I'm getting worse...need some advice

[BassChuck]

Play melodies of simple songs. Play nursery rhyme songs. Play church hymns. Play stuff you hear on TV. If you must play scales, make up different patterns. ( 1,2,/1,2,3,/1,2,3,4,/1,2,3,4,6,/1,2,3,4,6,7/1,2,3,4,6,7,8 - reverse, but don't play the 5th. Repeat the process, but don't play the 3rd. etc.)
The point is, don't try to impress yourself. Get your hands moving doing easy things. Enjoy the sound. Really, really enjoy the sound.
Do the same 'thing' tomorrow, but don't play the same stuff.

 

[Russell L]

Simple. Take a break.

Not too long ago I was trying to work my guitar chops back up. I was making good progress playing two hours a day for a couple of months. Then came a couple or three weeks when I didn't get to play. When I finally got back to playing again I figured I had lost all that progress I had gained before.

Surprise! Not only had I not lost it, but I felt even better.

Maybe you've been overdoing it.

 

[Mili]

The key is to keep the analytical part of your mind from becoming a critic while you're playing.

I understand the point but i don't know, How? My mind is always monitoring and criticizing... it's making more stress....

 

[SteveCS]

...
I can't pull off that run anymore. I know it's a stupid thing to fuss about but it's really annoying because it didn't make sense at the time, after all that practice that I couldn't pull off something that I've already overcame, practiced and played without issues

...

Here's something to consider. Once upon a time you could play something. Then you went away and worked on improving your technique. You worked hard and expunged all the 'bad habits' that you used to have. Now you can't play something you used to play. Is it possible that you weren't playing it right in the first place so your new improved technique is preventing you from playing in the old ways? Or is it possible that what you thought were bad habits were not actually so bad after all?

 

[Matty Koff]

Recently I fancied trying to learn the bass line for "What is Hip" by Tower of Power. Sounded simple enough in my head, straight 16ths for the majority of the song. But, quickly found my technique just wasn't up to par for skipping strings like Rocco does when he divides the beat between root, minor 7th, root, major 6th. Everything surrounding that section, no problem, but playing 2 16ths at speed on the root, followed by 2 16ths on the minor 7th then back to the root revealed to me I needed to work on my chops.

I've spent maybe an hour and a half over the course of a few days, 30 minutes at a time, just playing straight 16ths divided between root/octave, and the issue was in my plucking fingers. I haven't tried to play the song again, but I'm closer to being able to do so than I was before addressing the specific flaw in my technique that was stopping me from doing so.

Moral of my story is - it's not just about playing it slow. It's about playing it slow and identifying the weakspot in technique that is causing you to struggle, fixing it, and playing it slow correctly until you no longer have to think about it. Then upping the tempo and doing it all over again. Once I get something down at a slow tempo, speeding it up takes less effort than fixing the flaw at a slow pace.

I mean, my example is probably more simple than a lot of things you are trying to play, but I'm a lot closer to being able to nail the part I was struggling with, and that's with an hour and a half's effort over the course of several days.

There are passages I've written that I come back to and my fingers go all stupid on me.. same thing to fix it, I slow down so I can see what I'm doing wrong, and at that slow tempo play it having fixed the flaw in my technique, and then before I know it I'm nailing it. More often than not, it's my plucking hand, and if I don't maintain what I "learn" by playing something once a week or so, my muscles can forget things just like my brain does. Think about it, the pros out there, they play the music they play pretty frequently.. they perform enough that their performances ARE their practice. If you only play a complicated line once in a blue moon, chances are you're going to run into a flaw that you thought you had already overcome.

15 minutes slowing down and actively thinking about how you play something is more effective than trying to play something for 2 hours without slowing down to figure out what it is about your technique that is stopping you from nailing something.

Use that 15 minutes and put the bass down or move on to something else and come back to what you were attempting the next day, my guess is it will feel easier to you, and you'll be able to speed it up some.

 

[Mili]

Sorry my friends, I had to wake this Zombie thread up!

 

[Matty Koff]

Sorry my friends, I had to wake this Zombie thread up!

lol. guess I did reply to a year + old thread huh? >.<

 

[sawzalot]

I understand the point but i don't know, How? My mind is always monitoring and criticizing... it's making more stress

My mind is both my greatest strength as well as greatest liability. Getting the internal critic to shut off is hard. Practicing meditation mindfulness helps—but those things require actual practice, just like spending time with the bass. And take it slow, I’ve been at this 30 years now and am still working at it. I’m much better now than I was early on, and I might be farther along if I had learned more of the mental techniques earlier on. But it’s a process and it doesn’t happen overnight.