How do you manage exercises routines?

[10emmanuel]

Hello mates!

I wanna share what I do in one of my routines just to see if I am aiming right.

Every time I do fretting exercises, I do it of course with metronome, from slow, about 60bpm, and as I get it right I increase tempo until I reach the point in which I can't perform well. At that point I stop and I insist OR, I go back a little and stay there for a while before keep increasing tempo.

One of my exercises are Arpegios. I won't explain what I do exactly but is basically playing around the 5th circle.
I understand the foundation of the exercise, that is, is not only shapes what I learn but what notes I am playing. But of course I got to a point where even sometimes when I get distracted, my hands go to the right place almost without thinking. You know what happens when you play a song you know very well...

I do it right until 110 bpm always and just from that point I start making mistakes.
Should I keep dedicating time to slower tempos ? Or just concentrate in the ones I know that I dont handle right?

And my question is also because I dedicate 30 min to this exercise and If I always start from lower tempos, I can't dedicate long enough to master high tempos.

Thanks!!!

 

[TOOL460002]

Are you getting tired at 110 or is it just a physical failure? Just saying if you start at 60 by the time you get to higher speeds you may be physically tired. Same concept as weight lifting. Colder temperatures reduce my speed an precision as well. Just a thought. I'm not great with rote prqcrice beyond a solid warm up and running scales/modes I haven't run in a bit.

 

[10emmanuel]

Are you getting tired at 110 or is it just a physical failure? Just saying if you start at 60 by the time you get to higher speeds you may be physically tired. Same concept as weight lifting. Colder temperatures reduce my speed an precision as well. Just a thought. I'm not great with rote prqcrice beyond a solid warm up and running scales/modes I haven't run in a bit.

the reason why I make mistakes in higher tempos is that I might not reach the note, or get lost caused by the speed which doesn't let me think where to continue. My physical condition is okay on those tempos. My limit about 135 in quarter notes. My finger won't move faster

 

[10emmanuel]

the reason why I make mistakes in higher tempos is that I might not reach the note, or get lost caused by the speed which doesn't let me think where to continue. My physical condition is okay on those tempos. My limit about 135 in quarter notes. My finger won't move faster

155 bpm*

 

[SteveCS]

...
Every time I do fretting exercises, I do it of course with metronome, from slow, about 60bpm, and as I get it right I increase tempo until I reach the point in which I can't perform well. At that point I stop and I insist OR, I go back a little and stay there for a while before keep increasing tempo.
...

At great risk of causing a mass brawl, riots in the streets, the Peasant's Revolt II or worse, try ditching the metronome. Concentrate purely on getting the right notes in the right order played with the correct fingering and fully synchronised left/right hands.

 

[JonathanPDX]

I do it right until 110 bpm always and just from that point I start making mistakes.
Should I keep dedicating time to slower tempos ? Or just concentrate in the ones I know that I dont handle right?

And my question is also because I dedicate 30 min to this exercise and If I always start from lower tempos, I can't dedicate long enough to master high tempos.

Thanks!!!

Without seeing you actually run through the exercise it's hard to give specific advice on how to improve. Whether it's technique, muscle memory, etc.

Sometimes when your hands can go on auto-pilot for an exercise it's a sign that you should change things up and introduce something new. Tackling some new shapes and exercises might fill in some gaps that help you when you return to the previous exercise.

If the goal is left-hand (fretting) exercises, Anthony Wellington's "permutations" exercises are a really fantastic way to get your left hand comfortable with different patterns. I can't find a video example of him teaching it at the moment, but the basic idea is one finger per fret, spanning 4 frets. For example, A Bb B C (on your E string, starting on the 5th fret) and you'd finger this 1-2-3-4, from pointer to pinky.

We often practice chromatics by going up 1234 and back down 4321 but there are a lot of other ways to organize those 4 notes! For example, playing up the chromatic exercise 2134 and then descending 4312 will shake you out of the comfortable patterns that let you go on auto-pilot. Once you have started exploring, you can mix them up! Try alternating each string between ascending and descending the pattern, or alternate between two different patterns and then reverse them both as you descend.

Years ago, when Ant first showed me this exercise, he was starting it at around 300 BPM. Obviously you need some basic dexterity first, but the idea was that it's about speed and fluidity, being able to play any pattern you want in any shape and having your left hand conditioned to do more than just play up and down in nice neat orderly patterns.

 

[SteveCS]

...
the reason why I make mistakes in higher tempos is that I might not reach the note, or get lost caused by the speed which doesn't let me think where to continue.
...

