What’s better? Practicing 3 days per week for 50 minutes or 5 days per week for 30 minutes? @JoshFossgreen I’d like to hear your opinion on this.
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Every day 10minutes of fun and 10 minutes of focusing on some kind of improvement. Your brain is really good at chewing up the learned from the day before so it’s really beneficial to let him chew constantly. The brain.
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Practicing some everyday seems work for me. Something about sleeping and letting the brain process. If I am struggling with something, I find by moving on and coming back tomorrow, it’s so much easier to get right rather than working it to death.
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What I have always been told by any instructor is the more days the better.
If that means less a day that’s ok.
This goes for any and all instruments.
Reinforcement of learning early and often seems to be the best approach.
It does something else too, gets you in the habit of touching your bass more and making practice part of your day instead of once in a while.
The length is also dependent on your level and what you are doing.
Always stop if it hurts. A lot of us know this one sadly.
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My preference is for more, shorter sessions, usually 15-20 mins, rarely longer than 30 mins and pretty much never an hour straight. I find that 30 mins of actual playing is really quite a lot of time to get things done. Often during the week i might only play for 10-15 mins in the morning before going to work, just before bed or when i’m waiting for dinner to cook… usually some scales, arpeggios and intervals. I usually do most of my playing on sat/sun, where i usually put in 1-2 hours. When i did the B2B course, i played ~1hr ever day for about a month.
Quite some time ago i saw some good advice in an article: “anything worth doing is worth doing poorly” which is to say that sometimes you don’t have the time or the energy to do everything you want to do, but doing something is better than doing nothing.
If one was to play for 15-20 mins a day consistently for 3-5 years they might not become a virtuoso but they’ll probably be pretty good and much better than someone who plays an hour a day and then gets tired or injured and gives up after a year.
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I keep basses in multiple places around the house so i can just grab one and play for a bit 
I prefer more, short sessions but the one place i really find longer sessions beneficial is when i’m working on learning something fast/difficult where i need to start off with a really slow tempo, loop stuff and then speed up… short sessions just don’t have sufficient time to make enough progress.
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I always intend for the sessions to be short. And to do them often. Neither usually work out that way 
I do some kind of music work every day, and bass is in the rotation.
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Whatever the schedule don’t play when you are not in a good mood. Or do it depends on the person I guess. I know I don’t like to play when I’m mad at something. Lol.
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Little and often is usually recommended. Also get a balance of structured learning and just having fun.
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One of my favorite genres of music is angsty self-deprecating 90s rock, so playing in a bad mood suits me 
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Like tonight, played my guitar for about 30 minutes; hey, my bass is right there, so I played it a while too, and got the urge to play my other bass a bit, and looked up and it had been almost 2 hours.
Just kind of happens that way.
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I find shopping for gear vs. practicing works best when I am pissed off.
Apparently I am pissed off quite a bit.
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@John_E I respectfully suggest Reggae if you’re feeling pissed off. It’s almost impossible to stay annoyed whilst playing along 
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Another good reason to listen to Reggae while watching football! You just can’t stay annoyed, even at bad officiating.
Andrew.
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What if Reggae pisses you off?
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ah yes, well that does generally do the trick, thanks for the reminder
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I try to practice every day, but I don’t worry about it when I miss a day because I’m busy or my hand is sore (like after that dang Billie Jean lesson). I find if I shoot for 3 or 5 days, if I need to miss a day I’ll rarely make it up. If playing is just a part of my day, I hit 6 or 7 days pretty consistently. I often play for an hour, but if I only want to play for 20 minutes, I play for 20 minutes. I’ve been consistent with this schedule for a year now and am really happy with it.
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I second this! Frequency beats length, big time. Every time you practice, and then rest/sleep, you’re getting extra benefits to your coordination and memory retention.
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