A Practice Aid

Greetings BassBuzzers!
Since I completed B2B I wanted to come up with a practice routine that would really reinforce the important basics that were presented in the course. I came up with an aid that you can make at home.
I created 24 Power Point slides each with one a major or minor key signature in big bold letters. I then set the slide show to automatically change slides every 60 seconds. You then start the presentation and as each slide changes, you play the scale of the key signature displayed on the screen. It’s a good way for a newbie (like me) to learn the scales and the note positions on the fretboard. Kind of like musical flashcards.

But wait! There’s more!
I then attached one of the 6 Ultimate Groove workout mp3 files to each slide and when the mp3 finishes, the slide changes to a new key.
So with one practice aid I am working on my scales, note location and Ultimate Groove all at the same time. These are 3 fundamentals that @JoshFossgreen encourages and I wanted to make sure that I practiced them.
At the speed that my slides run, I get about a half hour of practice with this.

Thoughts and comments are welcome and encouraged.

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Sounds like a great way to learn your fretboard since your eyes will be locked on the PP slides. It’s very similar to the Sight Reading course I’m taking right now at TalkingBass. I have to play sheets of random notes, rests, ties, etc. at rapid speed. Every time I get past one line of notes, the next line is even more difficult and I half to keep playing the notes. It reminds me of Space Invaders (If you’re old enough to remember that)

I think you will do very well with your PP presentation. :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1:

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I really liked your idea!!!

Would you mind to share so I could practice as well???

Thanks!!

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Wonderful Idea and I also already had something similiar in mind for myself, but what I had in my mind until now was more pure technical and repitition without memory/fret note location training. I’m thinking about throwing it in there too now so thanks for the inspiration. I gotta finish the course first anyway. Don’t feel that it makes much sense to create a practice routine for myself until then.

As already said I really like that Idea. One thing I want to mention is that I would throw a pure technical/efficiency practice in there. You know, the one from Joshs youtube video:

  1. clean fretting
  2. keep fingers down
  3. fix flying fingers
  4. string crossing with effective fingers (moving towards next note)
  5. as soft as possible

Of course it’s just a suggestion and your practice routine. I just like working on the absolute basics of technique.

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@JerryP What! That’s a great idea! Can I have a copy?

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@Guto, @eric.kiser,
I’d be glad to share it with you guys. There are two ways I can share it. I can send you the Power Point presentation of just the slides and you can add your own drum loop or audio file to each slide or I can export the presentation as a video and the audio will be intact. The PP presentation grabs the audio clip from the local drive while the presentation is running so just starting the file on a different machine will not play the audio. Let me know what you would like.

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I’ll prefer the video file so it’s intact.

You could send by email to gustavo.kaufmann@gmail.com or share a link to me so I can download it.

Thanks Jerry!!

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Same here… I sent you a private message. :+1:

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Heck, I would pay for something like that @JerryP. Anyway to convert it to a format that will run on an IPad?

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Mhhhh.
If I get the material It shouldn’t be too hard to create a website that does what the powerpoint does.
Then it should be accessible from whatever.

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That would be slick.

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Nice work @JerryP,
Is there any way you can share this with me.
Cheers Brian

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Let me look into that.

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Sure. What format? Straight Power Point file or a video?

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To everyone that wanted a video I have two versions. Standard res (480p) and HD (720p). File sizes are 75MB and 125MB respectively. I don’t think my email provider will allow a large upload so let me know how I can get these to you. I don’t use cloud services.

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Thanks for the fast reply to my message!
I received the powerpoint and am working on a simple website.

I got so far that I’d need drum tracks/loops and oh my… It’s no problem as long as you don’t care about licensing/copyright because it’s just used privately. When I publish something in public I do care about stuff like that. Not only for legal reasons but out of respect for the creator/artist. So if anyone knows where to get royalty free(!!!) drum loops please let me know. Especially if it’s the same track in different speeds.

I think I finish something without sound by the end of the day. So one can use it while playing their own drum track in the background.

If I get my hands on a viable drum track then I’ll add that too.

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I have no problem with copyright issues. Go for it!

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I found this website. Maybe it will help.

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Have @PamPurrs whip some up on her new bad ass drum machine.
Maybe some of the other drum machines have some creations they don’t mind adding to the project. There is @howard and @Lanny that come to mind when thinking drum machine.

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Thanks @JerryP, it says Keynote will play a PowerPoint, and now I think of it, yeah it will. Just been a few years since I had an actual MacBook, I forget about the business end of the iPad. Thanks a lot.

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