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Juggahnaught's Non-Zero Days

#21
2020-04-03. Friday.

Rough day today. Unhappy, not feeling it. Went through the motions just to say that I could, which is actually the main reason I started this log. Things may or may not get better, but at least I can do a minimum, maybe.

- Bass Fitness, Part A alternating at 94 bpm.
- Modal study - a little bit of Locrian.
- Functional interval ear training, starting with all diatonic notes. 89/100. Getting to the challenging bits here.

Notes:
Fingers are feeling a little strained so I might try to take it easy this weekend. I think I've been working on five-fret stretches too low on the fingerboard during some of my modal exercises. I wanted to work these in without shifts to really learn the patterns, but I might have to discard them, practice them with shifts, or just use them above the twelfth fret on the fretboard (which is where they would be mostly used).

Should have done a bit of Bass Fitness Part B, and didn't because of the finger strain I'm experiencing. However, I feel good about Part A, and next week I'm going to kick it up to 98 bpm (and 4 bpm every week until I have to slow down) so that's good.

I feel good about interval ear training as well - starting with all diatonic notes is good, and leveling up from there is good practice and i can definitely see the improvement here.

Miscellaneous:
Watched The Sessions Panel with Victor Wooten which was a great interview - in fact, it wasn't even specifically great from a music perspective, but from a human perspective. Victor's outlook on music and on everything is awesome and it comes across in his communication and in his music (which aren't two different things in his case). Unfortunately, I can't help feeling that I don't have that much to say or much to offer - and I'm definitely lacking inspiration. This is partly situational, but it's a deep fear that I carry as a musician (and, honestly, as a person). I'm also afraid that I'm losing my creativity. I'm not feeling great about those facts, but I've saved that video to my favorites and I can see myself rewatching. Something to think about for me, I guess.

One other takeaway from that video - Vic talks about letting someone pick up and play the instrument. I came from a musical family and my mom tried to teach me to play piano and I rebelled - partly due to what he's talking about. I kind of realize - I don't really want to play jazz. I mean, I do, but I don't want to play jazz because I like jazz - I want to play jazz so that I can level up to a new quality of musicians and musicianship, and that seems to be one of the avenues available to me. Interesting to think about. I think if I could, I'd want to play dance-oriented pop stuff that borrows from jazz, disco, calypso, latin (samba, salsa...), and afrobeat. That's actually what I want. I might have to move to Japan to find like-minded individuals. Again, interesting to think about.

Last night - tried messing around with some new tones in the Helix, using an Arion SCH-Z Chorus sim into a Fender Twin sim with a tape delay running in parallel with a Sansamp DI sim. Messed around with looping a single note rhythm and playing basslines underneath it, experimenting with the freedom of being able to use any intervals. Was hoping to get some interesting ideas out of it - I didn't, but it's still a cool exercise and it forces me to look at harmony from a top-down perspective instead of the bottom-up that I've become used to.

Long post, me dumping my thoughts onto Talkbass, but whatever. Your loss, if you had to read through it. Hah!

Onward.
 
#22
2020-04-04. Saturday.

No dedicated drills today (giving my index finger a rest). I did play, though.

Videoconferenced with the members of my Afrobeat band, doing a check-in, etc. That was good. Ran through a bit of a song called Gbas Gbos with the intention of doing a quick video of me playing along for the band. This (taking video of myself and posting it) isn't something I do on the regular, so I'm a little nervous about it.

Started messing around with a possible song idea for the other band I'm in.

I'm currently doing a little bit of work on the studio setup - a bit of cleanup and rearranging for optimum ease. It's always a work in progress.

Notes:
While playing today I realized that my muting definitely needs work. I don't have ringing strings, but sometimes when I switch positions to a different note I get harmonics ringing on the higher strings, which I hadn't really noticed before. I don't think it happens all the time - maybe the specific song I was playing brought it out. It seems to happen if I shift position to a fret closer to the nut - I keep my finger on the string to keep them from ringing openly during the shift, but that causes the "scratch" and then at the end of the scratch I'll get a harmonic ring from whatever fret I'm on. This means I'll have to start paying attention to using my pinky as an extra finger to mute during those moments....but it also means a loss of speed and dexterity due to that extra responsibility.

