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She-Ra's Shed

#41
Wednesday's Log

Double Bass
  • -
Electric Bass
  • Rocksmith - 2:30
    • Benny & the Jets - Elton John
    • Blurred Lines - Robin Thicke
    • Maria Maria - Santana
    • Come Together - The Beatles
    • Back to Black - Amy Winehouse
    • Failed at Faith - George Michael (I just can't get my head around the rhythm right now)
Notes
  • Cold is bad. Stayed home today and played Rocksmith in between passing out. Managed to learn a bunch of new songs (and miserably failed at learning/playing Faith); though I'm still only at 90% speed for Benny & the Jets and still don't have it all down pat. It's an helpful tool to learn songs quickly - but I find it's even better when I pair it with playing along to the track outside of the game, to really make sure I've learned the parts and I'm really listening to the phrasing and actual timing on the record.
  • I also spent a good two/three hours watching Netflix and just doing spider exercises & finger dexterity, and some blues stuff but I'm not counting that as practice because it was absentminded and not focused.
  • I tried doing some learning but I've gotta respect my limits - my head feels like a stone and I can't really concentrate enough to do actual learning or work.
 
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#43
Thursday's Log

Double Bass
  • -
Electric Bass
  • Rocksmith - 3:00
    • Cosscut Saw - Albert King
    • Chain of Fools - Aretha Franklin
    • Lean on Me - Bill Withers
    • Take Me to Church - Hozier
    • Heroes - Bowie
    • Sultans of Swing - Dire Straits (can only play it at 85% speed and I'm barely hanging on at that. I'll slow it down some more and practice it that way)
    • Also practiced other songs I've learned (repetition puts it in the fingers!)
Notes
  • Came home from work at lunch and passed out till about 5. Made soup, ate and then, did Rocksmith to learn some now songs and practice old ones. I just wanted to update this and I'm gonna go pass out again. This week, because of this beastly cold, is a complete wash in regards to the goals I originally set out which is pretty disappointing. :( That's ok; just gotta roll with the punches. I'm impressed that I'm still doing stuff while sick - every other instrument I've tried, I completely didn't even touch when I was sick so.... silver lining? Secondary silver lining - I now have a repertoire of about 18 songs I can play well at the drop of a hat. I'll update the repertoire playlist - and I'll add it at the end of on the first post in this thread.
 
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#45
Reflections on week 36:
  • Not much to say here: I was very sick, I didn't accomplish almost anything I set out to do, and I'm feeling pretty sore about it. I was sick enough that I actually passed out all of Friday & Saturday such that I didn't even touch the bass. :(
  • I did manage to learn quite a few songs, which is a positive.
 
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#46
Week 37/2019 Goals - The Blues Week (Redux)

This is a copy & paste of my week 36 goals as I accomplished nothing due to my health. As of today, I'm just starting to recover from this hellish flu, so we'll see what progress will be made.

My short term goal that I'm working toward is to get up and play bass at a local Friday Night Blues Jam by the end of week 38/39 (depending on how quickly I recover from the cold). So this week will be dedicated to really absorbing all about the blues - forms, styles, a few actual songs, turnarounds, intro's, outro's, etc - so that I can practice it throughout week 38/39 and then, I hope to head out to the jam and sit in on a few songs.

