Prosebass Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 (edited) A few threads on reading, theory and practice got me thinking about this and because I am more interested in designing and building at the moment I realised that some weeks I would only pick a bass up to either set it up or test a new design so less than an hour or two actual playing for pleasure !!!! Whats your average and do you feel guilty if you don't get so many hours a week in ? Does playing more make you a better / more accomplished player or have you hit a brick wall ? Whats your percentage of live / practice playing ? I need to play more I was a more accomplished bassist when I was 20 Edited January 23, 2009 by Prosebass Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eight Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 Just starting out so I really should be doing more than I am. Yeah I feel guilty. But I start lesssons soon so that'll up the ante and force me to play more - I always hated playing in front of a teacher when you can't do something properly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tombboy Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 At the moment.... none! Is that enough? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnylager Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 [quote name='Prosebass' post='389434' date='Jan 23 2009, 11:24 AM']Whats your average and do you feel guilty if you don't get so many hours a week in ? [b]2-3 hours, no - no more time![/b] Does playing more make you a better / more accomplished player or have you hit a brick wall ? [b]Yes, no[/b] Whats your percentage of live / practice playing ? [b]Practice > live right now[/b] I need to play more I was a more accomplished bassist when I was 20 [/quote] I was far better 20 years ago when I was playing 10-20 hours / week with a bunch of different muso's too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merton Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 (edited) Somewhere between none and not enough sadly, life is just getting in my way But I doodle on my acoustic bass a fair bit, not serious practice though. EDIT (read the full first post Mert!!) I play live a lot more than practicing... Edited January 23, 2009 by Merton Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peted Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 [quote name='Prosebass' post='389434' date='Jan 23 2009, 11:24 AM']Whats your average and do you feel guilty if you don't get so many hours a week in ?[/quote] I currently only get an hour a night at most during the week as I have to fit it in after I've put the littl'un to bed. I try to make it as structured and constructive as possible, but I'm usually too tired to think straight at that time [quote name='Prosebass' post='389434' date='Jan 23 2009, 11:24 AM']Does playing more make you a better / more accomplished player or have you hit a brick wall ?[/quote] My practice sessions are feeling very repetitive at the moment and I feel like I go over the same old scales and few techniques every time. Though I'm sure that playing [i]anything[/i] more will make me a better player in the long run. [quote name='Prosebass' post='389434' date='Jan 23 2009, 11:24 AM']Whats your percentage of live / practice playing ?[/quote] At the moment I'm 100% practice and 0% live as my band aren't gigging yet (I've only had one rehearsal with them last year, and that was my audition). I'm hoping that this will change drastically over the next few months Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Machines Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 Around none for me. Any time I get is a quick noodle really.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexclaber Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 Anything between 0 (though that's rare) and 20+ hours. Just depends on what I'm writing, rehearsing, recording, gigging. I don't do much 'practising' per se but my technique's still much better than when I was a student with little else to do but play bass (and drink...) Bass guitar isn't exactly an athletic endeavour like playing the drums or double bass (or any virtuoso shenanigans on strings/woodwind/brass/etc) - so much of what is good technique is in the mind rather than the hands. Alex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 It more complicated than that because the response doesn't include time spent composing! But, in the spirit of the debate, I do around 2 gigs a week and the rest of the free time is spent in music related activity that is not playing.. Its a whole lot less than the 38 hrs pw day job tho' (48 if you include travel time - at least I can listen to music then!!). I can't say I was better when I was young. I could have had more technique but I didn't have the knowledge or taste to use it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ziggenpuss Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 I play as much as I can but some days not at all due to shift work. I don't structure anything and usually play in shorts bursts, 20 minutes or so, then go and do something else and come back to it later. I'm learning some Disco/Funk stuff at the moment and working on my slap & pop, Mr MarloweDk is proving very helpful with that, so I just learn what I feel like learning at that moment rather than forcing myself to do anything. I'm not in a band at the moment so I don't have the pressure of deadlines to meet when learning stuff. I reckon I play a lot better than I did when I was younger purely because of the learning resources that are available now via the internet, mainly the good folk on here sharing techniques and ideas and also Youtube. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarPig Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 about an hour a week maybe. Im either at work or its an inappropriate time to play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galilee Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 It fluctuates depending on my level of interest/enthusiasm, but never more than 1 hour per night because other stuff takes priority. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WILD FROG SHOT Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 I play 4-6 hours a week with my band at rehearsal/gigs. I would say that like Galilee my practise fluctuates with interest. I'd say probably about 1-2 hours a night atm. With all the talk of reading music, I think I may incorporate some development on that too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwi Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 At the moment, none, I need to stay on top of other priorities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wateroftyne Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 A couple of hours a week noodling along with tunes (iPod on shuffle, usually). Maybe more if I have a lot of new stuff to learn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neepheid Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 It's just radically changed as I think I've taken care of one of my New Year resolutions and joined a band. Before it was maybe a couple of hours a week - now it's cranked up to about 10 (learning songs before first practice), and might be more in the run up to my first gig with them at the end of February. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MoJo Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 When I'm not gigging or learning new material, I usually have a two hour rehearsal session with one of my bands each week and I noodle on the bass for 20-30 minutes or so each day Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisnameistaken Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 It depends what you call "practice". I don't often (almost never!) sit down with a bass and aim for a particular improvement by the time I put it down. I used to do that when I was younger but not any more. I'm not that competitive now. These days when I pick up a bass it's for the fun of playing with music, or to work on tunes for my band. Both of which are the same thing, really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Funk Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 (edited) Err... 0. I haven't practised the bass since 1999. I really want to though - just can't quite get any real structure in my life at the moment. I'll noodle everytime I walk past the bass though. Edited January 23, 2009 by The Funk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prosebass Posted January 23, 2009 Author Share Posted January 23, 2009 I tend to practice late at night into the early hours if at all ( not a morning person) What I worry about is that it is always accompanied with a nice bottle of Merlot or the single malt so probably not the best of states to practice in and I end up noodling , come up with half a dozen new riffs but have forgot them all by the next day ! I am not a structured person and tend to do everything spontaneously including my approach to bass playing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcgraham Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 I dedicate anywhere from 1-4 hours a day practicing, typically around 2-3. I get up early to make sure I get about 1-1.5 hours in the morning and an hour or so in the evening, more if I couldn't manage the morning one for whatever reason. Basically I enjoy playing, improving, and making music in my progress, and so I make sure to make time for that in my day. Some parts are very scientific, controlled and measured such as technique practice, but I always leave about the same amount of time for application of what I've been practicing, to 'flex' my artistic muscle using what I've been practicing. Just to share a moment of joy in such practice, I spent about 1-2 hours yesterday working on comping the chords to Giant Steps using different rhythms and time signatures. It's irrelevant how simple or complex it is that I'm doing, I simply want to enjoy what I play, and make things as accessible as possible via practice. Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutToPlayJazz Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 Depends on how good you want to get. As an example, coming up to my finals I was practicing up to 12 hours a day all those years ago. When I was principal double bass in the Britten Pears Orchestra we would be playing at least 10 hours per day in the run up to concerts. Now I'm either teaching or playing all the time, it's really nice to find the odd hour to do some playing - But generally life is so frenetic that I rarely get that. Just have to be on the ball when I'm on the payroll for playing! Rich. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kdphysio Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 I was just going to write 'NOT ENOUGH', but having seen the poll, it seems as i'm not alone!! :ph34r: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedontcarebear Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 I tend to only play at band practice itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6stringbassist Posted January 23, 2009 Share Posted January 23, 2009 It averages about 20 hours on my own and about 10 hours with the different bands that I play for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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