I guess there's always something to work on....

Back to drills tomorrow.
 
#24
2020-04-06. Monday.

Not a terrible day, but I'm feeling some slight pressure from a work project. I feel as though I need to get on track in terms of my daily todos on weekdays - I'm better at it on weekends.

- Bass Fitness - Part A descending at 98 bpm (all practice is eighth notes). Not bad, not great.
- Modal study - ascending and descending scales and arpeggio patterns from Chapter 2 of the Modal Study book, using positional playing on the fretboard.
- Ear training - functional intervals, simultaneous notes starting from the diatonic set (do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti) - 94/100. Kept a good streak going and levelled up to include three non-diatonic notes (di, ri, fi).

Notes:
- Bass Fitness, Part B - the elephant in the room. I've been slacking on it hardcore and part of that is because of the hand stretch involved. Part of it is also the BPM - taking it at 60 takes so much time, and I feel that I can't get a good rhythm going in terms of practice (as I have with part A). To that end......I'm going to alter the practice because i figure that doing something is better than doing nothing. Instead of going across six strings, I'm going to do the five string version from strings E to C. As time goes I'll work in the full six-string stretch (which I can do in a general sense, but the four-finger one-finger-per-fret gymnastic work stretching from B to C is definitely tough.)
- Ear training - feeling good about the functional interval ear training. That said, I feel as though the tool itself can be frustrating sometimes. (As you level up...the buttons move, so I find myself misclicking a lot. This won't be an issue once I start practicing full chromatic.) But it's great practice, and I'm finding myself humming the notes more, which is very good. Also, more available notes means more interesting intervals.
- Modal study - the book I bought is okay, but honestly....a lot of the stuff in this book, I already know (the positional playing, the patterns, etc). So again, it's not really furthering my knowledge, but it is a good source of ready-made exercises that I can pull from when necessary. I've also been doing some permutations of the exercises given.

In other news, I've been practicing, but I realize that I haven't really been playing a lot of music at all. I was doing some jazz stuff with backing tracks before, but that hasn't really stuck (felt kind of empty, like just going through the motions). As such, I'm going to put my band songs back in the rotation and start playing them again, even if it's just one song per day. It might be a little empty and repetitive without the rest of the music, and I feel that I already know these songs, but maybe it's good to drill them and look for areas of improvement, however small.

Tomorrow's another day.
 
#25
2020-04-07. Tuesday.

Finding it easier to lose track of weekdays. Had to check my log to see which exercise I was supposed to do.

- Bass Fitness - Part A alternating at 98 bpm (eighth notes). Little sloppy today.
- Bass Fitness - Part B ascending at 60 bpm (eighth notes) from E string to C string. Much better than the six-string stretch. Definitely sloppy, especially near the nut. I find the first three fretboard positions difficult for some of these exercises - by the fourth fret position, it becomes okay. I'm very aware that if there's a way to get hurt, it's here.
- Modal studies - ascending and descending scales and arpeggio patterns from Chapter 2 of the Modal Study book, using positional playing on the fretboard. This chapter is basically a giant etude (limited, for some reason to the A, D, and G strings), so I think I might start mixing in the position practices from Chapter 3.
- Functional interval training - diatonic, got 93 out of 100. Few streaks, only got up to two sharps/flats this time.

Notes:
- Bass Fitness Part B - muting is a huge issue here, but I'm not even sure I'm supposed to focus on it for these exercises. I think the idea is to have minimal finger movement, so maybe for these I'll skimp on muting (it's the descending lines from C to E that are the problem here, specifically for the first exercise where the index finger stays planted).

