Playing/practicing withouth screens ( computer, smartphone)

This.


Unfortunately, this is not easy to find this kind of things without screen today.. But now you can slow the speed without changing the pics, loop a fragment of a piece to work with, etc..
If you want to play jazz, you can use Abersold play along series.
The best way as already replied here: play with others. Find a drummer or a percussion player and set up a band.

 

Great ear training too!

 

Practice makes perfect, keep noodling and you'll keep getting better at playing what you want to hear.

 

Back in music school, the music library had these units you could check out that had a CD player and a cassette tape deck, and you could turn a knob to slow down the playback without changing the pitch. I guess a digital DJ rig could do that now with any music coming off your computer or phone.

 

Totally OT but I figured the folks in this thread would still appreciate - you're our kind of people. It's expensive and wildly impractical but oh man do I still wants one.

Rotary Un-Smartphone
Rotary Un-Smartphone "A cellphone - you know, for making calls"

 

I think I figured it out partly by thinking about JJ Burnel, it goes further than the sound, the playing, it's sort of like what PG Wodehouse wrote in the Jeeves and Wooster stories, about 'the psychology of the individual'. It's as much about knowing 'why' as 'how'. While this might get obsessive, the trick is to prevent that by using that foundation thing as a platform, it's like the mental equivalent of a stage. I do not imagine an audience, but I do imagine how it might be if there was one. Getting through the song, a sort of 'stand and deliver' attitude. Sometimes it works, sometimes it gets clumsy, but it's usually exciting, so it rarely sucks.

This helped me last week, first time in a pub in years, playing solo bass. I played ok even though technical issues got in the way of the best sound. The people there liked it. I didn't feel forced to acknowlege them, I just played what I did so I liked it as best possible, and it does the same for them.

Recording devices are another matter though, I do tend to suck more when I'm self-conscious of having to play well to a device rather than wear out its flash memory deleting and retrying.. Live audiences are probably WAY more forgiving. Therefore, imagine how you might play to one, it will probably help if you work with other people later, too.

Someone said that it's better to look at the audience than at the bass. He had the wisdom to qualify that with 'when possible'. That someone was JJ Burnel. He's right. It's better to keep our eyes on the ball when we must, if we do that well enough, the prize will take care of itself.

 

Nashville numbers, Fake chord sheet music on songs you know how to sing, or hum the tune to.

 

Just play along to an FM radio station you don't normally listen to. This will help you learn song and chord patterns pretty quickly.

 

I know Rita Lynch (singer, songwriter, and sometimes also a bassist). She swears by those, probably still does. I use a modern equivalent, a Marantz PMD660, the older version that uses CF card instead of SD. Vital bit of gear. I get tense using it though, but it's vital because it lets me hear myself as others might. Can't do that while playing.

I've still got a bunch of small ideas I played at it, just letting it pick up the un-amped raw sound of the bass whenever I wanted something noted before I forgot it. It's time I raided them, I need to make some new songs.

 

Gotcha! I certainly see how today's devices can be more distracting than something like a record player.
Good luck on your journey.

 

Hot damn, I want the atomic hotline read!

 

I call seafoam!

Heh ... "call" ...

 

I'm not antitech, but I do think the current obsession with screens (particularly touch screen interfaces) is kind of a 60's architecture, 80's synth "we have a new hammer and by God we're gonna use it!" phase. Lots of places where it's there because it's cheap or lazy and not at all the best way to do something.

Note - I'm not affiliated with the project above in any way, I just think it's cool (but spendy)