Double Bass Yep, It's a Practice Routine Thread

[jasonrp]

I have used the search and there are tons of threads on other players routines but my problem is time management. The DB is a relativly new thing for me so I have a bunch of stuff to learn on top of learning songs and I'm just trying to find the most economical way to cram it all in. I've played bass for years but it's always been by the skin of my teeth and dumb luck. When I got an Upright, the first book I got had no tab so I had to learn to read sheet music. Then, to keep time with the music, I got a metronome. The book had an example that was in C# Major, which confused the hell out of me, so I started teaching myself about theory. The sheet book is on rockabilly style so I'm working on my slaps too. What ended up happening was that I stopped playing the songs I knew and just worked on the music, metronome, theory, and slaps, for a few months Great BUT, I lost all the stamina/technique I had to play some of the songs. Out of an 8 day rotation, I can practice 4 days in a row for about 2 to 3 hrs

I guess the quick version would be:

If you had 4 days a week to practice 2 to 3 hrs a day how would you cram all this in?

Sight Reading
Metronome excercises
Music theory applied(Circle of fifths, scales, chords, inversions) Bookwork can be done seperately
Slap and general fingerboard flogging
Songs I allready know (about 20 on DB)

For the most part, I've kept up but I'm not able to learn much of anything new by the time I feel I've worked on that stuff enough to feel like I've actually helped myself. I've thought about emailing a few of the instructors here but I figure this way they can choose to reply if they want.

 

[shwashwa]

set the timer on your phone for 10 minutes and each time it expires move to the next thing on your list. when you get to the end go back to the top and cycle through. you'll hit everything on your list and feel pretty productive. sometimes when i stay on one thing too long i feel stale. this keeps it fresh and you will still probably end up spending large amounts of time on each topic but cycling through does not stretch your attention span too much and keeps you productive and moving forward. try it, it works...

 

[Jay Corwin]

There are certain exercises that are perfect to set a timer for, and some that need to be done "until you are doing it correctly" so to speak. It sounds like you have plenty of time to get good practice in each week.

Metronome exercises and slap exercises - set the timer for. There are certain skills & drills type of routines that I do for my right hand that are more like athletic workouts than music, and are best done with timed bursts and rests.

Sight reading depends on the exercise. If you are working from a book, then you'll always be practicing this for the most part. A teacher would have a better idea on how to handle this.

Circle of Fifth, scales, chords, etc. are things that I would say practice until you are doing them correctly. That is, start slow, and over time increase the metronome on these exercises. If you practice scales sloppily for ten minutes then call it day, then you aren't learning anything. You'll get better by hearing your mistakes, and then correcting them.

Songs...this could be a whole nother thread depending on the complexity. My method is to dissect them, and work on them in parts. I also feel that this an area where working on a part until you have it is more beneficial. Depending on the complexity, and your skill level - this could mean you figure out just one bar, one verse, one chorus, etc. The point is that you're that you completing something, even if it's a small part. This way you can leave a practice knowing that progress is made.

I would also focus more on intonation then slap as a beginner, but that's just my opinion.

 

[shwashwa]

There are certain exercises that are perfect to set a timer for, and some that need to be done "until you are doing it correctly" so to speak. It sounds like you have plenty of time to get good practice in each week.

Metronome exercises and slap exercises - set the timer for. There are certain skills & drills type of routines that I do for my right hand that are more like athletic workouts than music, and are best done with timed bursts and rests.

Sight reading depends on the exercise. If you are working from a book, then you'll always be practicing this for the most part. A teacher would have a better idea on how to handle this.

Circle of Fifth, scales, chords, etc. are things that I would say practice until you are doing them correctly. That is, start slow, and over time increase the metronome on these exercises. If you practice scales sloppily for ten minutes then call it day, then you aren't learning anything. You'll get better by hearing your mistakes, and then correcting them.

