RockwoodB Posted February 16, 2004 Share Posted February 16, 2004 I practice a combination of piano and upright bass about three hours a day for five days a week, mainly bass. Basically I walk 8 blocks in the cold to school and have big breaks inbetween classes so instead of walking back home I just practice. Unfortunetely practice on the ole' electric has been a bit neglected as a result, but for right now upright is my main focus. Oh, and then there is the school orchestra and wind ensemble rehearsals which are about two hours every day for 5 days a week, then my rawk band's rehearsals twice a week for about three hours each. No wonder my non-music classes are suffering. "Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine." --Henry David Thoreau Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeorgeR Posted February 16, 2004 Share Posted February 16, 2004 If there are new songs to learn, they take precedence. I try to split my time between piano and bass. Piano needs more time because I'm still learning it. When I first started (20 years ago) I'd usually put in at least 5 hours a day, ever day, just to burn those ideas in. Scales, learning material and etc..... Over the last several years I haven't needed to maintain such a rigorous schedule - mainly I use practice is to sort out ideas, approaches, beats, to maintain callouses and constantly pay attention to technique refinement. So per week I'd say under 8 hours of bass practice, varied day by day. I actually find it's better to leave a gap of a day or so, then go back later on and see what needs fixing once my mind has had it's bit of a break - it's all too easy to lose one's focus on the bigger picture by concentrating too hard on a detail or few. Beware the lollipop of mediocrity; one lick and you suck forever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bass_god_offspring Posted February 16, 2004 Share Posted February 16, 2004 prolly about 2 hours a day, but it is not always every single day. -BGO 5 words you should live by... Music is its own reward --------------- My Band: www.Myspace.com/audreyisanarcissist Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abaguer Posted February 16, 2004 Share Posted February 16, 2004 Usually two hours a day, six days a week. If I have to teach or play that night I usually only get about an hour of practice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
... Posted February 16, 2004 Share Posted February 16, 2004 Not enough. Recently there have been times where I have gone 3-4 days without even picking up a bass. A lot of my practice time has also been spent just playing through stuff I already know how to play. That's not the way to get better and I've been meaning to work on fixing that. There's always tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BenLoy Posted February 16, 2004 Share Posted February 16, 2004 I pick up the bass and run scales through all 12 keys...open the real book and try to read through the changes of some tunes every now and then...but most of my practicing over the past year has pretty much been just learning material for the gig. Depending on how challenging the material is, sometime I get my butt kicked technique-wise, and sometimes it's simple memorization. There's no better asskicker than hard material, IMO. I'd rather spend all day learning hard tunes than sit around practicing the various ways I can turn modes upside down and inside out. I recently started seeing an opera singer, and I'm really impressed by how hard she works. She spends hours translating the material from its native language and working on the details of really nailing every inflection and sounding totally confident right out of the gate. She's inspired me to kick myself really hard in the behind lately... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R.S.M Posted February 16, 2004 Share Posted February 16, 2004 Im with scoot can't bring the bass to the day job.I don't call it practicing i call it playing. I play scales,i play new tunes im working on,i play old tunes . Practicing just sounds so boring. And its a few hours a day most days. Rock-n-roll junkie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Capasso Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 Originally posted by BenLoy: I recently started seeing an opera singer, and I'm really impressed by how hard she works. She spends hours translating the material from its native language and working on the details of really nailing every inflection and sounding totally confident right out of the gate. She's inspired me to kick myself really hard in the behind lately...Well, you might as well be practicing, since that's what she's doing Me? Not nearly as much as most of you. The internet is mostly a job-time exercise. Tom www.stoneflyrocks.com Acoustic Color Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars and keep your feet on the ground. - Theodore Roosevelt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daofktr Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 It all depends on what the voices under the laundry basket tell me to do... However, I'm always thinking through songs or licks or ideas in my head, working out fingerings. If I can do it in my mind, I can do it on my bass...usually. What really blows is when I know how it looks and sounds in my head, but when I apply hands to strings...pppfffftttt!!! It's really embarrassing when I bounce a reality check...so learn from my mistakes, chillun, so you don't have to learn from yours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BenLoy Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 One thing I should have mentioned At_Odds: When I just starting out I practiced like a madman. I used to sit down with my records as much as 6 hours a day and play until the blisters on my fingertips would burst and the blister water would run all over my bass. Sometimes there was blood. I loved it. I was hungry to learn everything I could about this instrument and every new song I learned made me want to learn another one. I used to play along with whole records. I learned the whole Pink Floyd catalog to start...every song, every record. I'd even try to find musical ways to play along with the weird electronic stuff like "On the Run." I never wanted to stop playing. That took me about two years. When I started taking lessons, I would practice my scales and arpeggios like crazy. My teacher had me read from Louis Bellson's Modern Reading Text in 4/4 along with a metronome to improve my time. He encouraged me to continue learning from records, and to transcribe the basslines I had learned and bring them in for him to look at. I kept trying to step up the difficulty of my material as I got better. I'd pull out Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and if I got frustrated, I'd put it away and work on something easier. Eventually, I got to a technical point where I was able to play along with it. I busted out the Primus records. I got hooked on Jamiroquai and Stuart Zender's amazingly funky fingerstyle. Of course...that eventually led me to Jaco. Spend as many hours with your instrument as you can...you'll love it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warwick Fan Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 Originally posted by Bartolini: Till my wife complainsI fall into that same category. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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