Practicing Archives - Page 17

Q: What is considered a “good” practice session?? Say, if I take an hour to practice, what should I be working on… doing warm-ups, running through set lists of songs I know, learning new material, listening and trying to imitate players I like, etc. Just trying to be as productive as possible with my time. A: In my opinion, ANY...

Q: So as I walked around the house, my wife asked me, “What are you doing, space cadet?” I guess I had a fairly blank look on my face and was walking around the house in circles. I replied, “Playing Bass… in my head.” She then said, “huh… you should write about that for the No Treble guys!” And I...

Q: I seem to see two camps out there. “Learn/understand everything in all 12 keys” and “the symmetry of the neck can not be denied, so embrace the patterns and do not worry about learning it in all 12 keys”. Although I am not against a strong theory base or patterns, is there a middle road or another way of...

There are many ways to get better at the changes on a particular tune, but this approach works really well. First, play just quarter notes, and play all the arpeggios to get a “mental map” of all the chord tones in the progression (try to do it with a metronome): Then, still in quarter notes, start inverting the chords to...

Today’s lesson is a preview from Jon Burr’s forthcoming “Physical and Mental Programming for the Improvising Bassist”… In order to gain an understanding of how to practice effectively and efficiently, it is useful to have some understanding of the structure of the brain, mind and nervous system. It is possible to “practice” and not get better-or, even, to get worse,...

Q: How many hours a day do you practice? Do you have any practice tips? A: Admittedly, I don’t practice as much as I’d like these days. I’m married, with dogs that need walking and a mortgage and am very busy playing bass for many different people (which requires a lot of shedding of it’s own kind. Transcribing or memorizing...

David Ellefson, bassist for F5, continues with his Rock Shop series on YouTube with “The Discipline of Practice”. Ellefson explains the many benefits to disciplined practice and ways to make the process enjoyable as well as productive.