Hmm, it's a matter of how many and WHICH wrong notes.
But I stand by my approach, generally. Learned that a LONG time ago, on a gig, from a BL.
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How to improve the most important skill a musician needs?
- Thread starter Matthew_84
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Hmm, it's a matter of how many and WHICH wrong notes.
But I stand by my approach, generally. Learned that a LONG time ago, on a gig, from a BL.
Ok. But it depends. HOW MANY wrong notes. AND WHICH ONES.
The glare of a BL when I was in my 20s taught me this. You go ahead and play your wrong notes...
Yes to all. It sounds like kind of a mental hiccup that you've taught yourself and it's become habit. And you have to undo that habit with hours of "correct" performance to develop a new habit.
Some strategies:
- Dedicate some practice to just playing the rhythm on the bass with zero care about which note comes out. Like pick a typical rock groove or jazz walk. And keep on without stopping cuz it can't be "wrong". Basically, Reteaching yourself to keep the flow of time and harmony constant regardless of your playing.
- Practice with gaps of a few beats or bars, and come back in in time on the right chord for the next entry. Like take a blues and just play the odd number bars, or just the even bars. Then try every third bar 1 4 7 10. Then try to do that with taking a couple beat of rest here and there. The idea is to keep the flow of time and chord changes. Reteaching yourself to keep the flow of time and harmony constant regardless of your playing.
- Perfect practice leads to perfect performance. (NOT practice makes perfect). The old adage of playing something 1000 times very very slowly at a tempo that permits mastery, translates into being able to play at tempo with little effort. You just cannot increase tempo even if you luck into accurate performance at slow tempo. Just keep at it slow (like 1/4 or 1/2 of goal tempo) for that 1000 iterations. Then you can increase incrementally and you'll see you can keep accuracy. And this works with short sections of 1 or 2 bars. And also full choruses.
- Short practices sessions, and as soon as you feel yourself loosing focus or clams creep in, put down the bass and do something else. You want only practice when you are playing well, so you don't want to practice playing badly.
I know the problem quite well.
For me, playing a note that sounds wrong will trigger a process. The following pops up:
Am I playing the wrong note or is someone else?
If it's me, is my part in this very moment more melody or more rhythm? If it's more melody, it might be worth fumbling a bit of rhythm to correct my note, if it's more rhythm it might be more important to stay perfectly in time and hit the next note right.
If it's someone else, the question is what's happening there. Do they play the piece in the wrong key? Have they just fumbled one note? Will they correct or might it be better to follow?
The brain is a powerful machine (at least for some), but to determine all that and choose the right path to follow in the blink of an eye is a lot - thus the lag.
Playing live, it's almost always better to stay in time and suck up the wrong note. Everybody will think the guitar messed up anyway.
For me, playing a note that sounds wrong will trigger a process. The following pops up:
Am I playing the wrong note or is someone else?
If it's me, is my part in this very moment more melody or more rhythm? If it's more melody, it might be worth fumbling a bit of rhythm to correct my note, if it's more rhythm it might be more important to stay perfectly in time and hit the next note right.
If it's someone else, the question is what's happening there. Do they play the piece in the wrong key? Have they just fumbled one note? Will they correct or might it be better to follow?
The brain is a powerful machine (at least for some), but to determine all that and choose the right path to follow in the blink of an eye is a lot - thus the lag.
Playing live, it's almost always better to stay in time and suck up the wrong note. Everybody will think the guitar messed up anyway.
An experienced player will seldom play more than one wrong note - assuming you're not fazed by that note, and they all end up in time, the disruption is minimal.
Even the best players make mistakes. Improving is not really about making fewer mistakes, it's about making smaller mistakes.
Why is it not that not that simple for me!
It is. Seriously... Change your mind set. It's just a wrong note. No big deal, carry on. Everybody makes mistakes. It's how we recover from them that differentiates an amateur from a pro. Play lots, relax, have fun. That's really all there is to it. No magic formula.
@Lobster11 is 100% correct. To expect perfection is to expect too much. Ease up. And if you want to get better, play more often. It really is that simple.
I used to be the same when i made a mistake playing at practice with the band it would really catch me off guard, and i would beat myself up because it would snowball into a train wreck and screw up everyone..
over time ive gotten better at recovering and steaming ahead..
I had to really work on my mindset and accept them as happy mistakes..(i call it getting jazzy)
and as stated the right note is one fret away from the bad one, that helped me too.
sometimes even bending the bad note can save you sometimes...Dont be hard on yourself your not alone.
over time ive gotten better at recovering and steaming ahead..