Electric Bass:
  • Fretboard
    • Continuous Arpeggio Ex - Autumn Leaves
    • Continue practicing arpeggios (maj7, dom7, min7, m7b5) and linking around the board
    • Continue practicing major/natural minor scales & maj/min pentatonic scales across the board
  • Technique
    • Bass Hanon 3
    • Bass Aerobics Workout 3
    • Focusing on muting technique for low B - I'm doing well muting as I play the other strings, but sometimes I miss it, or my thumb only makes temporary contact with it, and it starts resonating
  • Groove & Time
    • Practice playing note length from downbeat to e/&/a/whole note
    • Practice starting on various breakdowns of the note - 1, 1e, 1e&, 1e&a, e, e&, e&a, ea, etc....
    • The Groove Formula - Rhythm & Groove Development Module clapping exercises
  • Theory
    • Chord Tone Concepts: Vol 1
      • I've gone through several things that cover the same stuff so this should be a review, mostly, rather than learning anything new and I'm using it for solidification of that knowledge
    • Blues Bass book by Ed Friedland
      • This seems ambitious but I've spent a good chunk of this week watching and practicing a lot of blues stuff so this won't be the first time I'm encountering a lot of the concepts it's covering.
      • I'm also not planning on learning every single song - just a selection. So while the book is 79 pages long, I'm really focusing on the first 44 pages or so
  • Genre Studies
    • Lots of songs from my 'Blues Studies' Spotify playlist
    • Blues feels: straight, shuffle, rhumba, 12/8, march, jump, boogie-woogie, slow
    • Blues techniques: walkups, turnarounds, intro's, outro's
  • Transcription
    • No real goals for transcription this week aside from listening to a lot of blues and identifying what kind it is, what the bass is doing, etc.

Double Bass
  • Technique
    • Long tones with the bow - focus on bow speed and playing the fundamental
    • Open string exercises from Evolving Bassist AND Simandl
    • Focus on physical posture - relaxation is important
Notes:
  • I would like to make playing live - even a little bit per week or every two weeks- part of my routine because learning to play with people (not just a band) is another skill that must be developed. Especially playing with a drummer - while playing with a drum machine is great, it's perfect and I'm not learning how to deal with slight variations in timing from it as I'd get with a real drummer.
  • I'm not expecting to become anything more than a beginner blues player through the next two weeks, but I think being competent is a good starting goal. Like everything else, I am very much aware that it takes time to become really familiar with the subtleties of playing... really any genre. I'm definitely advantaged when it comes to blues, however, because I've been listening to it my whole life in some form or another and it is the basis of a lot of the music that's up my alley - motown, funk, soul, R&B, rock, errrrr... blues.... haha.
 
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#48
Sunday's Log

Double Bass
  • -
Electric Bass
  • Rocksmith - 3:00
    • Played through everything I already know at least once
    • Ex's & Oh's - Elle King
    • Build Me Up Buttercup - The Foundtations
    • Howlin' For You - The Black Keys
    • Pappa Was a Rollin' Stone - The Temptations
    • Sir Duke - Stevie Wonder (I just learned the intro. Will do more later.)
Notes
  • Continued to sleep through most of the day but I got up part-way and got some bass in. Mostly it was reviewing stuff I've done in the past few days with a couple of new (and fairly easy) songs. Just picking it back up slowly. It's also hard to play as I'm coughing up a lung so that's distracting pretty frequently.
 
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#49
Monday's Log

Double Bass
  • Open strings & string crossing - 30
    • Focused on playing relaxed
    • Focused on playing the fundamental
Electric Bass
  • Watched
    • Chord Tones L1 & L2 (Major, minor, aug, dim triads) - review mostly
  • The Jazz Bass Line Book
    • Chapter 1 - Chordal Bass Lines
  • Arpeggios - 30
    • M7, m7, dom7, m7b5
    • off 1st, 2nd, 4th fingers
    • focused on going the whole position (from low B to G string)
    • Also, two octaves as well (going up & coming down the same way)
  • Rocksmith - 2:00
    • Played through everything a few times
    • Focused on fixing trouble areas in:
      • Benny & Jets - The piano solo for some reason gives me trouble
      • I Want You Back - The 5x repeated bit near the end. I can do it slow, but man, at speed kills me.
      • Take me to Church - Fairly simple song but I was having difficulty with get one timing thing down; fixed that.
      • Sir Duke - Learned the whole song and can play at 85% speed.
  • Rhythm exercises away from bass - 15
Notes
  • I felt much better today, but, for some reason my timing was off on everything. My head was totally out of what I was practicing. No worries - just gotta slowly get back into shape. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
  • Starting tomorrow or the day after, depending on how I feel, I'm gonna start limiting the Rocksmith stuff to weekends. It's a lot of fun but I really need to transcribe stuff, rather than play along to its thing. Ears are the most important thing and I'm noticing that I'm playing "visually" along with the stuff I've done from Rocksmith rather than relying on my ear
  • Also, I've got to start the Ear Master training program at some point.
 
