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Double Bass The Talent Code, and concepts related to it

#81
ProgRocker said:
The physical aspect of playing is. The mechanical part of playing a scale, line, arpeggio, etc has to be mastered before your psyche can be engaged, you have to get past the physical part of learning to play. To get it under your fingers, as it were.
Click to expand...
To a small degree yes, you have to have some facility to be able to move about the instrument, but more importantly, the "strong brain signal" that Hal Galper is talking about that I linked to is the most important.

Using my imagination, I can play note combinations that I never practiced before, and execute them sometimes as if I did actually practice it. Of course it depends on how you define mastery. I'm not a master of playing blues scales, yet I'm able to play bluesy lines at tempo in a live setting.

The diff is that I'm letting my ear be my guide, screaming that sounds in my head, and forcing my body to cooperate. Muscle Memory doesn't even come into the picture unless I can't think of something to play and let my hands run until I can come up with something. Unfortunately, the other side of the coin is that I don't hear very complex lines, so the stuff I play is pretty inside but I try to make it swing as much as possible.
 
#82
of practicing without an instrument. It has served me well over the years, both in necessity (for instance, learning new music while on a plane) and in an alternate path to getting better. I close my eyes, or look at the chart, play the music in my head and mentally play my instrument, through every position shift, fingering, timing, etc, until I have the entire piece sharply in focus. The "tell" - where I need practice, is when i do this, but a passage is not clear in my mind - I can practically feel the mess up. If I can't see it, hear it, feel it, then it will not be played right when I have my instrument in my hands. And I think overall it helps me focus when I am playing my bass. As somebody once told me, "where the mind goes, the body will follow."
 
#83
hdiddy said:
And finally, I think a decent amount sleep is hugely critical in allowing the brain to process through learning new techniques and sklls. No amount of practice can help with the brain to absorb new material in a deep level like that.
Click to expand...
IME, lack of quality sleep affects learning of all kinds.

Based on my sleep problems over the years, here's a link with some good info that has helped me:

Improve the quality of your sleep.

Deficient and reduced vitamin levels have been huge for me and when solved, with supplements, have made a great difference in memory skills and helped increase positive mental thoughts. By supplements, I mean quantities above what you get in multivitamins.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Vitamin D3

No matter how much you practice, sometimes you're artificially limited by your body's processes.
 
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#84
azureblue said:
of practicing without an instrument. It has served me well over the years, both in necessity (for instance, learning new music while on a plane) and in an alternate path to getting better. I close my eyes, or look at the chart, play the music in my head and mentally play my instrument, through every position shift, fingering, timing, etc, until I have the entire piece sharply in focus. The "tell" - where I need practice, is when i do this, but a passage is not clear in my mind - I can practically feel the mess up.
Click to expand...
+1. You don't need motor skills when mentally practicing. I'm doing it more and more too. I don't do much visualizations but really try to work through or analyze using my aural imagination.
 
#85
Originally Posted by hdiddy
This vid is worth reposting to this thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_7DgCrziI8

Great to see this stuff being talked about. My teacher, Terry Plumeri, was/is a total exponent of and perfect example of this. He talked, and still talks, about this issue as the core thing to work on.

When I was studying with him, first thing he would have me do is learn to sing something, without the bass. Then we would figure out the motions associated with the sound, whether it was an left hand interval shift, an unfamiliar sequence of bowed string crossings, jazz pizz, whatever. Then he would have me practice the moves without the instrument, breaking apart the hands, then putting them together. Then add the bass.

He used to say, "Fingers are workers who work for the Creator, who is the voice." He also used to talk about the similarities between baseball, dance, and playing an instrument; the importance of isolating, understanding, and reducing the required motions to their elegant essence.

Saw him and played with him a few months back. Amazing to hear the difference between his and my playing as I listen to a recorded duet. When he comes in, the ideas are searingly clear, the time playing is lucidly organized. When I play, you can hear tentativeness, occasional aimlessness. etc. You can almost hear me thinking/feeling, "Oh, I can't solo at that tempo," or whatever. With his playing, all you hear is his voice, pouring out of the bass.



Not trying to degrade myself, but the contrast is about the clarity of his vs. my musical mind. His freedom and fluency is a direct result of the time he spends on internal musical work.

Now that I am a hobbyist player, the main thing I notice is the loss of concentration levels in which I used to live. I don't play as well because I am not spending hours, daily, in that internal room. Not because my arms/hands aren't as strong; because my Musical Mind is not as awake.

So, reading a book won't take me back to playing as if I was holding the bass all day/night, but at least it will remind me of where the real work lies....
 
