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LF Ridiculously difficult exercises

R

Redleader

Nov 1, 2006
23
0
35
Ankara / Turkey
#1
Hello there;

I've been playing bass for almost 6 years now (I'm 20), and through all these years I tried the classic and fundamental exercises.. I sped them up, played them in doubles and triplets, reverse, mixed (one reverse one straight), etc. etc..

I am both bored of these exercises and I've hit a plateau.. For around half a year I've been playing difficult songs as exercises; namely The Dance of Eternity by Dream Theater, YYZ by Rush; some stuff from Symphony X, that kind of stuff..

I need real, difficult exercises that I have to focus on; get me back to my daily bass exercise routine (half an hour exercise, half an hour song practice; that kind of routine).. I want them to be so difficult that I have to set the metronome to 60 bpm and still can't grasp the concept :)

Any ideas, suggestions?
 
#7
Jaco , Taco

check out Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen

no really do it...

Here is a jam with Joe Pass doing "Move"

and here is "Donna Lee" with Joe Pass and NHOP, i have seen a better quality version of this, sorry i could not find it. Just turn up them speakers
 
#8
try practicing more than an hour a day for starters...

sounds like you have only worked on technique thus far. start working on your knowledge of harmony and how it applies on the instrument. there are a lot of resources out there. check out Scott Devine's stuff. its really helped me out a lot, the continuous arpeggio exercise particularly. (Free Online Bass Lessons - Scott's Bass Lessons) Shedding that exercise over even the simplest standard such as autumn leaves will be more beneficial than playing YYZ a million times.
 
#9
Thank for th advice everybody, I will try these out tonight..

By the way, after your replies I realised I sounded like a total over-confident jerk :D I am in no way excellent condition, or want to say anything like that; there is always room for improvement for me as I have no "grand, natural talent" like some of the names that came up, I just practice :D

Anyway, I wiill definitely check out the material you suggested, and you probably have a good point about more harmony training; any specific exercise suggestions? Especially about chord playing on bass?

The part about exercises being difficult still counts :P

Thanks again everybody for responding..

(About youtube videos: I may put up some if I get the free time, which may happen in August.. I'll let you know.. Not that you should expect much, I'm just a guy booooored of the old Spider exercise :P)
 
#10
My playing and musicianship took a leap when I started playing actual pieces of non-Bass music rather than exercises. The first couple were Bach's "Jesu Joy Of Man's Desiring" and the head to Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" (written by Paul Desmond, I think).

Both are simple technically; not complex to learn or knuckle-busting hard, but they force you to play stuff that's NOT written to fall under the fingers on a string instrument. And the hard part is to try to phrase them musically, rather than just "get the notes right".
 
#11
BogeyBass said:
Jaco , Taco

check out Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen

no really do it...

Here is a jam with Joe Pass doing "Move"

and here is "Donna Lee" with Joe Pass and NHOP, i have seen a better quality version of this, sorry i could not find it. Just turn up them speakers
Click to expand...

Thanks for including those links, he is a fabulous bassist indeed, incredible ability and swing.

For the OP I would recommend getting the head for Donna Lee together if it's your kinda thing, that's an exercise in itself to play fluidly, some tricky string crossing and finger combinations there.
 
#14
sounds like you have done enough excercises if your playing rush... excercises are great but if you are at that level already i would suggest just keep learning new songs and riffs. you will build more chops than just doing the excercises. here is a fun song (its a keyboard bassline, but it will keep your fingers busy). i can play it 5x in a row but my hands start to quit ! ‪Earth, Wind & Fire You Are A Winner‬‏ - YouTube i like copying keyboard bass, its not "meant" for a bass with strings, but it is a challenge to get the attack and abrupt stop of a keyboard bass. madonnas "get into the groove" is a good one too. johnny a.-staind
 
#16
champbassist said:
Dave Clark gave you that (or something similar) at Berklee, right? My brain hurts whenever I think of that :p
Click to expand...

He gave us the "ever expanding quintuplet" which involves setting the quarter note to 40 (to start off with, then faster), then cycling through all the possible subdivisions of the quintuplet starting with sixteenth note quintuplet (5 notes evenly spaced in the space of one click) eighth note quintuplet (5 in 2), quarter note quintuplet (5 in 4) so on up until double whole note quintuplet (5 in the place of 32). Suprisingly enough, this wasn't all too difficult, and just became an exercise in counting. The entire class got it more or less with a half hour.

What I suggested, though, would be pretty damn tough, (although not impossible, in theory). You'd first have to figure out the whole note ratio to the whole note quintuple, which is 4 within the space of 5 clicks, then subdivide that ratio down to quarter notes so it would end up being 16 notes within the space of 5 clicks. At 60 bpm that would equal exactly quarter note equals 200, so kind of a medium up tempo. This would of course be made far more difficult by the fact you're playing in 7 (nevermind Giant Steps in 7), because the harmonic rhythm and all the phrasing associated with it would be completely unrelated to the metronome's click. 16 notes would go by in the space of 5 clicks, but thats 2.28571(etc) measures of music.

Anyway, back to the OP, you definitely came off as being arrogant. My rule of thumb is if you have to ask others about new exercises to learn because you've mastered all of the ones you know, you're not actually all that amazing. Once you get to a certain level, you won't have to ask. You come up with your own.

That said, check this out. Set metronome (if you have a digital one) to play once on the downbeat every 4 measures. Got that? Cool. Now set it to the and of 1 every 4 measures. Now 2 every 4 measures.

Etc.
 
#17
HaVIC5 said:
My rule of thumb is if you have to ask others about new exercises to learn because you've mastered all of the ones you know, you're not actually all that amazing.
Click to expand...

Well, it is a nice rule of thumb; I only said I was bored of them and was looking for new ones,I neither said I mastered them completely nor wanted to be arrogant :) I learned so much just from the answers to this post, and I really appreciate your help :)

Back to topic: I really liked Scott Devine's stuff, that site is a gold mine! I will lean on harmony and music theory related to bass guitar more in my exercise routine from now on as you suggested..

I will definetely try the quintuplet exercise, but I'm seriously terrified of the 7/8 part of the exercise :)

Again, thanks for the replies and suggestions, I appreciate it..
 
#18
Quarter Note: 200 BPM

------24---------------3--------------------------------
-------------2-----------------------4---------------------
------------------23----------------------21---------------
--1--------------------------22-----------------------------

Try it.
 
#20
Man, I know how you feel, where you've sort of mastered the styles you play. But there's always somewhere else to go. Like mentioned, Jaco is a good place to look, look at any jazz fusion stuff, try some of those really weird scales. There's prog rock hard, and there's Jazz hard. they're so different. I won't accuse you of having no feel, because you probably have plenty, but I'd also hit ballads next. REALLY slow stuff. WAY harder than YYZ. Seriously, you just need so much concentration and feel... It's hard, man. That's what I'd do next, if I were you. slow long stuff.
 

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