Miscellaneous:
- Played through Fela Kuti - Water today, a song that I play with the afrobeat band. Repetitive, but it grooves hard. Of note, I've been playing that line wrong for a long time - there's a note in the bass that I was missing because I thought it was another instrument in the ensemble, but it's not. With the extra note in place, all of the ghost notes really fall into place and I honestly love playing this groove. So much so that the ghost notes almost remove the need for percussion.
- Kind of played through a song called Gbas Gbos, by Fireboy DML - it's a song I'd played with before, but I ended up changing up my fingering and shifts to make it cleaner. Also tried plucking higher on the neck to get a deeper tone to match the song. Had some fun, gotta keep practicing this one. Hoping that the band will maybe get a chance to play it sometime.

I definitely feel like I'm going through the motions with some of the practice that I've been doing - practicing for practices' sake - but I guess it's good. I definitely still feel unfocused, and the quarantine isn't helping, but it is what it is. Onward.
 
#26
2020-04-08. Wednesday.

Quick morning log - I'll either edit this if I'm still inside the edit window, or repost today.

- Ear Training - perfect pitch. Got 50/50.
- Functional interval training. Meant to do this with diatonic notes but accidentally clicked chromatic - just went with it. 79/100. I think I can definitely do better here, but one thing that I'm not doing while I do these exercises (that I tried to do this time) was identify the key. My score was lower than it has ever been, and it took a lot more time as well. I'm also a bit mentally drained. But it's good to try to work at this level for a little bit. I feel that I should be able to identify any chord I hear immediately (I used to do this when I was younger, and I've lost it) and so that's a skill I really need to practice.

More to come.
 
#27
2020-04-08. Wednesday.

Evening log. Not much today.

- Bass Fitness - Part A ascending at 90 bpm in eighths. Kind of phoned it in today.
- Bass Fitness - Part B - did half ascending at 80bpm as I started late today and can't play after a certain time. (The amplug's out of batteries so I'm using the Markbass.) Doesn't really count.

No modal practice today, unfortunately.

However, I did play along with some jazz backing tracks today. I realize that one of the main ways to memorize these standards and internalize them is to actually know the melody and the lyrics - know the song. While it's possible to just learn the charts and memorize the chord changes, it's actually nicer if I'm able to "sing along" in my head as I'm playing - I find that if I know the full melody, I can incorporate it into my phrasing. (I know a few standards by heart just from having heard them, but I'm realizing that I don't know the full head melody for all of the standards. I can sing the melody for the first 16 bars of All The Things You Are, but the last 16 bars of the head are a mystery.) Learning the melodies and singing the songs is more fun (and more motivational and inspiring) than just learning the charts by rote.

I also came up with the beginnings of a song idea for one of the bands I'm in - a seed, perhaps, we'll see what comes of it.

Tomorrow's another day. I feel as though my momentum is dropping, though.
 
#28
2020-04-09. Thursday.

Losing track of the days here. I've been having a lot of zero days outside of bass.

- Bass Fitness - Part A descending at 98 bpm in eighths. Through the motions.
- Bass Fitness - Part B descending at 60 bpm in eighths on strings E to C. On this one I tried to hold the stretches, which I found helped. I had to actually stop and take time to get some of the stretches and the fingerings correct. I'm now doing the things where I leave the one finger in place and play the notes on the other strings, muting be damned, to focus on the actual finger motion. I'll work left-hand muting back in after I've gotten the basics down here.
- Modal Studies - at this point I don't know if "modal studies" is the right title as I've moved into Chapter 3 and I'm running through some of the positional studies. I ran through part of position 12-1 today. I know the patterns already, but some of the exercises are good (especially the scales in thirds, the triads, and the arpeggios) and I think I can work them into my playing better.
- Functional interval ear training, diatonic, simultaneous. 92/100. I noticed that I'll mix up fourths and fifths in terms of note identification - for instance, marking a C->G instead of a G->C, meaning I get the question wrong. Gotta work on this. There are some intervals that are automatic for me and others, decidedly less so. (I realize that this is because I hear an interval and I automatically put it "in its key", so to speak - I hear the resolution that it wants, but this means that I have to switch it into the context. This is partly why the non-diatonic interval training is harder for me - it's basically because it's "out" of the key and doesn't resolve easily. This is a good thing and a bad thing.)
- Jazz study - learned the full head melody for Fly Me to the Moon - the "in other words, I love you" middle phrase. Also found a lead sheet for it, but that lead sheet was actually a waltz...I guess that's the original song? Interesting. After internalizing and singing the melody, played along with a backing track; the song flows better for me when I have the melody in my head. (I don't know why all jazz chord charts don't actually include the lead sheet. Why would they not? I mean, they have the staff....dumb, if you ask me.)