'Mistakes' at higher tempi are usually attributable to a flaw in technique that is not readily apparent (but nontheless exists) at slower tempi. At slower tempo the flaw is hidden and seemingly insignificant. The most common flaw that only becomes apparent at higher tempi is synchronisation between left and right hands. Let me illustrate:

Imagine your left hand stopping (fretting) a note and your right hand plucking the string. Imagine that your right hand plucks the note 50ms (0.05s) after the left hand makes the stop, or that you lift off each note to move to the next one 50ms before the start of the next beat. Or both - that's a total of 0.1s of 'dead air'. This type of 'flaw' tends to remain constant no matter what the tempo - it is a practiced habit that is 'baked in'. It may not sound much, but...

• Imagine playing quarter notes at 60 BPM. Each note is 1 second in duration, but your technique means that each note sounds for 0.90s (0.05s for the late start and 0.05s for the early finish).
  
• Now play 1/16 notes at that tempo - each note is nominally 0.25s in duration, but thanks to the late start and early finish your note only sounds for 0.15s. That's 60% sound, 40% silence.
  
• Now double the tempo to 120BPM. Each 1/16th note has a nominal duration of 0.125s. But thanks to your late start and early finish you are actually only making a sound for 0.025s! Each 'note' is now 80% silence!
  
• At 150BPM it becomes 'critical'. The nominal duration of each 1/16th note is 0.1s. But your technique has a 'baked-in' dead time of 0.1s, which means you don't actually have any time to make any sound at all. If you try to make a sound you automatically become late for the next note.

Practicing at slow tempo allows you to detect and become aware of this dead time, and work on reducing it as much as possible. Play super-legato, giving each note as much of the full value as possible. To minimse the late start, aim to stop and pluck at exactly the same time. To reduce the early finish aim to keep the note stopped as long as possible and to lift off as late as possible.

Just a quick caveat - for most people the dead-time is nowhere near 0.1s, I just used these figures to make for simple arithmetic. But even if it was 0.05s total, your 16th at 150BPM would be 50/50 sound/silence, at which point you may as well be playing tuned percussion!!

 

[Sithian]

Hello mates!

I wanna share what I do in one of my routines just to see if I am aiming right.

Every time I do fretting exercises, I do it of course with metronome, from slow, about 60bpm, and as I get it right I increase tempo until I reach the point in which I can't perform well. At that point I stop and I insist OR, I go back a little and stay there for a while before keep increasing tempo.

One of my exercises are Arpegios. I won't explain what I do exactly but is basically playing around the 5th circle.
I understand the foundation of the exercise, that is, is not only shapes what I learn but what notes I am playing. But of course I got to a point where even sometimes when I get distracted, my hands go to the right place almost without thinking. You know what happens when you play a song you know very well...

I do it right until 110 bpm always and just from that point I start making mistakes.
Should I keep dedicating time to slower tempos ? Or just concentrate in the ones I know that I dont handle right?

And my question is also because I dedicate 30 min to this exercise and If I always start from lower tempos, I can't dedicate long enough to master high tempos.

Thanks!!!

The short answer - Check out Patrick Pfeiffer's Bass Guitar for Dummies and more specifically, Bass Guitar Exercises for Dummies. These books are a valuable resource for bassists of all levels and will work you through technique and speed development. You will improve on so many aspects of your playing if you are willing to put in the time.

 

[TreySonagras]

At great risk of causing a mass brawl, riots in the streets, the Peasant's Revolt II or worse, try ditching the metronome. Concentrate purely on getting the right notes in the right order played with the correct fingering and fully synchronised left/right hands.

When I’m teaching a HS band kid to play some fast technical piece I will have them also work it as a ballad. Slow pretty sounds not exactly in time but accurate notes. To me that helps them sound better when they work it closer to tempo.

 

[Medicine Man]

Playing fast is an overrated skill.

 

[jj.833]

is not only shapes what I learn but what notes I am playing.

You're on the right track. When your hands can act faster than your head thinks, it's time to change the excersise. You might for example start with transposing it into different keys. An arpeggio excersise, when you are thinking the note names, is completely different in G and in Gb.

