As I mentioned in a previous post, I am going to start posting online bass lessons. Before I get into anything technical, I wanted to attempt to answer two basic questions that can offer a lot of problems for musicians if they go unanswered. These questions were not answered for me when I was a beginner, and it was not until I was very deep into my musicial education that I finally found some great teachers than taught me some of these fundamentals that I feel like I should have known all along.
Going Solo
The first thing to keep in mind when learning to play a musical instrument is that no one can teach you anything. That’s right, no amount of private lessons, instructional books, videos, or fancy gadgets will yield you any substantial results if you do not put time in on your instrument. Sometimes, practicing untutored can feel like you are beating your head against the wall, and it can be difficult to find the answers alone, but realize that a teacher is really just a guide. A private instructor is simply someone who has been where you currently are and can show you the way.
Bottom line: You still have to do the work.
Question 1: What do I practice?
This question can have many answers. A popular practice session among musicians is sitting down and spending hours playing music we already know, jamming with our favorite CDs, and noodling while we watch TV. After we’re done we brag to our friends that we practiced for hours and we congratulate ourselves incessantly. I am not bashing this kind of self-gratifying performance, because we all do it, it’s fun, and I strongly believe that it needs to be done. However, we need to stop lying to ourselves. This is not practice. This is simply playing. Practice, in my opinion, is working on music you know. Practice is concentrating on weaknesses and developing skills. A regular piece of advice I give my students is that if a concept feels uncomfortable it means you are learning something. Practice is not always fun, and not always easy, but if we learn to acknowledge our weakenesses (which can be the hardest part of practicing) then we have a better grasp of how we will make efforts to improve.
If you are studying with a good teacher then, hopefully, they are giving you material that hones in on your weaknesses, and that is what you should be concentrating on. If you are not currently with a teacher, try to be honest with yourself and acknowledge your faults and find some ways you can go about improving them.
Here are four basic concepts I recommend that you practice (if you do not currently) and my reasons as to why. I believe these are fundamentals that musicians of all levels can stand to improve on:
1. Sight-reading Not simply because I believe that all musicians should be able to read music (though I do). I discovered that when I started to really practice sight-reading, other weaknesses improved because of it. You will find that as you improve as a reader that your knowledge of the fretboard, your internalization of meter, your relative pitch and your basic understanding of rhythm all improve exponentially. So, don’t disregard sight-reading because you are a rock guy and don’t think you need it, because I guarantee you that learning to read will improve the way you play rock music.
2. Scales / Arpeggios It is astonishing how many students I have had that want to solo like Victor Wooten but fail to see the importance of these basic rudiments. I’ll put it in SAT format:
Not learning your scales and arpeggios is to a musician what refusing to look in the dictionary is to an author.
Scales and arpeggios are like words and make up your musical vocabulary. Not knowing these rudiments does not mean you won’t play them, it just means you are not aware that may already play music incorporating these basic rudiments. Being able to understand the music you play and communicate with the musicians you work with is a valuable asset to both professional and amateur musicians alike.
3. Ear Training Ear training can be as simple as learning your favorite song from a CD or sitting in front of a keyboard and matching pitches. The key with ear training is to practice critically, and really work towards remembering what the different intervals sound like, and associate them with music you already know. Most of the time, our instincts are much better than we realize, because even if we are beginners to playing music, we have been listening to music most of our lives and– even if we are unaware of it– know what “in tune” sounds like. At the very least we know what “out of tune” sounds like and that is just as great of a place to begin learning.
4. Playing With Other People So let’s say you’ve got all of this other stuff down and you head out to jam with some friends. The problem is, you’ve been playing for 5 years but have never actually worked with a band and, when you finally do, everything just falls apart. You can’t find “one,” the band plays every song in a different key and you can’t even hear the vocals to follow along. It can be difficult playing with other musicians if you are used to zoning out with your favorite CD. Everyone is capable of making a mistake in the performance environment– a variable that just doesn’t exist when you are rocking out to Sabbath in your bedroom. Playing in a band requires a different kind of listening, and, truth be told, some guys never learn how to do it right. Even at the beginner stage, take every opportunity you can to play with other musicians no matter much better or worse they are than you
Question 2: How long do I practice?
One thing that gets a great deal of controversy is the amount of time spent practicing every day. Some teachers will tell you that you need to practice several hours a day if you expect to be any good. I do not doubt that they are right, to some extent, but I think that this statement can be misleading. Several hours a daydoes not mean several hours in one sitting, or a single hour at a time of intense practice. The adult brain can only take 30 to 45 minutes of concentration at once, so it is important to take breaks. My advice to my students– particularly beginners– is that duration is not as important as consistency. Developing good habits and practicing every day, even if it is for a mere 15 minutes, is better than practicing for an hour on one day and not picking the bass up again for three more days. Much of the learning process is based on repetition, and when you are studying a musical instrument it will be important to remember that you are working towards implementing skills and concepts into your vocabulary to the extent that they become second nature. Most of us cannot accomplish this with a sporadic practice routine.
Treat learning music as though you are learning a foreign language. You cannot expect someone to practice a new language for five hours in a sitting and retain much from that study session. Most likely you will remember only a few things from that session. So, promise yourself to spend 15 to 30 minutes a day practicing, as an absolute minimum. If you spend more time than that, great! Some days you will not want to practice and 30 minutes will feel like a lifetime, but it is important to maintain a routine to keep your skills sharp.
More advanced players will, without a doubt, require more time to digest their workload. However, the same principle holds true. Four hours of non-stop forced practice can be a miserable experience, and if you are not properly organized you can easily overlook essential details. If I am planning such a marathon practice routine (and I am one of the least organized people ever), I jot down a quick outline of what I want to practice and how much time I will allow myself for each task. I treat it, basically, like an exercise routine, including a warm-up and a cool down which may incorporate jamming with a favorite CD. Here is an example of what such an outline might look like:
- Warm-up 15 minutes
- The Meters - “Look A Py-Py” (or any song I like to play along with that will give me some momentum)
- Two Octave Scales / Modes in all keys (5 min)
- Four-Part Arpeggios with chromatic approach (5 min)
- Core Practice Session
- Bach Cello Suite Bouree I & II 20 minutes
- James Jamerson Book 20 minutes
- Jazz Standards 20 minutes
- Cool-down 15 minutes
While attending Berklee College of Music I received the following great advice from Professor Danny Morris:
Enjoy the Process!
What I have taken this to mean is, that we should enjoy the process of learning and creating, and not be hung up on finding the answers and completing the journey. There is always more stuff to know, so that feeling of completion can be fleeting and empty. Just try and have a good time!
I’ll have a ‘real’ lesson up sometime in the next two weeks.
Sometime in 1998 I was attending my first lesson with Whit Browne at Berklee College of Music. I picked Whit as my teacher after an incredibly embarrassing placement audition. Whit was actually one of the professors that auditioned me, and I won’t say I was totally horrible, I just didn’t know what was expected of me. They said, “let’s play a blues” and I played a blues shuffle (a la Freddie King), when what they meant was “play a ‘jazz blues’ ” (a la Oscar Peterson). I fell flat on my face and took the first great shot to my ego of the many that I would receive at Berklee.