Notes:
In order to make better use of the positional modal studies (which I think is the real bread and butter of the book I'm working through) I think it might be a good idea to try walking over some jazz standards while limiting myself to the position in question. This might be weird because of the key changes, but I think I can maybe make something work; this would help me to incorporate the positional studies into my actual playing. I have to avoid the trap I fell into before, though - only playing in position, and never really moving out of it. (I've been shifting up and down the neck a lot more lately, which is a good thing....but this means I haven't always been playing positionally, which is a bad thing. Push-pull dichotomy, I guess. Gotta flex all the muscles.)

Also - jazz is much more fun with the melody in your head. It just is.

Miscellaneous:
This is actually from the other day, but I watched a drum video on Youtube that mentioned practicing soloing with limitations - the example in the video talked about only using quarters and eighths during a solo, or only using the floor tom, kick, and hats. I think something similar can be applied to bass with good training results, not just for soloing but specifically for walking jazz bass (and anything improvisational, really, where you're not just playing by the numbers).

Feeling okay about music stuff, not so sure about the rest, but at least I'm keeping one thing going. Onward.
 
#29
2020-04-10. Friday.

- Bass Fitness, Part A alternating at 90 bpm in eighths. A total mess today. I don't know if I wasn't warmed up or what, but today was poopie and I feel like it shouldn't even count.
- Modal study. Ran through a few exercises in position 12-1 from Chapter 3. Barely did this, too, so again, not sure if it should count.
- Jazz study. Did a little bit on All the Things You Are, but I haven't learned the melody yet. I also, however, did run through Fly Me to the Moon again, and I found a backing track for guitar that omits the head....so I played the melody on bass and did a little bit of soloing over it, which was fun. Knowing the head melody changes everything.

Not quite a zero day today....but definitely less than a unit value. Blegh. Tomorrow is Saturday, so maybe I'll try to make up the time or something.
 
#30
2020-04-11. Saturday.

- Redid Bass Fitness Part A alternating at 90bpm in eighths.
- Did a bit of static stretching exercises for the left hand on the bass. I think I'm going to start doing these again on a regular basis.

I should have been more productive today and simply wasn't. I definitely feel like I've been going through the motions with my practice routines, and part of that might be because I'm multitasking as I'm doing some of my training (mostly watching TV or something). I feel that I should try to give full focus to the exercises, but it's definitely a chore to do so during this time. Basically, multitasking has been a way of "getting through" some of the stuff, which isn't ideal, but it's better than doing nothing at all.

I dunno. There might be a falloff in activity, but the concept of a non-zero day is to at least do something, so I'm going to try to adhere to that as much as possible.
 
#31
2020-04-13. Monday.

Yesterday was a zero day. Going to try to avoid those.

- Bass Fitness, Part A ascending at 102 bpm in eighths. Didn't watch TV while doing it this time, managed to get into a zone, good stuff.
- Bass Fitness, Part B ascending at 60 bpm - fail. Got a little more than halfway through the first exercise and felt a slight twinge - not necessarily bad, but I felt as though I'd gotten the stretch I'd been looking for, so I stopped. Going to be very careful with these exercises.
- Functional ear training, diatonic with simultaneous intervals. 92/100. Was really doing well for a long time at the beginning with no mistakes, then started to make some stupid ones, like clicking minor 3rd when thinking about a major 3rd and sometimes getting the inversions wrong. Nothing to do but press on. This really needs to be a daily thing.

Notes.
I did some static stretching exercises before starting in on Part B of Bass Fitness. I think I'm going to find a way to standardize these and make them part of the routine. I used to do what I call the "spider stretch" exercise - the spider exercise on the first and last strings of the bass, but sounding the notes simultaneously and holding them for a whole note. This emphasizes the stretch between the pointer and ring finger, and the middle finger and pinky. However, I never exercised stretches between the individual fingers - pointer and middle, middle and ring, ring and pinky, and so I think I'm going to work that in.

