“This is the one I don’t know”, but she keeps on singing.
Fantastic!
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As I mentioned somewhere here a few months or more ago, I was practicing Soul Crusher from White Zombie. Problem was: I just couldn’t get it up to speed.
And it led to me practicing less and less, until i didn’t practice at all.
So don’t be like me and let a riff do that to you!
The most important thing is to have fun, if you cannot get something to work, it might be a good idea to move on, and come back later to what you were practicing later. Don’t let perfection get in your way.
Today, I decided to try something else, thought about trying Yousician again. In the free stuff, they have something called “One Forgiven”, which is kinda a interpretation of Unforgiven of Metallica. I played that until my free time was up, decided to get a subscription, played some more, and an hour or so later, I realized I should stop because I started losing some of the skin on my index finger. But I hadn’t that much fun playing in quite some time.
So: If you get stuck on something, don’t be too hard on yourself, and maybe just try something else for abit.
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Ella’s performance of Mack the Knife is one of my favorites. It’s on the live album “Ella in Berlin,” and also the two-disc CD called “The Complete Ella in Berlin,” which is the version that I have. The video here is not the same as the audio, of course, it’s a different performance edited to fit (sort of), but it’s still good to hear this again. What a pro – never done the song before, forgets the words, but not only keeps going but makes it memorable. Wikipedia tells me that Ella’s fantastic ad libbing of lyrics, complete with rhymes and Louis Armstrong impression, won her the Grammy for both Best Female Vocal Performance (single), as well as Best Vocal Performance, Female (album).
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Great context. Thanks.
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The way i approach songs is to always play through the full song. I’ll start as slowly as required and once i can play through the song 3x with no mistakes, ill speed up by 5 or 10% If theres a section of the song which is more difficult to get through, I’ll spend time working on that to get it up to speed and then get back to playing the whole song. If youre consistently making the same mistakes, slow down until you can play it perfectly; never practice your mistakes.
I usually play a mix of easier songs that i can easily get through, as a warmup, some songs that are a bit more challenging for fun and then i might spend 20 or 30 mins working on a hard piece. I might spend a week or a month on the hard piece before i can get through it perfectly. I dont memorize songs either, that would probably take longer…my goal is to always be playing something that challenges me to improve my skills so i really dont care about memorizing songs.
Do whatever works for you…whatever is enjoyable but challenging enough to keep you interested. I dont hear a lot of players complaining bass is too hard; i do hear a lot of players complaining theyre stuck in a rut and not making any progress… especially when they get to the ~1 yr mark.
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You are a bass player, worry more about groove and less about notes.
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Are you having fun? Maybe it’s corny, but in the end, what’s the point of bettering your bass skills if you aren’t enjoying the experience? If “being hard on yourself” means you’re feeling some kind of self-imposed guilt for being human, maybe this hobby is more stressful than it should be. I suppose if you’re in it simply to make a living off it one day, that’s perhaps another story - otherwise just do what keeps you interested in your instrument and playing more. Picking up guitar and bass as an adult has been hard for me, as usually if I’m not immediately great at something I have the urge to move on to something else; but realizing that it’s expected that I’m not an expert without study and time and that I don’t need to play everything perfectly to bump up my skills has done wonders. I don’t think this is a one size fits all kind of journey - if you’re questioning your method, it might be worth adjusting to make it more fun.
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