finger of my right hand. It still won't straighten out when I straighten the rest of the fingers. Has about a 30° bend in it when I hold my fingers out straight. Good news is that it's my plucking hand and the trigger-finger tip might actually be an advantage as I'm plucking strings.

Even with the challenges that getting older brings with it, my knowledge and techniques have improved more than enough to make up for it...at least so far.

 

[elkhart bill]

at 64 with a lifetime of abused hands I found a crème that seems to help. i'm not shilling for this stuff but it helps, found it at Walmart it's Australian dream and it's not another menthol crème. kinda pricey but it helps arthritic hands .

 

[BassDudeSA]

56 here and I've slowed down a bit. But I tell you, aging for a bassist has got to be easier than many of the other instruments. I mean in most cases we can simplify and modify our parts to accommodate slower or easier playing without others noticing, or caring. As long as we still lay down the groove and provide a solid line, the frills can fade without a problem. I feel worse for vocalists who lose range, guitarists whose hands need to form all kinds of crazy configurations playing chords, and drummers whose energy is just not always there when we age. So however we have it tough, most others musicians have it worse.

 

[frankie5string]

Absolutely!
I've been sick my entire life, but I have always been able to play very fast staccato-ostinato/presto parts easily on bass guitar. Even when the rest of my body did not want to cooperate, my fingers could do the work.

At age 43 I am finally in almost total remission. My blood work is now better than it's been since I was 17 years old. Yet, my plucking hand has slowed down a bit in the last 3 years to be noticeable to me when I go back to those pieces. My joints are also giving me problems in my hips, elbows, and fingers of both hands.

I had to figure out a way around it so I began working on copying Chuck Rainey's "up-down" finger technique to get back some of that speed. You find ways to get around your limitations creatively, and Chuck's way spoke to me. Don't be afraid to bend technique a little to get around times when your body refuses to cooperate.

 

[micguy]

Age brings with it the responsibility of playing the notes that drive the music, and the wisdom of knowing which notes to leave out. Focus on that, keep playing.

 

[Rip Van Dan]

I used to be able to play all the notes. Now I focus on playing the right ones the right way at the right time and good riddance to the others.

Yeah, you know @jtg, that's how it's supposed to be all the time, no matter how much you just want to embellish. I pretty commonly will try some new moves in new places and almost invariably I end up making those moves in the same places the old moves were made because that's what the song wants. A little restraint is usually a good thing no matter how tempting it is to play that fast two octave run while the vocalist is in mid-melody...

 

[IamGroot]

If you can play fast but you’re fatiguing, it’s a muscular endurance issue. It’ll come back with the right exercises.

I am not fatiguing at all. I just realized I cant play as fast as I could and I am mad as hell.

I will not go into that dark night quietly. The metronome will be my companion while I regain my speed.

Ostinato tuplets
Gambale speed metal method
Flute exercises.
Some jaco and rocco workouts.

Im pissed.
Unfortunately, i know muscle memory takes weeks. Ill track and let you know how it works.

 

[Rip Van Dan]

It's a difficult to answer and I believe it's individual based. Was I faster in my 20's? Heck ya but I practiced many hours a day. If I get 5 hours of individual practice a week I'm doing well. I don't include learning songs or playing along to songs as practice. What bugs more is that my vocal range has dwindled. I used to be able to sing an A in first voice and now an E a fourth below is a struggle.*sigh*

I didn't perform at all for about 8 years before I got back into a group. Lo and behold, I found that my upper range had disappeared. I am actually a classically trained singer so first thing I thought of was probably just not enough breath support. So I used more breath support and promptly blew out my voice. If I wasn't careful and I forced it a bit too much, I'd be hoarse for 3 to 5-days. So, stopped doing that.

Real problem was my vocal chords forgot how to sing that part of my range because it had been so long since I'd done it. Real trick was to get all the muscles to relax while singing so the vocal cords could do the work. Right around that E to F# is where most tenor voices break and you actually sing the higher register differently than you do up to that point.

