I enjoy playing bass. I even like practicing. But I have never been a routine guy, and am kind of struggling with being consistent in practice. I am shooting for 45 min a day. I’m probably averaging 45 min every other day. Although admirable, I’m not a believer in the 10,000 hours thing. Otoh, you obviously get out what you put in. Otooh, I want it to be fun, not a chore. How much do you guys practice? Be honest with yourself. We see you.
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As long as I’m still only working 50% of my hours I can confidently say that I practice daily since I have started B2B. When I look at the clock more than an hour has gone by in most cases. Although I don’t know how the time spend will change now that I finished the course. I am still confident that I will pick up my bass daily.
I agree with everything Josh says in the end of the course about practice. I do not expect from myself to have 45min practice slot. I expect from myself to pick up my bass. That’s it. Time slots? Practice routine? No, thanks.
Bass reachable so it won’t be ignored and picked up daily by me? Yes, please.
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Yeah, I should mention I finished the course. When I was doing it I played a LOT more then I do now.
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We discussed that topic here in this thread and a few others.
I drive myself pretty hard, so I’m not a good example to go by. I practice every single day, unless I am travelling or some such thing. Typically I practice 2-4 hours a day, but with lots of breaks, so it distills down to about half that… maybe 1-2 hours of solid practice. Some days, if I’m trying to get over a hump or conquer a challenge, I may go most of the day with on and off practicing.
But again, I’m very obsessed with improving my skill so I am an exception.
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Very admirable 
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It’s still a great strategy to go with I think.
I had the same strategy with marathon training. Okay there I had a schedule. Training every other day and the rule for myself was: “I do not have to go running, but I have to put my running boots on.”
It’s the same principle. You don’t even have to be playing. If you strapped your bass on you can put it back. But pick it up and put it on is my advice.
Or are you missing practice material? I said I don’t want to reserve time slots and practice space but what I will do is make a list of exercises I want to get into the habit of doing.
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Reckon 2-4 hours a day depending on what is going on around the place.
Must confess I have become a little obsessed with playing and few chores like fence repairs etc have been ignored since I started the course .
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Nah I’ve got stuff to practice. And I get your marathon analogy but it’s a little different for me. With a marathon you have a goal to meet and a deadline. I don’t have either. When people ask me what I’m doing with my bass I have no answer - band, record, write stuff, I dunno? Just having fun, see where it goes.
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I want to type all sort of smartass responses…
Until my fingers bleed!
Until I’m so drunk I fall over!
Until the woman put their clothes back on!
Etc…
Sadly the answer is usually when my wife says it’s either time for bed, or I am crying in frustration 
I love playing and am either playing B2B or jamming with Heidi (hot-wife) and our friends.
Also, our son is just getting going (5th grade) on drums, so we rock too!
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I just started the course on June 2, and have been averaging about 3 hours a day. I need more. If anything I want to devote even more time to it. Annoyances such as this thing called ‘a job,’ and a few hours of sleep per night keep getting in my way.
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Oh, I should have known! I truly play morning noon and night, and when I’m listening as a passenger in a car, I am air bassing. I feel like I am in love.
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I’m pretty much playing on a daily basis - but I have 2 modes where I play. After finishing working from home, I normally go straight on it for anywhere between 30 mins and an hour, and this is where I want to do proper warm up exercises and then practice whatever is on my mind at the time. This is my ‘technique’ practice where I’m conscious of what I want to do and I keep trying to iron out mistakes.
Then later on in the evening, well, that’s when it all goes a bit free-for-all, and they’ll be a few beers involved, and it’s more of a fun jam. That can last anywhere from 1 hour to god-knows how long.
Some days work is too annoying though, and I might want to play afterwards, but I need to chill out from work and the odd day gets missed where I don’t play at all. I’d say that’s about 1 or 2 times every 7 days. Or even more bizarrely, I’ll have the bass set in my head but then when I turn everything on, a song might pop in my head and it will sound better on keys, so I might just do that instead.
It all seems to be whatever is going on at the time I think.
As an example, yesterday, work was fairly annoying, so when I finished, a friend came around (socially distant and all that) and we just had a few drinks with some music and having a catch up. Then a song came on that we both like, and I just picked up the acoustic bass which is in the same room and just messed about on that for an hour or two. Didn’t fire up the electric basses at all.
Today? Who knows 
I’ve just looked up the bass line for Money for Nothing by Dire Straits as it literally just popped into my head, so I had the Ultimate Guitar Tab playing the bass solo while I was air-bassing it with my hands, and humming, all while on mute on a works conference call!
