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The PRACTICE Journal

#81
Gopherbassist said:
...
It's like once the boredom was established
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This time, not doing those exercises, I was able to move through the more interesting exercises much more fluidly, and I feel like I got a lot more done even in less time than the last session.
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Maybe it's time to spend more time with those 'simpler' exercises, trying to squeeze a bit more out of them. Look carefully at how you are playing them, beyond just getting the right notes out in the right order. Use them to push the boundaries of your own musicianship and explore the musical possibilities. Look for ways to play them in different ways or with different articulations - loud/soft; legato/staccato, strict timing/rubato; or transoposing to different keys, or up one octave.

I'm currently working on some stuff from the Popper School of Cello. This is the first few bars of Ex.19. as written in the book:
20250731_085230.jpg


This is just the notes of the first 2 lines with no articulation or dynamics, such as you might see in the HLBM. I've put it into 12/8 to ease the transcription process and moved the low Eb up an octave - I will probably transpose to a more suitable key at some point:
1753946472731.png


Here I'm looking for a different articulation and phrasing at a slower tempo trying to create a more lyrical character. RIght now this is not it, but progress is being made, even if most of the ideas turn out to be bad for one reason or another. There might easily be several hours work just exploring the possibilities of just these first few lines, but I'm confident something of real value will emerge:
1753947468538.png
 
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#82
SteveCS said:
Maybe it's time to spend more time with those 'simpler' exercises, trying to squeeze a bit more out of them. Look carefully at how you are playing them, beyond just getting the right notes out in the right order. Use them to push the boundaries of your own musicianship and explore the musical possibilities. Look for ways to play them in different ways or with different articulations - loud/soft; legato/staccato, strict timing/rubato; or transoposing to different keys, or up one octave.

I'm currently working on some stuff from the Popper School of Cello. This is the first few bars of Ex.19. as written in the book:
View attachment 7288110

This is just the notes of the first 2 lines with no articulation or dynamics, such as you might see in the HLBM. I've put it into 12/8 to ease the transcription process and moved the low Eb up an octave - I will probably transpose to a more suitable key at some point:
View attachment 7288106

Here I'm looking for a different articulation and phrasing at a slower tempo trying to create a more lyrical character. RIght now this is not it, but progress is being made, even if most of the ideas turn out to be bad for one reason or another. There might easily be several hours work just exploring the possibilities of just these first few lines, but I'm confident something of real value will emerge:
View attachment 7288109
Click to expand...
Too many notes... ;)
 
#84
SteveCS said:
I'm currently working on some stuff from the Popper School of Cello.
Click to expand...
Are you learning this for a classical music performance?

I've also tried learning the few bits of a classical piece, Rondo Alla Turca by Mozart, a few months ago as a challenge to myself and since it's a melody that's ingrained in my brain. Another one I tried to learn is the intro and head melody of Hiromi Uehara's Seeker, though this one's a jazz fusion piece.
 
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#85
scrubhelmet said:
Are you learning this for a classical music performance?

I've also tried learning the few bits of a classical piece, Rondo Alla Turca by Mozart, a few months ago as a challenge to myself and since it's a melody that's ingrained in my brain. Another one I tried to learn is the intro and head melody of Hiromi Uehara's Seeker, though this one's a jazz fusion piece.
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No, but my pre-bass background is in classical music and I find this type if thing far more interesting and fruitful for my own learning and playing pleasure than typical rock/pop 'bass lines'.
 
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#87
I'm a bit tired and sleep today so I only managed to put in thirty minutes. Played the melody and head of the Joe Henderson's version of Blue Bossa, and then played along with the track, and fiddled a bit with improvisation. Seems like I still know the form of the song.

Then I tried to play along Tea For Two on iReal Pro since one of my vocalist friends has been practicing it. Then I also looked at a music sheet to figure out the melody and its relationship to the chords being played, but I was too tired and sleepy so I gave it up after figuring out the first four bars.

Tomorrow night will be a practice session with my funk band.
 
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#90
30 minutes, practice playing the guitar and singing some songs that I might play in an open jam a few weeks from now. Then one hour for bass practice. I tried to play the intro and solo of Why Not? That's What slowly, maybe for five minutes, then the rest was spent on composing a bass solo for an original song in my funk band. The chords are A#-Am so I'm trying to play in A Phrygian, which is one of the modes that I'm not used to. So maybe it's a good way to be familiarized with this mode.
 
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#92
SteveCS said:
Might help to clarify things if you think of the A# as Bb? Then it's all just F major (iii - IV) or Dm (vi - V) when it comes to the solo. Think 'Fate' by Chaka Khan...
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Now that you mentioned it, I just realized that I can think in terms of F major or D minor. 🤣 although the Phyrgian mode gives it a bit of middle Eastern vibe the way I phrase it... (which fits the song IMO)

Sometimes I just simply forget the basics. There was one time I was doing a solo for an Am7-Dm7 chord progression. I was switching between A Dorian and A minor during the first few gigs. Then after a while, I tried doing A Dorian for Am7 and then D Dorian for the Dm7. I was proud of myself for a while... until I realized the notes in D Dorian is the same as A minor. 🤣
 
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#97
been practicing folks!

first I'll talk a bit about my path thus far:

as probably happens often my big bro got me onto music. ~11 years old I picked up the guitar. my brother has a natural affinity for musical book learning and tonal development so he went off and learned how to sight read and play a bunch of instruments etc. I stuck to the small bodied acoustic guitar for maybe 20 years and very early on fell in love with traditional blues music and then got into other genres.

so I learned the guitar as essentially a shapeshifting folk instrument that could be maybe a drum or a piano or a voice or any number of other instruments really. in the way that Segovia describes as an orchestra through the other side of the binoculars. the upshot of this is I know a great many techniques across many genres and am pretty fearless and honest so far as knowing where my sound is. after 20 years of that and a year and a half of bass my word is that bassists play strings, guitarists play tops (or amps), dig.

***

as I mentioned I picked up the bass probably a year and a half ago and then picked up a few more haha. I totally love the instrument.

it's very much like playing a guitar but in many ways totally not. it's way simpler and way bigger and way more of a foundational instrument so far as establishing rhythm and tone and color etc plus my hands more or less play it natively.

and so for me it's been a really exciting prospect to write songs on the bass.

I've been learning a bit of theory towards this, I find YT to be marginally better than books but I may revisit that. the channels that are good are superb and I count tubers like marbin to be concise and full of information.

***

so far as PRACTICE here I've been spending some intimate quality time with the major scale, not only the mechanics but the musical meanings of the notes and the intervals via constructing observational scales. so far i've quickly and heartily absorbed that displaced intervals are basically the sum of western music haha which is a really fun and powerful insight. so now I can get to many different sounds without changing position or short handing voicing.
 
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#98
wompwomp said:
so I learned the guitar as essentially a shapeshifting folk instrument that could be maybe a drum or a piano or a voice or any number of other instruments really.
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The way I play the guitar now (which was the first instrument I've learned, but now it's my secondary instrument) is like playing a piano and using the notes that I need. So while I can still do the basic strumming, plucking, etc.,well,, I already some of the stuff that makes a guitar-playing unique and tasty, which I think is not the case for my bass playing.
wompwomp said:
in the way that Segovia describes as an orchestra through the other side of the binoculars
Click to expand...
Are you from Spain?
 

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