#86
Eric Swanson said:
Originally Posted by hdiddy
This vid is worth reposting to this thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_7DgCrziI8
Click to expand...

Fascinating video; great thread. I am constantly wondering how to get out of the rut of playing the same things over and over.
This topic is a real eye opener. I’ve often played a lick “by ear” only to go back and listen to the recording and realize I was playing what I thought I heard, not what was actually being played.
My listening/visualizing skills aren’t what I thought they were. Thank you for this important lesson.
 
#87
Eric Swanson said:
Originally Posted by hdiddy
This vid is worth reposting to this thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_7DgCrziI8
Click to expand...

My thoughts on the video, having looked up the book he references, are:

  1. 1967 is some pretty old neuroscience. Our understanding of the brain has changed greatly in the last 40 years.
  2. In the demonstration at the end, he would have gotten the same results from his subject if he told her to play the passage again with more energy. In fact he could have told the subject to solve an arithmetic problem in her head, or do jumping jacks. She knew her job was to play the lick better the second time.

There could be something to this--or not.

I have read a lot of guitar, piano, and bass players who insist it is imperative to sing lines while you play to make some kind of neurological connection, and I think "what about horn players?" A lot of them do okay without singing their lines.
 
#88
Eric Swanson said:
Originally Posted by hdiddy
This vid is worth reposting to this thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_7DgCrziI8

Great to see this stuff being talked about. My teacher, Terry Plumeri, was/is a total exponent of and perfect example of this. He talked, and still talks, about this issue as the core thing to work on.

When I was studying with him, first thing he would have me do is learn to sing something, without the bass. Then we would figure out the motions associated with the sound, whether it was an left hand interval shift, an unfamiliar sequence of bowed string crossings, jazz pizz, whatever. Then he would have me practice the moves without the instrument, breaking apart the hands, then putting them together. Then add the bass.

He used to say, "Fingers are workers who work for the Creator, who is the voice." He also used to talk about the similarities between baseball, dance, and playing an instrument; the importance of isolating, understanding, and reducing the required motions to their elegant essence.

Saw him and played with him a few months back. Amazing to hear the difference between his and my playing as I listen to a recorded duet. When he comes in, the ideas are searingly clear, the time playing is lucidly organized. When I play, you can hear tentativeness, occasional aimlessness. etc. You can almost hear me thinking/feeling, "Oh, I can't solo at that tempo," or whatever. With his playing, all you hear is his voice, pouring out of the bass.

Also cool to listen to his orchestral compositions. I hear him singing through a symphony orchestra, the same ideas I hear him play on the bass. It clearly ain't about the bass...

Not trying to degrade myself, but the contrast is about the clarity of his vs. my musical mind. His freedom and fluency is a direct result of the time he spends on internal musical work.

Now that I am a hobbyist player, the main thing I notice is the loss of concentration levels in which I used to live. I don't play as well because I am not spending hours, daily, in that internal room. Not because my arms/hands aren't as strong; because my Musical Mind is not as awake.

So, reading a book won't take me back to playing as if I was holding the bass all day/night, but at least it will remind me of where the real work lies....
Click to expand...
+1. Love this.


In regards to licks and ruts, and considering that I used to be a blues guitarist - that itself can doubly bad. Lick (motor skills) and shape (motor skills) based playing is how I went about it. Things run into a dead end quickly because you're not using your imagination. You're just noodling and playing "what's under the fingers". As Hal Galper said in a clinic I attended recently, it's all about control. Control, control, control. That is the biggest thing he learned in his entire career.

If you're playing based on muscle memory (like I also did on piano), there isn't much control. There is a large lack of being able to modulate those skills. I couldn't put Maple Leaf Rag and play it at a slow tempo while keeping it sounding smooth. I played it fast to bury my mistakes.

I may not be a pro, but I certainly learned the hard way how not to do things. That vid from Hal really changes my world. Thank Hal, not me. I'm just the courier.

EDIT: One more thing... along with the need for sleep, I think none of the books also cover rest - meaning allowing the muscles to rest, recover, and strengthen. Muscle recovery comes for free if you sleep enough. It's only logical that it's even more important for playing instruments like DB or drums, where lots of musclar movement is involved. I think this is also partly why I play better when I stop and come back to it the next day - my muscles have recovered and strengthened for the new motions I've learned. Ergo, it's possible that too much physical practice for someone could do harm. Certainly, singers can't practice for 6 hours a day - they'd destroy their voices pretty quickly.
 
#89
 
#91
The way that I look at it is that spaced repetetion allows you to spend the least amount of time on the least interesting parts of music. For example, there is a lot of talk about "muscle memory", a misnomer that describes a skill that has become automatic. Many people take the formula "more correct repetitions = better muscle memory" and run with it, but they don't take into account diminishing returns or opportunity costs.

