Went down to the crossroads

[Bunion]

So I went down to the crossroads. 
what a crock of sh!t I still play like crap. 
what have you done to improve your playing? 
SBL, private lessons, music college? 
 

[TheGreek]

Practice??? Play with other musicians???

 

 

 

 

Sorry, didn't mean to be flippant.

[Bunion]

Didn’t take as such, I do everything possible I’m just wondering what others do

[Bunion]

I do feel though at times I’ve had a feeling I’m on the edge of something, like it all makes sense and something is coming like a big reveal. 
Then the plateau again for a goodly while 

[Lozz196]

Over the last couple of years I’ve progressed more than in a lot of those prior, a few reasons:

 

I joined a band playing much more complex material than I’d ever played before

 

I decided to play with a lighter touch, so as to make this complex material at least a little easier to master

 

I rehearsed this material at home and with the band using a compressor which really helped as the sharpening & focusing of the notes made me concentrate much more

 

So option 1 can be traded for just choosing more difficult songs to have a go at, 2 & 3 I found really helped

[alyctes]

In my experience plateau is the way it works for me.  I stumble about for a while (several months), struggling with stuff which I know is too ambitious, get depressed and leave it for three or four days, and discover that while the stuff is still too ambitious, I can suddenly do something else vaguely related.  That's happened several times now.

[peteb]

1 hour ago, Bunion said:

I do feel though at times I’ve had a feeling I’m on the edge of something, like it all makes sense and something is coming like a big reveal. 
Then the plateau again for a goodly while 

 

When you are learning, you slog away for ages without anything happening and then it all clicks and you improve. Then you slog away again for ages trying to get to the next level (sorry to sound like SBL) - rinse and repeat. 

 

The best way to improve is to try and play with other musicians who are better than you. Practicing with a metronome helps as well. 

 

Edited January 15, 2022 by peteb

[Bunion]

5 minutes ago, peteb said:

The best way to improve is to try and play with other musicians who are better than you. Practicing with a metronome helps as well. 

Couldn’t agree more, I feel I learn more from playing with other people than sitting at home like a drone. 
 

 

17 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

So option 1 can be traded for just choosing more difficult songs to have a go at

They do say if your the smartest person in the room, your in the wrong room 

[peteb]

3 minutes ago, Bunion said:

Couldn’t agree more, I feel I learn more from playing with other people than sitting at home like a drone. 

 

Absolutely, but to be in the same room with anyone who's any good, you have to put in the hard hours to get your technique and knowledge up to a level where they will want to play with you. 

 

Edited January 15, 2022 by peteb

[Geek99]

I think this is quite a brave post

[Saul Panzer]

For me personally, I did join SBL and aggressive marketing aside, I've found it to be a really good resource.

I've gone back to some basics I glossed over when I first started bass...lots of metronome work to get consistent and alternating fingers so the sound is on par with the timing.

Trying to get my dynamics under control has been great, making it so I can emphasize specific notes or hit those ghost notes at will...combined with the metronome and something I think Carol Kaye said about how "you should be able to make the metronome sound like it's grooving", great stuff.

When I do hit a slump or feel like I'm at a plateau I take a few days away from the bass and listen to music, interviews and stuff, it gets inevitable that I start thinking about bass lines to go along with what I'm hearing...by the time I get my hands on a bass again I'm almost desperate to try out what I heard or make up something to go along with it. 

[Grimalkin]

No instrument required, practice anywhere:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_recognition

 

Instant interval recall. A perfect 5th? The first two notes of "Twinkle Twinkle..."

 

That quick.

[Grahambythesea]

When you got to the crossroads, did you remember to buy the talent. It only costs your soul. As the guy in O Brother Where Art Thou says, “ I wasn’t using it”. 🤔🤣

[BigRedX]

Play more. It doesn't have to "practice" as such. Just pick up your bass and play. 

[Doddy]

On the odd occasion that I've thought that my playing isn't going where it should, I just book a lesson with great player and go and get some new ideas.

 

There's always more work on.  Can you read? If not, there is plenty to work on there. If you can, there are tons of books (not just bass books) that you can open up and take ideas from. 

There are hundreds of scale and arpeggio exercises that you can do. Just a bit of focussed practice each day on these will make a huge difference to your playing.

[Grimalkin]

Isolate the things you wish to improve first, and expect to improve incrementally.

 

"Dream in a pragmatic way."

 

Aldous Huxley.

 

There is no point in defeating yourself before you've begun. Work on things that are achievable at this point in a concerted and concentrated way. 

