Practice Routines!

[bassplayer7770]

I try to practice at least a little every day. At first, I may start with some finger exercises from the book Bass Fitness. Then I might do some theory exercises. All exercises are done with a metronome. Then I make sure I'm tight on all the songs my new band is playing, and I learn any new songs so I'm fully prepared at rehearsals. I also have to spend some time on songs for my lessons which are bi-weekly. This time I have to work on "Oakland Stroke" by Tower of Power. Lots of 16th notes at 130 bpm!!!

[tkarter]

I practice 1 hour sight reading every day. I can do that at my computer.

Try to get one hour per day to play Triads from the bottom of the neck up and Extended Triads for another 30 minutes.
This I fail to do every day but maintain that to the best of my ability.

Also half hour every other day on the upright playing triads.

Like Larry I learn my parts for my songs before rehearsal.

tk

[Hutton]

Thanks everybody for these really helpful answers. Keep 'em coming!

[Aussie Mark]

What Larry said. Practice for me is learning new songs, or jogging my memory on old ones that are hiding away somewhere in my brain.

[Dr Stankface]

Anybody got a link to some scales and modes and anything else?

[tkarter]

Anybody got a link to some scales and modes and anything else?

http://www.carolkaye.com

Best advice I can ever give to a musician.

tk

[Lazybite]

+1 for modes up and down the neck

I do my modes against a click track... I start out slowly making sure the notes are clean and then build up pace... have managed to get up to about 310bpm fingered... move up to 315 and I'm stuffed!!

But I normally practice between 1 and 4 hours a day... sometimes with modes... sometimes with little runs that I have created to improve speed, string skipping, then I might dig some bass tabs up... learn a couple get bored and write my own...

I have actually found that guitar player pro is a useful tool as it plays back files via midi, you can also solo instruments, change tempo etc etc..... of course you need the tab archives make it worth anything for learning...

[drgroovenstein]

One thing I know, I'd be a smokin' bassist if I practiced as much as I participate on forums like this

[Lazybite]

One thing I know, I'd be a smokin' bassist if I practiced as much as I participate on forums like this

Aha there in lies the secret... I mostly only post when I am at work.... mostly due to chaotic ad ad hoc nature of my job...

[maddog]

Piece of paper taped to my music stand says:

1. warm up and finger exercises
-warm up, get fingers moving
-work a page from Bass Fitness by Josquin Des Pres
2. scales & theory
-work from Serious Electric Bass by Bartolo, segues nicely into walking bass lines due to the theory involved
3. walking bass lines
-work a couple exercises from Building Walking Bass Lines by Ed.
4. reading music
-work first from Hal Leonard Bass Method by Ed.
-pick a song from sheet music and work on it
5. ear training
-do some simple exercises picking notes on the board and work intervals by ear
-pick a song and work the bass line by ear

Now if I could make time to stick to this regimen, I might be a lot better than I am.

[tiffles]

im naturally brilliant.

[maddog]

Yes you are.