It usually sounded terrible for a bit as my vocal cords re-learned how sing without tension in my neck and throat, but then the next thing you know it's easy. Tension at the back of the tongue is a particular culprit when singing high notes. It's a natural tendency to tense all the muscles around there to "squeeze it out" and that's just not the right thing to do. It's easier to control those muscles though so that's what everybody tends to do. Need to relax those muscles so the vocal cords can do the work.

Before I finally got that going again, I put up some money for an online course (Sing with Freedom by Per Bristow). It was a totally different way of "getting there" but was very effective at least for me. Not cheap either but now I can sing full voice notes that I only could sing falsetto before. In fact I really have to think about it to sing in falsetto if that's what the song needs. It's a monthly fee program and don't bother taking it for more than 12-months because nothing new comes after that. One month will make a difference and 3-months even more if you can afford it.

Voice doesn't automatically disappear. Your supposed to hit prime around 65. A classical tenor by the name of Vilho Kekkonen even recorded when he was 99-years old. He lived to be 105-years of age. So don't despair about your voice...you can get that back.

 

[fretter]

Aside from speedy picking one string, speed has never been my forte.

 

[lightbg]

With age does come wisdom, even for me. The arthritis in both thumbs has given me issues both on keys and bass, but there are workarounds. A Slinger Strap eliminated the nerve pain in the left arm. Practicing on an acoustic piano builds up chops so when I gig with my Nord Electro I can still play riffs cleanly.
At 68 I can still use my tag line after every gig...........

“Fooled ‘em Again!”


Jake

 

[Nephilymbass]

I practice daily with increasingly complex music but speed, per se, is not an objective. I reached for some violin exercise mostly 16ths and found i couldn't do it anymore at the penciled in 120 bpm. I was at 90 bpm tops playing clean

Does speed disappear with old age?

I don’t know. Personally I think things fade if you don’t use them. I don’t think it’s about age so much unless there’s a physical issue associated with getting older. I went a couple years really struggling with slapping stuff because I just wasn’t putting the time in practicing it. Now I feel like I’m getting back to where I used to be when it comes to slapping. For me speed has actually taken a nice leap forward in recent months. I used to be stubborn/stuck in my ways about techniques and stuff but working on my three finger technique (like Billy Sheehan uses) has noticeably increased my speed and allowed me to play some stuff that’s rhythmically more interesting because I can add in that third finger in the middle of parts where I’m using two fingers and it allows my to do some rhythmic stuff that I can’t really play with just two fingers.

 

[SactoBass]

Age brings with it the responsibility of playing the notes that drive the music, and the wisdom of knowing which notes to leave out. Focus on that, keep playing.

 

[bass_case]

I’m very fortunate that at 65 I haven’t noticed any significant loss of dexterity. I feel like I have pretty good technique, that may have helped prevent any damage from bad hand positioning, etc. Maintaining flexibility is important. Stay loose, tension messes everything up.

 

[BurtMacklinFBI]

at 64 with a lifetime of abused hands I found a crème that seems to help. i'm not shilling for this stuff but it helps, found it at Walmart it's Australian dream and it's not another menthol crème. kinda pricey but it helps arthritic hands .

Thanks for the tip, I may pick up some of that for my dad.

 

[Artman]

I'm 55, and although I have had a brief period of ulnar nerve and carpal tunnel syndromes that were remedied by sleeping with wrist braces on for a few months, and a touch of very mild arthritic type achiness, I'm faster now that I ever have been. I'm not what I consider a fast player though. I'm not even a very good player. I'm just faster and more accurate than I was during my twenties and thirties. I did put the bass away for most of my fourties, so I have nothing to compare to there, but maybe the break time is responsible for my improvements. When I picked back up, I became significantly more dilligent with actual practice and not just playing songs. IDK. I'm pretty certain that none of us will stop the clock. Tick..tick..tick.

 

[Mike Whitfield]

...arthritis, peripheral neuropathy... do what you can do... I just move my fingers as best I can on any given day...

This. For three days I've been unable to close my left hand. Today that same hand is apparently only twenty years old. No rhyme or reason.

 

[matti777]

I'm getting faster at 56 but then again I started late in life. I figure playing bass is good for me although that is not why I play.

 

[FrenchBassQC]

Ok well just to give you a perspective, I asked myself that question when you first posted this thread and I haven't answered yet...