 

No one hits the ground running, nothing comes for nothing. Practise the right thing, the things that will make a difference. Just wiggling the fingers won't get you anywhere

 

 

[Grimalkin]

[Delberthot]

It depends what you want to achieve.

 

My own personal opinion of what has worked for me is only having had a few structured lessons so I don't feel restricted to playing certain notes or shapes. Others may think that it's helped them but the lack of knowledge of scales etc has been the biggest help to me becoming the bass player I am today.

 

I have no idea what I am playing, I just play something and if it sounds good then that's great, if it doesn't then surely it's just jazz? 😁

 

The other thing that has worked for me and has been mentioned above is playing with people who are at least as good as you are as this challenges you. Plus if they're good then you can forget about what they're playing as they know exactly what they're doing and focus on what you want to play. I started at age 12 and played every minute I could to the annoyance of our neighbours and it took me until about the age of 17 before I thought I was good enough to go out and gig.

 

Since about 1995 I have been fortunate to play with an incredible keyboard player. If we are asked for a song then 99% of the time he will try it regardless of whether we've done it before. It does take time but after a while I gained the confidence to play it as loud as it should be rather than playing it quietly in case I made a mistake. Most people would rather that you tried and made a few mistakes than refuse.

 

Since I began playing in 1987 all I've ever done is play along to songs that I like and picked up stuff along the way.

 

I've also been fortunate to be given carte blanche to play whatever I wanted whether it be octave 16ths during 500 miles by the Proclaimers or slapping over part of Brown Eyed Girl. Some things work (the former) and some things don't (the latter)

 

I just want what I've always wanted and that's to have fun. Some people drink, take drugs or smoke but I do none of these things so playing in a band is my buzz, my high.

 

Anyway I realise that I've actually made this all about me 🤔 but if something isn't working for you then try something different or put the bass down and then go back to it later in the day or a couple of days later

[ricksterphil]

Busk songs you don't know with other musicians and try and play up the dusty end. I do this every week over https://jamulus.io/  and it's helped my playing.

[Bunion]

32 minutes ago, Delberthot said:

Anyway I realise that I've actually made this all about me 🤔

That was was the premise of the original post 🤣😂

14 hours ago, Bunion said:

what have you done to improve your playing

The crossroads bit was just the wish we’ve probably all had at some point in our journeys on the fretboard.

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Bunion

[Grimalkin]

Start with hand positions, finding the right position for what you are playing. If you see someone sliding up and down looking for notes most of the time, you know it's amateur night.

 

The idea is to achieve fluidity and have it under your fingers so you can concentrate on other aspects. That's where familiarising yourself with scales and harmony comes into its own.

[Guest]

1. Don’t noodle. It’s a waste of valuable learning time and helps reinforces old (bad?) habits. 

2. Always play music. It doesn’t what you’re learning, make it a piece of music. No-one listens to a performance where someone is practising, we listen to music. Make everything you play musical and every note meaningful

3. Learn new things - new styles, songs, ideas etc.

4. Concentrate on things you can’t play, break them down, slow them down and build it up piece by piece (also see point 1 - noodling is often playing things you already know).

5. Don’t kid yourself you understand  something or you’ve got it down when you haven’t. If you can’t play it purely from memory without stumbling you don’t know it well enough.

6. Good time fundamentally comes from within but can only be improved by playing with other (better) musicians.

7. Allow yourself to fail and to learn from failure by getting to the root cause for that failure. In fact don’t even call it failure - call it experimentation.

8. Whilst there are many approaches to technique, simple physics dictate that there are better and worse ways to fret and pluck notes. There’s load of info online - go with what feels comfortable for you and give you the sound you want - but aim for a sound where the bass is strong, clear and precise and makes the band sound great. I’ve seen some bass players on gigs who are sloppy, have poor time and make a band sound worse. It’s not hard to not be that bass player

 

 

[ricksterphil]

15 hours ago, Bunion said:

So I went down to the crossroads. 
 

tried to beg a ride.....

 

sorry!

[Barking Spiders]

I only have one approach. I've made a list of all my fave basslines. It's around 250. One by one i've taught myself how to play them just from listening and watching Talking Bass and other YT vids. They're mostly funk, disco and new wave/post punk. As I'm not a pro I've zero interest in playing music I don't like listening to so I couldn't care less about learning high speed double thumbing, double handed finger tapping. I've leave that to Charles Berthoud and co.

[leschirons]

Probably not relevant, but when I'm in the car, I'll pick a song that's just on the radio or whatever, doesn't even have to be something I like,  choose a key (any key)  and try and work the whole chord sequence or bass line out in my head.  You'd be surprised at what you can retain in the depths of your mind.