Threre's generally no reason to learn to play arpeggios very fast, unless you need it in a particular song. There are all the reasons to learn to perceive the harmonic context of what you play. How to learn it piece by piece? The methods are plenty. Try any of them, or all. What helped me most was (and is) to write a diary of what I practise, for how long, and what new did I understood today when I practised this given excersise. If I play an excersise without any mental (or, sometimes, speed) developement for about a week, I change the excersise a bit, or wholy. Given some time, the diary itself will teach you how to learn.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

the reason why I make mistakes in higher tempos is that I might not reach the note, or get lost caused by the speed which doesn't let me think where to continue. My physical condition is okay on those tempos. My limit about 135 in quarter notes. My finger won't move faster

Are we are talking about your plucking finger as in one, or was that’s typo and you use two plucking fingers?

Second question, how long have you been doing this routine?

Do you record your practice sessions?

 

[CatOnTheBass]

Seems to me like you're simply overdoing it and burning out. My advice is to practice each arpeggio one time per day, as flawlessly as possible. Then move on to something different.

30 minutes/day on arpeggios is a waste of time (in my opinion) when there are so many other things you could be learning. My teacher gave me the advice that "practicing the same exercise over and over and over again is a security blanket. It is a symptom of fear of the unknown."

Mindless repetition is not a good way to practice. Better to run through the arpeggios one time, as a focused and mindful 5-minute warmup, and then move on to new challenges of the day.

 

[conttador]

At great risk of causing a mass brawl, riots in the streets, the Peasant's Revolt II or worse, try ditching the metronome. Concentrate purely on getting the right notes in the right order played with the correct fingering and fully synchronised left/right hands.

Grab yer knives & pitch forks everyone…

Everyone has a different recipe for their “secret sauce”…

Standing down…

 

[SteveCS]

Grab yer knives & pitch forks everyone…

Everyone has a different recipe for their “secret sauce”…

Standing down…

Haha! Don't get me wrong, metronomes are a useful tool but ironically, perhaps, are not good for developing speed.

 

[brianrost]

Playing fast is an overrated skill.

That's true but there is a point where you have to be able to play fast enough. I spent a few weeks working on a funk song that was 180bpm. I had to work it up slowly, using a play-along app that let me control tempo by as little as 1%. Start at 70%, can I play it for ten minutes with no mistakes? OK, how about 75%, 80%, etc. Along the way I experimented with changing my fingerings to be more efficient. I spent most of my time getting from 90% to 100%. After all that work, I can play it at full speed on the gig with no problems.

At one point I noticed that he bassist on the recording missed a note here and there but never lost the groove. Nice to see that he was human!

 

[brianrost]

Haha! Don't get me wrong, metronomes are a useful tool but ironically, perhaps, are not good for developing speed.

Metronomes are useful for measuring speed.

 

[conttador]

Haha! Don't get me wrong, metronomes are a useful tool but ironically, perhaps, are not good for developing speed.

Agreed, they’re essential when you’ve been woodshedding and are wanting to fine tune or finesse your playing.

 

[Lowendchamp]

After 30 years of exercising my fingers just to stay ready to play if I ever get another band, it’s worth having good finger dexterity at least. I don’t focus on theory, but then again I can only read and write tab. That being said, my technique and muscle memory consistently land me in elite circles of musicians(who already have bands) who have good advice for me as well for my continued growth. The only musicians I ever meet that care so much about theory are orchestra and session player types due to the amount of players they need to interact with. I say if your technique is good then why worry about theory or bpm when practicing? Perfect practice? Only with technique I say. Just my $.02

 

[alex1fly]

Hello mates!

I wanna share what I do in one of my routines just to see if I am aiming right.

Every time I do fretting exercises, I do it of course with metronome, from slow, about 60bpm, and as I get it right I increase tempo until I reach the point in which I can't perform well. At that point I stop and I insist OR, I go back a little and stay there for a while before keep increasing tempo.

One of my exercises are Arpegios. I won't explain what I do exactly but is basically playing around the 5th circle.
I understand the foundation of the exercise, that is, is not only shapes what I learn but what notes I am playing. But of course I got to a point where even sometimes when I get distracted, my hands go to the right place almost without thinking. You know what happens when you play a song you know very well...

I do it right until 110 bpm always and just from that point I start making mistakes.
Should I keep dedicating time to slower tempos ? Or just concentrate in the ones I know that I dont handle right?

And my question is also because I dedicate 30 min to this exercise and If I always start from lower tempos, I can't dedicate long enough to master high tempos.

Thanks!!!

From the classical music world - do your exercises in different rhythms. Like if you normally do straight 8th notes, do the exercise in dotted 8th notes. This makes it easier to come back to straight 8th notes.