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Sure it’s the same for me but aren’t there even little goals you want to achieve? For example I am currently working on playing Pink Floyd - Money.
The difficulty of the bass line isn’t that high but the song is loooooooooong and my fingers don’t have the endurance yet.
If you practice for practices sake I can understand your situation. I would also probably pick up the bass less if I just did it for practices sake.
I get the impression that you are not sure about the direction you want to go to and don’t have goals to achieve. I can understand that (not having) these two factors reducese practice time.
At the same time I’m not sure what to tell you because I think you have to find your own way out of that slump. My general advice would be: set short term goals so you have something to achieve and also the feeling of accomplishment instead of just gradually getting better without noticing.
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I practice B2B every day except Sunday for about 2 hours.
Thursday mornings I meet with my churches Praise Team leader for a 1-on-1 practice.
Thursday evening is praise band practice.
Sunday is praise team practice at 8 AM and performances at 9 and 11.
So, all said and done I’m practicing or playing for a minimum of 18 hours a week.
If not for walking the dog, tending the garden, taking care of the “honey do” and caring for my disabled mom, it would be more.
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You people are making me look bad 
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When I was playing saxophone, which was the case until about two months ago, I hardly ever practiced, because I guess I just didn’t want to. But since I got my bass 6 weeks ago, I have played about an hour a day almost every day, except for the week when my wrist was hurt. I sometimes play a couple of hours on weekend days, but not all at once.
I don’t try to make myself practice, although I do have to be intentional about getting up off the couch and starting at a reasonable hour, or else next thing I know it’s bedtime. I usually do a few different things while practicing, like exercises from my method book, B2B videos, scales, playing songs I already know, or playing Rocksmith, all according to my mood. Some days I am up for working on something hard in a serious way, and other days I can’t focus on that and I play more for relaxation and enjoyment.
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Gotta say… I was overconfident with my statement!
I am taking a break today because I overdid my Billy Jean training and my pinky is still protesting after a good nights sleep so I don’t want to cause any damage to my wrist/tendons and decided to rest for today. (On bass playing and powerlifting)
My vocal chords on the other hand don’t deserve the rest. When I got to the end of B2B I got so excited that I kept playing bass instead of switching to vocal training later and missed two days of training. Most vocal trainers tell you to sing every day. Just has to be five minutes but I am inclined to trust them after my performance dropped with a 2 day break 
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I try to practice every day, and when I do it’s at least 30 minutes and often lasts 1 hour, sometimes more. I just don’t have more time that that. I picked up the bass for the first time 5 months ago, and now the experience is beginning to be more satisfying in that I can catch a groove more easily. I can hear a song where ever I am, and I’ll want to pick up the bass and chug with it, or try to figure it out. I have a long, long way to go though.
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I’m just gonna move it here so you have to get into the thread and @Jazzbass19 doesn’t have to worry about us filling up the welcome thread 
It’s all a balance thing. There’s no time someone else can tell you. But practicing for a long time puts more strain on your hand, tendons and everything and I don’t know how far you got into techniques. For me it was impossible to play the octaves with my pinky for longer than 5 minutes at first. Now I can do half an hour of that.
So practice as long as you feel comfortable with. A little bit uncomfort might be okay for new things but never pain.
2) when do I practice, after each lesson or each module?
Probably after each lesson. You can either replay the workouts as often as you want to until you are satisfied and can play it in a relaxed state or have a look here: BassBuzz YouTube Video Guide
It connects the B2B course to the Bassbuzz youtube videos. So when you learn something in the course you can go to youtube for additonal training resources for a lot of lessons.
It is also fun to use the playalongs in the course extras. Joshs explanations are welcome but I don’t need a chord progression explained the Xth time.
That said if you feel comfortable playing the workouts to the lessons and are nailing it - move on in the course! You can decide on your practice routine after you finished the course. You will probably also have more of an idea what things you want to learn and what things you are struggling with.
Since I started talking about practice I can’t hold back: In order to play fast you have to learn to play slow and get faster. It can’t be said often enough. Nothing is gained if you tigthen up and fumble the coordination. Rather go slow and right than fast and messy.
Also it’s sometimes worth it to move on with the course instead of fixating on nailing the fast workout. Especially Module 4 Lesson 6 - most, maybe all people can’t do that on fast after going through the whole course. All of us are working on it though.
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@juli0r
Very nicely written piece you’ve put together with some very wise words
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