What are you struggling with?

At the moment I'm struggling with the cold, my fingers just don't want to move.

Forget metronomic time and just play by feel, metronomes are great for some exercises but you will never play in metronomic time with a band, there's always ebb and flow in the groove. Luckily with all the available technology it's easy to play along with tunes and develop your playing with different feels.

 

I've been committing heresy lately (in other words, playing the guitar). I'm working on bending in tune. I never bend on bass so it's proving to be a bit of a challenge.

 

Struggling with severe Psoriatic Arthritis.

What I do about it:

1) Try to practice every day.
2) Bought a Fender Jaco Fretless because the action can be set lower.
3) Every 6 weeks I get infusion therapy consisting of heavy duty immunosuppressants. The treatments are intended to lessen the pain and stiffness one experiences with arthritis. Thank goodness that they aren’t expensive. Each treatment runs about $22,500.

 

I'm struggling with a World gone crazy . . . . . . playing I can handle, but it's all such a down, it's hard to talk myself into even unzipping it out of the bag.

 

That is certainly a good thought and I appreciate your ideas. However, for me, lower action seems to help more than a shorter scale. My wife bought me a V64 Hofner 500/1 - a German made one. I love it, but the best luthier in the world couldn’t set the action as low as a fretless.

 

Put your bass on a stand next to your PC. Get a headphone amp and run your favorite Youtube tunes and play along after wifey kids or any other distractions are in bed. This is a great one if you can find it...

 

Galloping with my right hand. It’s always my right hand.

The only fix is to practice more dammit.

 

Allowing time to practice! With the pandemic I have been around the house a lot more and I have been doing things to it that had been neglected for some times... Ah well, things will come back to normal and the practice routines will be kicking back for sure...

 

Nerve pain in my back, I cant stand for more then 15 minutes with my 13 pound beast of a bass on my shoulder.

 

Keep up the struggle. Learning to play solid is a core skill in all genres of music. And there are apps to tell how well your band can hold a tempo.

 

I'm working on my reading skills, in treble and bass clef. After spending time learning how to read simple melodies and jazz standards (ie. Autumn Leaves) in treble clef, when I go to a bass lesson in bass clef (variations on ii-V-I for examaple) , my brain can't adjust.

 

I don’t want to sound like a jerk, or a know-it-all, because I’m not some super bass player.
But, if you’re not playing ‘in the pocket’ , then you’re not really playing bass.
That’s all bass playing is really, providing a rhythmic ‘pocket’ for the band.
You can know all the theory, know all the chords, all the scales you want.
But if you can’t translate that over to your bass, then you’re not playing bass, you’re playing
‘on’ a bass. I hear from players all the time ‘we were in the pocket’. You’re supposed to be!
The pocket isn’t a thing to attain, it’s the starting point. You have to have that ‘feel’ to
be a bassist (or drummer) to start with. Once you are ‘in’ the pocket, what do you do then?
A good player straight freaks the pocket, clowns the pocket. Just being there is nothing.
If you’re having a hard time with rhythm, try listening to more rhythmic music.
I don’t know what kind of music you like, but if you’re trying to get a better feel for rhythm
the ramones, Tom petty, elton john, or whatever cheesy pop or punk B.S. isn’t going
to get you there. My advice, start a personal relationship with James Brown’s music.
God sent James to us to funkify the ‘one’. Make it funky.

 

Trying to get faster with my fretting hand. It feels so stiff sometimes, I know it can be better.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, I'm going to try these out. I suppose my fingers aren't as young as they used to be and this cold weather is playing havoc with them.

 

Had the same problem switching back to bass clef. Just practice both and it won't be a problem.

 

Scales.