I had to really work on my mindset and accept them as happy mistakes..(i call it getting jazzy)
and as stated the right note is one fret away from the bad one, that helped me too.
sometimes even bending the bad note can save you sometimes...Dont be hard on yourself your not alone.
These are the rules; this is the way.
Practice playing along with recordings.
Metronomes, drum machines and backing tracks are great, but the next best thing to being on stage is playing along with a recording.
Quickly figuring out what chord the next 1 beat starts on, after making a mistake or getting a bit lost, is a VERY IMPORTANT skill that also needs to be practiced.
Metronomes, drum machines and backing tracks are great, but the next best thing to being on stage is playing along with a recording.
Quickly figuring out what chord the next 1 beat starts on, after making a mistake or getting a bit lost, is a VERY IMPORTANT skill that also needs to be practiced.
BobDeRosa
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It could be that you're making it all about you rather than all about the music. Take the focus off yourself and feel the music, don't just play it. Make sure you understand the form of the tune (12 or 8-bar blues? A-A-B-A form?, etc.), so you always know where you are. After you've played a song enough, the rhythm should be inside you, so even if you flub a note, your internal metronome will get you quickly back on track. Good luck.
I have thought about this a lot, and read and learned many things about it.
First, and this is the hardest to believe, but when Victor Wooten drills this into your head at his Bass/Nature Camp, along with Felix Pastorious, and you read where Ric Fierabracci and Herbie Hancock also say the same thing it is worth considering: there are no wrong notes. Some notes have more tension, some less. You CAN make it right many times by what you play next, if you stay musical.
Second, it's only music, no one died.
Third, is that hand-made music, like any quality hand-made thing - a leather jacket, or a sweater - has imperfections. These slight imperfections give it character and a human touch and in the end make it more valuable than a "perfect" machine made item.
If you really want it without any mistakes, program it into a sequencer and let the computer do it. While that has its place and value, it's a different thing from hand-made music.
Finally, forgive yourself ahead of time. Don't deny yourself the possibility of a happy accident. Take the pressure off of yourself so you can hear your clams without judgement; it might be the most interesting note you've played in a while!
First, and this is the hardest to believe, but when Victor Wooten drills this into your head at his Bass/Nature Camp, along with Felix Pastorious, and you read where Ric Fierabracci and Herbie Hancock also say the same thing it is worth considering: there are no wrong notes. Some notes have more tension, some less. You CAN make it right many times by what you play next, if you stay musical.
Second, it's only music, no one died.
Third, is that hand-made music, like any quality hand-made thing - a leather jacket, or a sweater - has imperfections. These slight imperfections give it character and a human touch and in the end make it more valuable than a "perfect" machine made item.
If you really want it without any mistakes, program it into a sequencer and let the computer do it. While that has its place and value, it's a different thing from hand-made music.
Finally, forgive yourself ahead of time. Don't deny yourself the possibility of a happy accident. Take the pressure off of yourself so you can hear your clams without judgement; it might be the most interesting note you've played in a while!
You will make mistakes. We all make mistakes. There is no such thing as perfection.
If you think that somehow you will reach perfection, you are on a fools errand. (get over yourself)
The goals are to minimize the mistakes, and to hide the mistakes.
It's all mental. It's a skill (which means it takes time, and drill).
Of course you should 'keep going'. But having that in mind as you play, just makes you hyper aware of mistakes that you might make.
Have you considered that your attention span might be a little short? And if that's true, perhaps you are subconsciously making mistakes just to give yourself a break? Try practicing shorter phrases and plan your breaks consciously. This puts you in control of the 'breaks'. In time you can lengthen the phrase, but as you do, focus on the end of the phrase, NOT the chance that you'll make a mistake along the way. (first to last note come Hell or high water).
Good luck. And be patient with yourself.
If you think that somehow you will reach perfection, you are on a fools errand. (get over yourself)
The goals are to minimize the mistakes, and to hide the mistakes.
It's all mental. It's a skill (which means it takes time, and drill).
Of course you should 'keep going'. But having that in mind as you play, just makes you hyper aware of mistakes that you might make.
Have you considered that your attention span might be a little short? And if that's true, perhaps you are subconsciously making mistakes just to give yourself a break? Try practicing shorter phrases and plan your breaks consciously. This puts you in control of the 'breaks'. In time you can lengthen the phrase, but as you do, focus on the end of the phrase, NOT the chance that you'll make a mistake along the way. (first to last note come Hell or high water).