If I am going to learn a passage to perform in a concert, I am going to take a cramming approach--blasting away as many reps as necessary. But if I want to master and maintain a continually growing body of skills, I need to take a different approach. I will be best off if I only do a few perfect repetitions, and then wait until the skill is just about to decay. Instead of continuing to practice a skill with repetitions of diminishing benefit, I can learn a new skill, or review a different skill, with repetitions of greater benefit. Also, the need to struggle a little after a waiting period makes the new memory much stronger. That is why the spacing of practice sessions gets farther and farther apart.

The article about the guy who invented Super-Memo is a little off putting--especially to musicians--because the guy is such a data head, and he just seems irritating.

I included the article about learning a second language to show how SR can be used more holistically, combined with real world use, and because music is a type of language.

I included the article about computer programming to show how SR can be used to build a skill base in the context of real projects, which for musicians would be tunes.

Simply put, SR allows you to practice skills you want to maintain on the most efficient schedule, but skill maintenance is only one aspect of becoming a musician.
 
#92
Well, I didn't find the article "off-putting" per se. In fact, it inspired me to think about how I could possible use the concepts in my practice.

I've come up with ideas about how to setup up Anki (or something similar) with little snippets that I need to practice. But in the end I came to the conclusion that the nature of music makes it so that the "cost" of maintaining the (Anki) "database" would outweigh the benefits.

You would also be forced to use a computer-aided solution because otherwise you don't know/feel the right point in time to practice something again.

All in all, a very effortful and anorganic process, in my opinion.

And as soon as you "generalize" the ideas and use the basic concepts (ie. practicing little snippets perfectly with little repetitions) you arrive at something that has been part of "classical practice repertoire" for decades if not centuries.

In fact, the articles really only retrospectively explain why certain classic practice methods are so effective. SuperMemo has just taken these concepts to a computer-aided extreme. :)
 
#93
You hit the nail on the head in terms of the pros and cons of using an SR system. The main question is whether the overhead of the system outweighs the benefits. I have been using Anki for SR for a while, and I think if used optimally, the overhead is minimized to the point where it becomes very cost effective. I also think that sometimes people don't realized how much overhead and waste there is in their intuitive, less structured systems. Any group of items that is practiced on a set schedule is probably wasteful, as all of the items are not usually benefiting much from the practice.

Another interesting point you bring up is whether "progressive studies" nullify the benefits of SR. If the last half of Smandl includes all of the skills and knowledge from the first half integrated into new material, you don't need to keep practicing the items in the first half.

First, I think that over a life time of learning, you will have gaps unless you have a way to track and maintain skills that may need review. Second, SR allows for old items that cover skills you are now addressing in newer more difficult item to "graduate" out of practice mode and into a rare test (Hi! Do you still remember me?). Grading an item as "Easy" again and again quickly moves its review schedule into years, and you can always delete or suspend it if you chose.

But it is really important to keep it simple with SR. Programs like Anki have a lot of bells and whistles that I don't use. If I was using it to work through Smandl, I would create one deck for Smandl. Then I would divide each page into numbered overlapping chunks. Chunks are usually phrases, and you always want to play a chunk beginning with the end of the previous chunk (overlap). A short exercise might be one chunk. A long exercise might be 8 chunks. My cards would simply list a page number and a chunk number. Anki keeps the schedule and gives me the coordinates to quickly find each item for practice.

It might sound like a lot of overhead when described, but when you get the hang of it, it is about the same as maintaining a practice journal.

Here's another good article: Invalid Link Removed
 
#95
Back to the OP, I've been reading "The Talent Code." Nicely written, thought provoking, and helpful.

In response to your original thread-starting post, my experience is that it is already helping me be more productive when I practice.

Thanks, Chris.
 
#96
Anonymatt said:
You could use SuperMemo for not letting tunes get away from you.
Click to expand...

Yes. That would be a perfect use. But most people prefer Anki to SuperMemo for its superior interface.

To get the best results, you would want to break the tunes down in sections. For jazz standards you might have one item for the A section, one for the B, and one for the C. This is a good example of how it creates efficiency, because we generally remember the A part pretty well, the B and C not so much.

This actually relates directly to the OP. If you go to this link

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

there is a demonstration of how struggling with information makes stronger memories. You get the same effect when you wait until a memory is starting to fade before reviewing it. The person who plays a pattern every day for a week is not creating as strong a memory as the person who plays it with spacing of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 days. That is to say, if you test them both a year later, the person with the increasing intervals usually does better.
 
