Practice schedules

[JamesBass]

What sort of things do you practice and how often do you do them?


Would be interesting to see what some of the pros out there do!

[Roger2611]

I practice the set for the next gig every week without fail, I then like to pick out a song I have never played before and just see what it does...keeps the interest up from the monotony of practicing a set I already know off by heart....still as they say "practice makes perfect"

[Damonjames]

My routine has gone out the window of late. I aim to do about 15-20 fret board familiarising ( I'm still learning where the notes are) so run through all the E's then work my way through the circle of fifth ( still learning that too) until I've covered the while board.
Then move onto scales and spend 30-45 mins doing scales. I will spend some time through the week on all of the ones I know, but will spend the majority trying to focus on just one scale.
Then move on to improv for 30-40 mins. ill get a tune or backing track and just jam, usually running around in whatever scale I am focusing on at the time.
Any spare time after that ill run through the current set list for practice. I should state that if we add songs to the list, they usually get priority in my practice time. As I said, my routine has gone out the window of late, but usin this format I was getting some good results.

[JapanAxe]

[list=1]
[*]Picking out the awkward ones from next gig's set list;
[*]Learning new stuff.
[/list]
EDIT: I'm not a pro btw, just semi-pro.

Edited July 4, 2013 by JapanAxe

[JamesBass]

I'm starting a new practice schedule from Monday, the old one wasn't strict enough and lacked a challenge. My new schedule has me playing for a minimum of 3 hours a day with 1 hour on scales, arpeggios and general theory, 1 hour working on timing and playing things in different signatures and tempos, then half hour song practice/learning and half hour technique.

Maybe my schedule shows just how dedicated I am to trying to make a living from playing bass, maybe it just shows how desperately unemployed I am...

[thisnameistaken]

Currently I do all of my practise on double bass, and I spend pretty much all of it improvising in a handful of keys and deliberately reaching for stuff that I'm not sure will work. I've found in the past that I am too content to stick to what I know, and I don't learn anything doing that, so now I go for stuff I don't know and I make some pretty horrible noises sometimes but I learn what I was going for and what I should've done. And sometimes I surprise myself by making a sound I didn't imagine but I really like, so then I figure out what it was so I can do it again.

Incidentally when I go back to bass guitar and have frets to give me hints about what I'm doing, all the stuff I picked up on the upright can be applied with much less thinking and concentration on intonation and so on, so I've found it gives me much more facility on the bass guitar if I only practise on the upright. I only really play with my fingers on both instruments so I'm not missing out on 'technique' practice on the guitar or anything.

Edited July 4, 2013 by thisnameistaken

[Lozz196]

Unless I have a new song to master, my current practice schedule is running through a few patterns I`ve developed which help me speed up and get the fingers flexible, and then just playing whatever songs I want, be they covers or our own material. I recently won a scales book, so have set myself the task of actually learning a few more than I know at present.

[lojo]

I generally only practice songs I need to do for band, and if I feel the urge I learn songs or albums that I feel like.

Obviously my theory is lacking somewhat

[Graham]

At the moment I'm either practicing covers for upcoming dep gigs or I'm writing for my prog project, I'm looking forward to being a little less busy and can just learn some songs for my own enjoyment or work on some theory.

That said, I've managed to squeeze a couple of Megadeth songs into my practice time this week - Tornado Of Souls and Rust In Peace...Polaris, pretty much nailed Tornado Of Souls, but haven't quite got all the riffs right on Polaris; Megadeth tracks are really good for your speed and dexterity.

[JTUK]

My main concern is feeling that I am loose enough for the gig and am warmed up.
This will take a weeks worth of practice/goofing around so I can do everything I want
easily. I like adapt my parts on the fly so can't do this if I haven't played for a while.
I'd hate the gig for that reason alone.

As to what I run through... just shapes and things for co-ordination, really and
an hour a day min. Not scared or precious about have 0ne day off in 7... but not close to the gig.
If time is really tight then 20-30 mins is enough to keep me ticking over.
I agree this might not be the most structured or best for long term goals but it keeps me
interested enough.

[Myke]

I warm up.. using scales and exercises. Then I jam along with backing tracks in different keys. Then I'll put a tune on in iReal B and then improvise over the changes. Maybe sometimes I'll try and compose something for the Composition Competition. Haven't done so yet.

I want to start getting into learning songs by ear more. Looking in depth at a set of chord changes and then thinking which scales and stuff would work over them instead of the simple.. G7 chord.. Oh I can play Cmaj aswell as the dominant scale.

Also studying a transcription and working out what notes/scales/etc. they are using in it.

But at the moment I have no gigs so that's why I'm doing this.

And in terms of length. I play until I stop. Could be 30mins could be 2-3 hours.

[BigRedX]

I don't think I've ever practiced for the sake of practicing since I finally learnt how to move seamlessly from one chord to another on the guitar some 40 years ago. I've certainly never played a scale in my life!

I spend most of my playing time outside of gigs and band rehearsals working on ideas that will get turned into new songs for the band. Sometimes I'll come up with something that my hands can't quite do yet, and in that case I'll work on it until I can play it consistently and reliably.