Good luck. And be patient with yourself.
I actually think you should consider working on visualizing what notes you are going to play next. If you are hitting lemons regularly, you may be relying on muscle memory and reading alone.
For example, students can easily match terms an definitions, but when you ask them to define the term, they can't. Or if you ask them to relate two terms together, it is much more difficult.
All of my mistakes at gigs come when I am thinking about something else relying on muscle memory or I am thinking too closely about what I am doing. Finding that lane in the middle is the challenge: relaxed alertness.
For example, students can easily match terms an definitions, but when you ask them to define the term, they can't. Or if you ask them to relate two terms together, it is much more difficult.
All of my mistakes at gigs come when I am thinking about something else relying on muscle memory or I am thinking too closely about what I am doing. Finding that lane in the middle is the challenge: relaxed alertness.
My tips:
Don't play a note until you feel the groove. If you don't feel it, don't play it.
Play to a metronome
Record your practice
Don't play a note until you feel the groove. If you don't feel it, don't play it.
Play to a metronome
Record your practice
Mistakes are gonna happen. Stopping the groove is the worst mistake possible for a bassist, but is totally preventable. I've heard it stated many times that for basses, the note is almost not important. It's our time.
Practice will help reduce finger mistakes. There's several types of "practice":
-Technique/foundation (scales, arpeggios, finger exercises, etc)
-Song Learning (developing your line for a new song
-Song Maintenance (you know the song, just need to make it/keep it clean)
- Stage Presence (yes some of us need to work on presentation at home)
It sounds like you need to add another form: Practice not stopping when you make a mistake. Obviously when you're in learning mode, you need to stop and work things out - that's what that phase is for. This phase should never be done with other people (unless you're just jamming or trying to cover a request that you've never played) But once you're in maintenance mode - and quite possibly working with the band - you need to learn how to just keep going when you hit a clam. Practice this at home.
Play more with others - good band mates will give you grief if you keep stopping. I know it can be hard to regroup when you get off the rails - especially on a busy groove , but it's part of our job. Bad notes come and go with little notice - missing groove can kill a dance floor.
Practice will help reduce finger mistakes. There's several types of "practice":
-Technique/foundation (scales, arpeggios, finger exercises, etc)
-Song Learning (developing your line for a new song
-Song Maintenance (you know the song, just need to make it/keep it clean)
- Stage Presence (yes some of us need to work on presentation at home)
It sounds like you need to add another form: Practice not stopping when you make a mistake. Obviously when you're in learning mode, you need to stop and work things out - that's what that phase is for. This phase should never be done with other people (unless you're just jamming or trying to cover a request that you've never played) But once you're in maintenance mode - and quite possibly working with the band - you need to learn how to just keep going when you hit a clam. Practice this at home.
Play more with others - good band mates will give you grief if you keep stopping. I know it can be hard to regroup when you get off the rails - especially on a busy groove , but it's part of our job. Bad notes come and go with little notice - missing groove can kill a dance floor.
I experience what you're going through on occasion also (as do most of us). The only thing that really helps me deal with it is lots and lots of practice with the songs I am learning. Also, I revisit ALL the tunes I have already learned... you'd be surprised at some things you have forgotten. I don't stop if I make a mistake (I used to). I usually fumble through a terrible series of notes until I get back on track. Will musicians in the audience notice? Yes. Will 95% of the audience notice? Hell no!
I know you've heard this a ton but it's the absolute truth... "just have fun". If you are worried about making a mistake or forgetting something, it will happen for sure! Loosen up and have fun. It works!
I know you've heard this a ton but it's the absolute truth... "just have fun". If you are worried about making a mistake or forgetting something, it will happen for sure! Loosen up and have fun. It works!
Practice making mistakes.
Pick something like a 12 bar blues where you miss the 2nd chord you have to play entirely.
the key is making the wrong note sound right with quick, reflexive phrasing.
It should not matter what the note is, it's up to you to make it sound right.
I will also say I have found the Jamerson Igor exercise to help with this a bit as far as muscle memory fingering for this kind of thing.
Pick something like a 12 bar blues where you miss the 2nd chord you have to play entirely.
the key is making the wrong note sound right with quick, reflexive phrasing.
It should not matter what the note is, it's up to you to make it sound right.
I will also say I have found the Jamerson Igor exercise to help with this a bit as far as muscle memory fingering for this kind of thing.