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#50
Tuesday's Log

Double Bass
  • Open strings & string crossing - 20
    • Focused on playing relaxed
    • Focused on playing the fundamental
Electric Bass
  • The Jazz Bass Line Book (yes, again. Good stuff that can be practiced in there.)
    • Chapter 1 - Chordal Bass Lines
  • Blues Bass book (pp. 1-18 review) w/ BiaB- 30
    • Basic form + quick IV
    • Basic turnarounds
    • Box-shape patterns
    • Walkups & descents
  • Bass Hanon 3 - 15
  • Bass Workout 3 - 15
  • Repertoire - 1:00
  • Arpeggios - 30
  • Rhythm exercises - 15
Notes:
  • Slowly starting to get back into practicing shape today.
  • I can feel the end of this damn cold, but it just won't let go! Ugh.
 
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#52
@reddog Thanks for this. I'll watch it tomorrow at work as I don't have time right now. I'm curious to hear what they say but I'll bet you a cat leg that I'll feel right at home watching this vid.

My dad raised me right when it came to music: I grew up listening to B.B. King, Muddy Waters, SRV, Hendrix, Clapton, Pink Floyd, Queen, Yes, Led Zep, Sting, Springsteen, Zappa, Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac, Ray Charles, etc. All that real good good stuff. I was a kid out of time, growing up - I don't think I listened to much "modern" music till I was 25 or so. I was busy with that stuff for a long time, and it's still what I consider 'my' music - only later did I come into jazz and some of the more modern stuff that I'm still discovering through Spotify and such.

Any time I watch Beato's videos, and he goes off on a tangent about such and such a band, I'm nodding along: "Yeah, man, those guys are amazing!" And then I read YT comments like "Hey thanks for turning me on to X, they're dope," and it boggles my mind that people didn't spend their life listening to that. lol.
 
#53
Wednesday's Log

Double Bass
  • -
Electric Bass
  • Lesson today (done on EB due to my shoulder)
    • Mostly it was a getting to know where I am on the EB as we've only done DB till now
    • Covered a few different ways of practicing what I'm already practicing but good to look at them differently
    • Got a great continuous arpeggio exercise
    • Biggest takeaway: do stuff on the circle of fourths! Always!
 
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#55
Thursday's Log

Double Bass
  • -
Electric Bass
  • Continuous arpeggio over circle of fourths - 30
    • It was SO much smoother today. I'm getting the hang of it. I should return to the SBL Continuous Arpeggio Ex as well. So many ex!
  • Named Arpeggio Ex - 30
Notes
  • Had a social engagement and got home late. Was not able to tackle as much as usual.
  • I'm thinking of buying Vox Amplug to continue practicing later in the night sometimes. I do practice without an amp, but from everything I've read, I gather it's not the best idea for bass as a lot of control of volume and tone can only be heard through an amp.
 
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#56
The Amplug is nice - can be thrown into a gig bag with earbuds for practice on-the-go, and has a rudimentary drum machine and a metronome built-in (although it's analog, so not easy to set a specific bpm). I've found that using it with the "tone" pot all the way up helps me to pinpoint a lot of my unwanted noises, like string harmonics and shifting noise, that can sometimes be lost with a regular bass amp.
 
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#57
Saturday & Sunday's Log

Double Bass
  • -
Electric Bass
  • Continuous Arpeggio ex - 20
  • Named arpeggio ex - 40
    • I can now confindently name every major chord AND spell it out (ie, Fmaj7 - F A C E) on my instrument; it's not yet "without missing a beat" but I'll get there.
Notes:
  • Attended an out of town wedding over the weekend so that left almost no time to practice.
  • Bought a Vox AmPlug on my way out of the city Sat morning, and took my bass & headphones with me to get at least some practice time in. (Thanks for the recommendation @juggahnaught!)
 
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