Another exercise I "discovered" today is what I call the "mountain climber" exercise, specifically targetting my middle and ring finger (while reducing movement of the auxiliary fingers). Pointer and pinky both hold down a single string while the two middle fingers alternate positions across the fretboard. It's named this way because it kind of reminds me of the mountain climber exercise. I think doing this will be good for my ring finger, specifically the stretch between my middle and my ring finger, and smoothness of motion there, but I think it'll also be good for minimizing motion from the auxiliary fingers when these two move. (The real challenge down the road will be moving just the two middle fingers while the pointer and pinky are on a string, but not actively putting pressure on the fret.

Miscellaneous:
Been messing about a bit on the electric drumkit that I have. It's been more fun than I expected. Also got into a bit of polyrhythm practice today - I've really been trying to internalize five over four; I've gotten to the point where I can do quintuplets, but I can't simultaneously tap out a five-over-four rhythm like I can a three-over-two. I'd love to be on that level. (Still inspired from seeing Bozzio in concert that one time, I guess. He's doing crazy poopie like seven over eleven....not there yet.)

Difficult to stay motivated, but doing something is better than nothing.

Onward.
 
#32
2020-03-14. Tuesday.

- Toned Ear Training - Perfect Pitch. 50/50.
- Functional Ear Training - intervals. 92/100, starting at diatonic intervals.
- Bass Fitness, Part A descending at 102 bpm in eighths. Smooth today.

Notes:
- It's definitely time to focus harder on the functional ear training by mixing in perfect pitch practice. I should be able to identify the root key of each chord progression. (I can, but I find that I'm not really doing that of late; I've been practicing my relative pitch, which is good, but I need to not ignore my key sense.)
- Did some of the Bass Fitness later chapter work today. Because Part B has been giving me some hand trouble, I might swap those exercises with these and focus on static stretching exercises instead.
- I need to go back and review these entries.

Miscellaneous:
I know that it's out of everyone's control, but I'm kind of bummed that I don't have the piano I ordered. I'm patient and can wait, especially given the circumstances....but I feel as though ear training, key/theory study, jazz voicings, all that stuff, would be better with a piano. More importantly, I'd feel more inspired, which is definitely lacking right now.

However - I did learn to play a variant of a Chimurenga beat on the drumkit, which is really fun. I have this ethnomusicology book that i found in a used bookstore a while back that is a gem, but I've barely broken into it. I really need to.

I feel as though my inspiration is coming outside of the bass - which is honestly somewhat expected. I should just roll with it.

Tomorrow's another day.
 
#33
2020-03-15. Wednesday.

- Bass Fitness, Part A alternating at 102 bpm in eighths. Smooth today.

Missed a lot today. Had a quick spell right after I started where I wasn't feeling well. Probably just gonna rest up and hit it tomorrow.

I realized that my fitness studies are a lot smoother if I do some static hand stretching on the bass before I do the exercises. Doing that today made things a lot smoother, so that's going to be part of the routine going forward.

I'm also going to sync up the other fitness exercises with exercise A just so that i can keep them in track better - ascending, descending, and alternating exercises will all be on the same day.
 
#34
2020-03-16. Thursday.

Didn't post this last night.

- Spider stretch warmup and variations.
- Bass Fitness, Chapter 1, Part A ascending at 102 bpm. Smooth.
- Bass Fitness, Chapter 7, Part A alternating at 90 bpm.

Tried to do some ear training practice and for some reason I just couldn't get into it at all. It's like I had a tin ear.

