Give me a practice regimen!

[lanark]

When practising I'm unfocused. I tend to noodle and play along to the songs I'm learning for the band and that's about it. While it's helping me play the pieces I play, I don't think that it's necessarily making me a better bass player. HOw would you structure an hour's bass practice? Scales? Improvisation? Exercises? How would / do you split the time?

[El Bajo]

Hi Ianark.

Depends. its hard to say unless we know what level you are at. how long have you been playing? Is it an originals band? When the guitarist talks theory do you look at him with a blank expression? If a note is called out do you know where it is?

Personally I don't practice scales that often anymore becasue I think knowing chord forms/tones and interval sounds are more important. With scales I tend to switch of and follow the pattern without taking in what I'm actually doing.

Best thing that I did to help my musical knowledge was try and read music. If you can get hold of some basic sheet music of the net give it a go. Its slow and frustrating but after a while you get the hang of it.

I wouldn't bother to much with exercises unless you really do have some weaknesses in your technique, just use the band songs for warm ups.

Also, if you're fed up with the style you're playing, have a go at something else such as Funk. I'm playing around with Jamaraq and early Incubus Love it.

[zero9]

Spend your hour with a good teacher...

[paul_5]

If it's an hour a night then why not work out a rota something like:

Monday - scales / modes / theory

Tuesday - Technique (slap etc...) or transcription

Wednesday - Reading

Thursday - Torchwood

Friday - Solo piece (there's loads of these kicking around, try the 'technique section')

Also don't feel obliged to do the full hour. You're better doing a quality 30 minutes than forcing yourself to do an hour with sloppy technique / timekeeping.

Ideally there should be a metronome at most of these sessions (apart from maybe Torchwood - that constant clicking can be a bit off-putting)

[lanark]

[quote name='El Bajo' post='1304892' date='Jul 15 2011, 05:09 PM']Hi Ianark.

Depends. its hard to say unless we know what level you are at. how long have you been playing? Is it an originals band? When the guitarist talks theory do you look at him with a blank expression? If a note is called out do you know where it is?

Personally I don't practice scales that often anymore becasue I think knowing chord forms/tones and interval sounds are more important. With scales I tend to switch of and follow the pattern without taking in what I'm actually doing.

Best thing that I did to help my musical knowledge was try and read music. If you can get hold of some basic sheet music of the net give it a go. Its slow and frustrating but after a while you get the hang of it.

I wouldn't bother to much with exercises unless you really do have some weaknesses in your technique, just use the band songs for warm ups.

Also, if you're fed up with the style you're playing, have a go at something else such as Funk. I'm playing around with Jamaraq and early Incubus Love it.[/quote]

I didn't realise anyone had replied to this as I'd been using the "Search for new posts" function and hadn't seen this thread return.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. Background is that I've been playing bass for almost two years after being asked to join a salsa band. I'd never picked up a bass guitar before that. I had played an acoustic guitar and was self-taught on that, but wasn't anything more than competent.

As far as music theory goes, I learnt piano when I was a child / teenager, so have (had) a modicum of music knowledge. I can find my way round a score, but can't connect the notes to the fretboard quickly. When playing live I find that I tend to stick to what's written too much, which means I get stuck if I lose my place, and I'd love to get freer and more able to improvise during the long "mambo" sections in the salsa tunes where the horns and percussion are letting rip.

Good thing about my band is that I pertty much hold the lower register as my own - no bass drum - so there's only me and a trombone and the left-hand of the piano down in the bass clef.