Had a crappy practice session

Of the two B2B far outranks SBL IMHO YMMV

It always seemed to me he was trying to impress people with his playing rather than getting down to teaching students. Watch some of the SBL YouTube videos to get the flavor of his teaching method.

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I know exactly how you feel. I have those days once in a while where I just put the bass down in disgust and go do something else. There is a sort of symbiosis between player and instrument that has to be in sync for it to feel right and work. Usually I just wait a while and try again - it seems to be better then. Keep on keepinā€™ on!

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@EddieJones how was your next practice? After my terrible practice day yesterday too I had a much better one today. Hope you have as well.

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Worked late and did not practice last night but will tonight

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I started watching a YouTube video with Leland Sklar. He was talking about being unable to play for four days to a finger injury. He described it saying he had no chops. I think maybe we can be too hard on ourselves.

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rest assured it happens to me to. Thereā€™s nights I just put the axe away because I canā€™t play squat. Other nights Iā€™m on fire, hitting every note, walking up and down like I should. If you read much about musicians and music youā€™ll see this is a common problem.

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I just gave up trying to lay down a track today. It was not gonna happen. Time for the bourbon and Iā€™ll try again tomorrow.

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Dammit - now I must have a bourbon - gonna be a short night

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Where thereā€™s a song for the ā€˜no way coverā€™ pile.
Eeesh.

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Very true. In the ā€˜Dinner With Rushā€™ video (you can see it on YouTube), Geddy Lee says something like when he hasnā€™t played his bass for a month and the strings feel ginourmous and he thinks ā€œhow did I let this happenā€. Heā€™s also mentioned in other interviews having to go back and re-learn older songs from decades before. So if Geddy Lee can have issues, I think weā€™re all doing fine :smiley:

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I only watched the first minute. :joy:

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So this happens to me on the regular. I know Iā€™m never going to be good, but i would love to be adequate. And there are a lot of practice sessions i walk away from without a big smileā€¦but it seems to me thatā€™s why continuous practice is critical. I just try to remember that i love playing music. Even when i just stink at it. And some days it smells pretty bad, but then i get that one thing that makes it all worth it.

Much like golf, i find i cycle through the entire emotional spectrum while playing. Itā€™s good to know it isnā€™t just me.

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Perspective.

This is a hobby.
Not a profession.
You didnā€™t start in your teens.
Make realistic and obtainable, yet, positive goals for yourself.

There is a lot of talk here about how one will never be as good as x or to the level of y.
Why on earth are you doing this then?
To torture yourself?
The journey is in the learning, the expanding of the mind, the keeping up of the mind, not in the wishing, wanting or beating yourself up that you are something you are not.

I recently took a week off work and spent it practicing sax like a madman (and doing a lot of other fun, music related stuff I had been meaning to do, along with some household crap). It was one of the best weekā€™s off I have ever had. And I came out of it playing sax a lot better (after a lot of time off, sort of a jump start thing).

I practiced 2x a day for about and hour each, and you know what happened? I leaped ahead in areas I had struggled with for years.
Post that week, and back to reality, sax (and bass) practice sit back in the grand scheme of life, and progress slowed a bit. Why?
I wasnā€™t playing as much, thinking about it as much, etc.

Serious musicians eat, sleep, breath, dream and think music all day and night.
All the other thought we have about real life gets in the way, whether we are playing or not.
Unless you are going to dedicate your life to this, just enjoy the new skills you have and donā€™t opine the ones you donā€™t, or, find a way to add more time (and thought) into this.

You really do get out what you put in.
Despite the general ā€˜ruleā€™ of ā€˜an hour a dayā€™ or ā€˜any amount helpsā€™, which are both good ideas, you are not going to excel at a faster pace without doing the time and the work. Itā€™s just the law of the universe.

Everyone sucks some days, so go listen to music instead.
Then come back to it.

But what you shouldnā€™t do is beat yourself up over it, and add in negativity. That will not only not help, but it will hurt your progress.

Focus on the positives, have fun, and buy more gear! :imp:

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That was perfect @John_E

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This :smiling_imp:

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Amen to that. :heart:

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Days where you canā€™t seem to get anything right on the bass are just a normal aspect of it all and itā€™s going to happen.
I know a pretty accomplished guitarist that has been working on a piece that he has practiced over 1000 times to play it at 120bpm. Yet he has aced it at 160bpm once or twice.

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Look up Jared Tendler, he looks at the psychology of the mental approach to performance and explains that you can be practising your A gameā€¦ or you can be practising your B (or C) game. And it makes a difference. that is no reason to not practise, but it is good to be aware of where you are at and recognising that on your bad days, you are unlikely to progress.

also, consider some of the information here: Deliberate Practice - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

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I take a lot of encouragement from some of these posts. Iā€™m a complete newbie and only seven lessons deep in B2B; I struggled on alternating plucking on Lesson 3. For a start Iā€™m a leftie and I seem to be middle finger dominant. Every time Josh says to use the index finger, my brain makes me use my middle finger and I keep using them the wrong way around. I ran the lesson again last night and I managed to use the correct fingers most of the time but I still have much work to do.

I think I was dropped on my head as a baby once too often.

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