Time for a bit of a retrospective, I suppose.
- My left hand dexterity is much better than it was when I started and I feel like it's closer to where I used to be when I practiced left-hand dexterity exercises all the time a while back. However, my movements are much smoother now, which is great.
- My right hand plucking hasn't actually seen any improvement - my plucking's still really sloppy. I've been practicing sitting down, as well, so it's likely worse when I'm standing and trying to balance the bass.
- I don't feel as though my fretboard knowledge has really improved in any measurable way. The modal studies I have done have largely been reviews of things I know...but I feel that they've kind of been glorified finger exercises. I'm definitely more comfortable running certain patterns from the nut to the bridge....but this hasn't affected my general improv or my playing.
- Ear training has helped in certain ways - some intervals are now easier for me to identify without thinking. However, I think I've seen a decrease in the use of perfect pitch for these exercises. (I wish I had the piano I ordered; I think that, above all things, would have really helped with chord and interval training, as well as pitch.)

So essentially....I feel good about my left hand. I don't feel good about my right hand. I'd like to train my ears a little differently; a tool that plays a random chord and then tells you to identify the chord by root name would be great (something like the chord trainer on toned ear, but with perfect pitch practice thrown in). And I don't think that my fretboard knowledge has really moved forward in any appreciable way.

I guess it's time to start evaluating goals. I'm bad at this, especially during this time, but it might help.
 
#36
2020-04-18. Saturday.

Yesterday was a zero day.

Today -
- Bass Fitness, Chapter 1 Part A descending at 102bpm in eighths.
- Bass Fitness, Chapter 7 Part A spiders at 90bpm in eighths. This one was rough as I'd never done it before.
- Functional Ear training, diatonic notes, simultaneous intervals. 96/100. Achieved, m2, m3, and flat 5.

Noodled around a bit and found a better fingering for one of the originals I play with the rock band. Need to try to get it on lock so it's automatic when I go back.

Did some searching for a better perfect pitch app, but I'm not finding one. I guess that I could make one myself, but I kind of don't want to. It's just a rabbit hole. But maybe I can throw something together that just works.

Tomorrow's another day.
 
#37
2020-04-19. Sunday.

No actual bass practice today. Didn't even pick it up.

However - starting last night, I was thinking about the type of perfect pitch practice that I wanted to do with chords, and how there isn't an online tool to do what I wanted....so I began creating one. The functionality is there - I can listen to a piano interval (all possible intervals) or chord (all possible triads and sevenths) and test myself on the notes I heard, and it supports all inversions. There's no scoring, or question configuration, or timer built-in to track the questions, but the functionality is there and I can use it for practice purposes. It's not yet complete - I've got a roadmap for the things that I want to do with it, and it's definitely not worth of public consumption, but it's a good start.

So not quite a bass day, but in terms of something related to music, it's a step forward and a non-zero day.

Onward.
 
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#39
2020-04-20. Monday.

- Bass Fitness, Chapter 1, Part A alternating at 102bpm in eighths. I don't know if it's because I didn't play yesterday or because I didn't stretch as well as I could have beforehand via the static chord stretching exercises, but this was tough on my middle and ring fingers especially near the nut.
- Bass Fitness, Chapter 7, Part A alternating at 90bpm. These are really good fretting hand strengthening exercises especially for weak finger independence....but they're tough, especially near the nut. Gotta continue to work at these.

Intended to do some ear training, but ended up spending time talking to a family member instead. Worth it.

Notes:
- The fingers on my left hand are definitely feeling it today.
- More progress on the perfect pitch app - I'd like to get it to a point where I can at least score myself with good analytics. I think that'll be very soon.

Flamingo21 said:
Those are the good moments! Now to get it in your system... not easy, but very useful.
Click to expand...

Yeah - this line is just a quick tetrad pair, two minor seventh arpeggios in sequence that I play in unison with the guitarist. Not difficult, but ending and starting on the same finger quickly led me to look for other ways to play it. I currently play it on two strings by shifting positions so my index doesn't have to jump from the last note in the first arpeggio to the first in the second, but there's a better way to do it without the shifts so that I can get closer to the actual note values and make it even smoother. But yeah, I'll have to shed it so that I don't revert to the original pattern.

Tomorrow's another day.
 
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#40
Sup from Seattle! Your practice log is inspiring me. I appreciate the honesty you’re laying down here. I’m thinking of jumping back on the bass from guitar and reading your log is helping me understand that some days are good and some days aren’t and that is how it is for everybody.
 
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