#97
External programs are too cumbersome. Here's what I've been doing:
I take a list of tunes I know that I want memorized - or stuff I've worked on in the past. Put them all in a single playlist on my iPhone. When I do tune review now, I just hit shuffle. Whatever pops up is the tune you work on. If you're strong at it, skip to the next tune. After a few days, I'll start hitting tunes I've good with, so I'll just manually search through the list for something that hasn't been touched on in a while.

One suggestion I got secondhand from a teacher at Jazzcamp using the iPhone shuffle to increase the difficulty:

When the iphone shuffles to the next tune, randomly seek into the middle of the tune and start playing with the recording at that point. Just literally throw yourself into the middle of the changes and see if you can dig your way out to find the form. It's a good test if you know your changes well, if you can hear where the recording is in the form, and if you can transpose if the recording is in a different key.

Fast, simple, challenging, very little overhead and more importantly, you can practice it anywhere so long as you have your phone/ipod with you. It's a challenge you can test yourself even without the bass in your hands. I don't see why you couldn't do it with any style of music.


Also: You can take any jazz head (for me it's Bird tunes) and turn them into etudes. I run through just about all the Bird head I know almost once a day as part of my warmup routine. I dont' have to play them fast, but all those great melody limber you up really quick. Play the head once and move on to the next head. Takes about 5-7 minutes to run through the 5 or 6 heads I know. Since I do it about once every other day, I automatically get SR.
 
#98
I did the shuffle thing too. It is fun, because there is a casino effect. If a song comes up that is not your favorite, there is always the possibility that the next one will be a winner. So it compels you to keep going.

However, having tried both shuffle and SR, I think you are over estimating the cumbersomeness of SR programs, and underestimating the inefficiency of a random schedule.

An iPod is a small computer running a program. It is just a program that you are already familiar with. You can put Anki on your mobile device and attach sound clips to each item, and use it like you are using shuffle now, but instead targeting what will most benefit from more practice. It would take a little more initial set up, but it is cost effective. For an extra two minutes to set up the tune as an SR item, you gain the advantage of that item coming up only when it is an optimal time for review--forever. The more items you put in, the more the benefits of SR compound.

Honestly, it's not as simple as an iPod, but it is not very hard.

This would not give you the targeting of sections, but it would be better than random.
 
#99
That's interesting, technology can be of help I guess. For some though, it might just be another set stumbling blocks to navigate before complete integration of body and mind in the creative process. Education should never rely on a machine, IMHO. Of course the technology is a powerful and useful tool, but in no way can it replace the integration of body movement with external information assimilation. You have to experience the information with your senses, not as a file to refer to when the need comes up. No time for checking your iphone, ipad, ect on the bandstand if you want to truly improvise from the heart.

I don't think Ray Brown, Bill Evans, Charlie Parker, Coltrane, or any other Jazz icon did it using machines. The mind is powerful.
 
#100
The problem is that it takes work to also set up the segments as sound clips. Great if you have time but really I have better things to do than break up things into segments just so I can practice them. I already have enough trouble listening to recordings of my own practices and performances much create audio clips. Time is not a luxury when you have a day gig and other responsibilities.

Furthermore, if you priority is to learn licks, vocabulary, or regurgitate certain phrases, then it makes sense. IME, that isn't a priority. What's important is knowing the melody inside out, to be able to play those melodies and changes in all keys and in all feels, and knowing how to improvise my way out of a mistake. Unless Anki can transpose phrases and/or feels, it really isn't that useful. And most importantly, to build a strong imagination to hear all these things, and all the sounds necessary to create a solo, arrangement, or composition. To have a vivid aural imagination, and be able to execute anything that the imagination comes up with.

It's not neccessarily about perfection in execution. It'd make more sense if I played classical music and wanted to make sure I nail all the passages that I sucked at.

So I'm skeptical about trying to use such a device, at least when applied to jazz concepts and subjects. Exercise setup has to be quick and practical. Not to mention that I come up with new exercises and things to work out on the bass just as creatively as you can compose a new tune. It also has to adapt to that.

For instance, it would probably be faster and easier to simply write out whatever piece or concept I needed to practice on a piece of paper, toss it in a bag with a bunch of other items, and pick out of the hat what I was going to work on. I can divide up the pieces into concentrated hats and focus just on a couple small things. Sounds like a great idea to me - I think I'll try it! Or as TTC describes it, I can print out a lead sheet, cut it up into strips and toss it into the hat with a bunch of other things. Fast, quick, simple - and it can be very very complex if I wanted it to be.

Sometimes, technology is overrated.
 

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