Songs...this could be a whole nother thread depending on the complexity. My method is to dissect them, and work on them in parts. I also feel that this an area where working on a part until you have it is more beneficial. Depending on the complexity, and your skill level - this could mean you figure out just one bar, one verse, one chorus, etc. The point is that you're that you completing something, even if it's a small part. This way you can leave a practice knowing that progress is made.

I would also focus more on intonation then slap as a beginner, but that's just my opinion.

just fyi, no one said to practice anything sloppily for 10 minutes then call it a day, please dont put words into my mouth. practice it perfectly with intense focus at a tempo you can handle for 10 minutes, then go to the next thing, and then keep cycling. if you have a few hours you've practiced each thing for 20-30 minutes depending on the size of your list. the idea of the 10 minutes is that you take small bites and perfect small sections then move on. your brain perceives this as easier than tackling a huge mountain of work that can take years to perfect. some days you can have 5 things on your list, some days only 2 or 3, depending on how deep you want to get into each thing. the less items on the list the more depth into each item. by forcing yourself to stop and move to something else for a short period then come back to it again a very short time later will yield very fast results that you probably can not fully conceptualize unless you've tried this before.
its a concept i learned from jim stinnett. this guy talks about it here too:
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it an interesting concept. try it or dont try it, makes no difference to me...

 

[jasonrp]

I think he was just clarifying what you said and making sure I understood not to cram but focus. That's how I took it anyways.

I big problem is I'm scatterbrained I guess you could say. I just suck at using my practice time to the full benefit. I should have explained better that I do work on intonation while I'm playing most anything that isn't along with a track. For example, if I'm reading the sheet music to Rock Around The Clock, and I screw up, I'll start over. If I'm playing with the song over my stereo, I keep going even if I screw up because I want to be able to keep going if I'm in a live situation.

I appreciate the pointers guys, I never bothered to learn very much other than songs for years so "not enough time" has never been a problem until now.

 

[Jay Corwin]

just fyi, no one said to practice anything sloppily for 10 minutes then call it a day, please dont put words into my mouth. practice it perfectly with inten......................

My comments were not directed towards you. If they were, I would have used the reply function readily available to make ones point in addressing another users comments.

 

[Huy Nguyen]

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[jasonrp]

Thanks for the link, hdiddy. There's quite a few articles on that site I'm gonna check out. I may have misunderstood what you were trying to tell me with the link but I don't feel like I'm locked into theory or constrained by it. It's more like I feel that I need to learn to speak before I sing...Learn the rules before I try to break them.. that sort of thing.

As for the practice, I think I'll break it up into:
15 mins- metronome -intonation
15 mins- scales up/down two octave-intonation
30 mins- site reading using metronome - intonation (that time flexes depending on how I'm doing that day)
30 mins give or take a few- Songs I know along with a track -no intonation: Meaning if I screw up, I keep going (slap practice is included since quite a few have different techniques in them)
As long as I need- Working on new songs if I want. I also break songs into parts so intonation screw ups are considered messing up the song. If I'm not learning a tune, this is where I work on applications of triads/chords/walking/ ect
After that if I'm happy with what I've done : Noodling time- Slaps as needed (triples, heel drags, 16ths, neck knock, booty smack 'em yack 'em, spinning the bass, humping the bass, standing on it, pointing at the crowd between notes, ect.

If I'm not happy after the main practice, I start the order again working on whatever I'm not happy with but throwing out the timer for the second time around

 

[Huy Nguyen]

LOL. I posted the link in the wrong thread but it's still pertinent as your routine misses one major element to me: practicing creative mistake making. Which means that you suspend the idea of playing things "wrong" and learn how to work with accidents and turn them into new oppurtunities. I discovered this not too long ago and to me it's probably the most important skill to have.

Also, I would not take on more than 3 subjects in one day. So if that means that after your initial warmup, you get to play just a few subjects and limit all your time to those 3 things (or even less) for 4 hours. Working on too many subjects in one day has never ever worked for me. Pick the subjects you suck at most and focus on those. Over time you'll get through all of them. This is the fastest way to progress IME. Working on 10 things in one day is super inefficient.