Playing/practicing withouth screens ( computer, smartphone)

Probably the way people practiced before the age of computers and internet...

 

If you’re talking about practicing technique, scales, time etc., how about a metronome?
I use a metronome app these days, but wouldn’t mind going back to a good old quartz metronome.

For working on actual music, it would be pretty hard (for me at least…) to go back to CDs and tape recorders, after getting used to the flexibility of a DAW and music streaming.

Good question, though. It is harder to stay focused on the “here and now”, with a screen in front of you…

 

Just pick up your bass,and play

 

You’ll have to pry my screens from my cold, dead hands.

 

I noticed this in the classifieds today: For Sale - Korg ToneWorks Pandora PX3B

I used to have the guitar version, it's a nice little metronome tool for practicing

 

Get a mixing desk. If you have not much money, a cheap analog one will do.
If you can invest a little more, look at the desks from Zoom or Tascam. The Zoom R20 for under 400,- offers even an integrated drum computer and synths. The Tascam Model12 for under 600,- offers more controls, higher quality, but no drum machine. It has a metronome and can record even basic loops. Both allow you to permanently plug in drum machines, your bass, record players etc. and to record multitrack or stereo-master to a sd-card and have integrated effects like compressors, eqs, reverb and delay. So you can even record without the need for a computer. If you have a smartphone instead of a record player, you can even play along to Spotify etc. via bluetooth (don't know, if the Zoom offers this, but the Tascam does).

 

Several posts here give advice on things that try to put the things we want from computers, into a small device with little or no screen. That can make for poky interfacing, to say the least, and it may not solve much as a result. All those posts are great advice, but isn't this missing something?

The way I decided to go, decades ago now, was to accept the computer for what it is, and know when to turn away from it. Obviously I never perfected the art.

What I did do was go for an ex-demo multichannel audio and MIDI device, one of the best, it was ten years before there was much consensus on a better one. The original Echo Layla rack unit. It ended all the IRQ conflict nonsense, it let me turn my machine into any kind of audio system I wanted, software permitting, and I write my own software now, and still use the same device. (It, and the low power Mini-ITX mainboards I like, got so cheap for a while I got several backups!)

That's a DEEP involvement with computing, to say the least, but when I want to play the bass I don't even use it as a metronome. I just switch off the power to the VDU and walk away from it, and set up the bass and play it. It's easy for me because I'm not trying to get all those little things it can do as surrogates in other hardware, let alone hardware I can't use for anything else.

Dedicated hardware for stuff can be great, but I find it so only if it's stuff the computer has no chance of doing.

Getting away from screens only really works if we get away from the reasons people needed to invent them.

 

loop pedal.

 

I used to just turn on the radio on a station I listened to at least part of the time, and just played with whatever came on. The random nature of it is like skeet shooting: You yell 'Pull!' and you got to hit it. Whether on a screen or anything else, it's too easy to fall into practicing the same old same old.

 

If only the radio were that random.

 

For those prone to distraction like me, having screens nearby when I practice is a bad idea. I do use a phone when I am learning a cover, but I try to avoid having anything like that in the room unless it is needed.

 

We didn't have screens when I was growing up, apart from the Sony in the family room.

I practiced with a metronome, records and other rowdy teens. It's much easier to learn songs today, but we came up with interesting covers when we couldn't figure it out exactly from the record.

 

You have a looper pedal? Put that thing to work. There's a lot that you can do for practice purposes or juat for playing. On my profile page, i've got stuff linked from my Sou dcloud that's all created with my aix-string bass, a Helix, and a looper. You can go from simple to complex.

Try looping juat two chords, and improvise a bassline around that.

 

I print out tabs and put them on a music stand to use while playing along with the recording.

 

This ^
Record player worked for me. It was the sixties.
Joined the garage band then learned (or tried) to play bass.
Smartphones and computers ARE today's record players.
What is you particular dislike in using these?.

 

I used to play along sith Jamie Abersold stuff (sp) it came with a book with notation and you could practice what you learned from the book. i enjoyed it.
Now i enjoy just playing from the real book or working on the tunes for the next gig.

 

I suppose this counts but .. now that I have an X-touch - sometimes I practice songs with the monitors screen locked. Mostly because my kid is absolutely obsessed with the thing and his mom is uber strict about "screen time". (So we still play with computers with the screen off. Hahaha).

 

I practice with a Berhinger RD8 plugged into the AUX input of my amp. That way I can create the rythm I want. If I struggle with a bass line, I add it on top of the drums using hi-hats or hand clap and practice along. Once I have it in hands I mute the track.
And I also have an old CD player which can loop from A to B in a track, repeat the whole album or just one song...

Of course, you could do the same with just a smartphone, but I like my old gear.

 

I know when I was a kid, first learning bass, I would play along with my CD player. I would spend hours trying to match my playing to the bass parts in the recording - this was before the internet or the read availability of TABs. Now if I play along with a song, it's on Spotify, I guess I don't really see a big difference. I do still prefer to figure the bass lines out by ear. I only will look up the music or tab if I can't figure out a line.

But completely free of screens, like was already said, playing with people is the best way

 

Well, you might buy a keyboard with sequencer, and jam to your own playing tracks! That will teach you to find the theory fun!