Not technique - but also struggling trying to convince the band that we should practice just improv jamming over a 12-bar blues or some other simple progression because I want us to practice listening to each other more and getting better communicating transitions and hand-offs.
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Those jams are fun too!! you really get a chance to improvise and try stuff 
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I suspect our singer and guitarist are just a bit intimidated by the idea of “improv jamming”.
Next time we meet, I probably just need to start one up and give everyone a chance to give it a try and see that it’s not all that hard.
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For a singer I sort of get it … improv words on the fly… K… fair… but for the rest… 12 bar blues is hella fun 
hell all the singer has to do
"I woke up this mornin…
Didn’t know what to sing…
Ohhh Woke up this mornin…
didn’t know what to sing… "
LMAO
Fair warning that not everyone likes to do it either
Some people have a bit of a hill to get over when it comes to enjoying improvising in real time, especially if people are watching. It’s not for everyone.
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I’m basically Shrek with 2x the meat to the sausage fingers. Learning control and soft petting is a little difficult 
It’s exactly the same mental exercise as telling yourself not to hamfist the fretboard as hard as you can to fret notes (still a work in progress for me). It’s just one more thing on the mental checklist while you play until it becomes instinct. That’s why I like those max grips, which they make in normal size picks also, I just happened to prefer the Jazz III’s.
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A fair point … I’m only going to say this tho… yer band mates aren’t just ‘some people’ if you get me … they are your brothers/sisters in music. A free jam in rehearsal should be second nature for a band… Jus sayin.
Some great songs get written from just messing together as a group
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Yeah totally and we did this often. We were also already best friends.
However, we also found that others didn’t always share this.
My favorite band called the process “brap”, and were so in to it that some of their albums have a track called “brap” - because they liked one of the improvs enough just to throw it on the album. Sure, it’s filler, but why not? They eventually collected a compilation of these and ones they progressed in to actual demos and released a compilation album of them.
But notably absent from many of these these was the singer.
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What I’m doing is going back to B2B and doing it with a pick. All the exercises and muting and stuff will come in time to my thinking
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I was a vocalist first.
Words aren’t even necessary. Scatting is a thing.
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I think improvising in real time is critical for any band. Otherwise, things fall apart.
My goal suggesting we jam is to accomplish several things that I can tell are holding us back:
- Focus on what the group is doing over our own part
- Practice communicating changes, transitions, and hand-offs
- Get better playing off of/with each other
- Practice sounding like ourselves rather than trying to sound like the original cover
- Break out of the notion of our line being “right” or “wrong”
- Continuing to play through instead of being stopped by “mistakes”
I want to address our tendency to fall apart at section transitions, especially coming out of solos. I think this is the best exercise for that.
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I got some Dunlop Stubbies, and am liking those more than the Tortex. If I can find a Max Grip, I’ll check that out.
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Silly thing to say I’m “struggling with” but I’ve reached a weird point where I can play along to most simple bass lines the first time I look at the tab on YouTube.
Not a humble brag but it’s just weird. I used to struggle but now and especially at .75 speed I can usually just play.
I guess my concern is just, if I don’t have to struggle with a song an I going to remember how to play it?
I also wonder if there is a limit to how many songs I can remember. I haven’t found a great way to keep notes on songs and at this point I’m running on almost 100% memorization for close to 30 songs.
I don’t trust my brain to remember much but music trends to stick. I just fear if I get stage fright or something and the memory banks freeze up…
And I guess this concludes my random Sat. morning stream of conscious. 
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This is dealt with by repetition … burn it into your memory … LOL
When I got into my band… I had 2 weeks to lock in 30 songs … then we were off on the road LOL
You only lock em in by playin the ass off em!
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That’s what I’ve been trying to do. I sort of like. It to singing. I could probably sing 1000+ songs at an ok enough level by memory. So it’s sort of like singing with a tool.
My problem is 90% of my playtime is learning songs. I know if I spent like 25% of that ear training I’d be able to play anything.
I’ve been pulling back and taking a few days off here and there which helps it feel less like a chore but I really should play every day and doing more fun stuff.
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So another way that helps… especially when you are in a band… Arrange your song playing, in the order you will perform them. So you get a feel for the flow of your sets. This helps set up some mental cues, and reminders as well.
Granted you have to have agreed upon set lists to do this… but it really works playing them in your set order
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We have 3 sets that are pretty solid. I’ve been trying to just play through them straight through. I have almost all of set 1 playable minus some more challenging parts. I’m trying to just charge through and play everything as I was getting hung up on the technical stuff I might not be able to play yet.
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Bonus if you got set lists and are going thru them! That’s the way to do it!
And now that you identified the challenging parts… you now know what to practice
I call that a win
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My cousin has been a pro bassist all of his life. A few years back, when he was living in San Francisco, he was called to play a benefit for a severely ill local Bay Area musician. The event’s band was made up of several volunteer gigging friends of his.
That evening before the gig, he was onstage with his back turned, dialing in his amp, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to find Neil Young standing there, smiling.
Neil said to him, “Do you mind if I sit in?”
Of course, my cousin replied, “Absolutely not, please do!”
After Neil plugged and did a sound check, he came up to my cousin and asked, “Do you know my songs?” My cousin replied that indeed he was totally familiar with them.
Neil nodded and said, “Good. Please call out the chords as we go along, OK?”
And that’s how the gig went: “C…Am…,F…”
Just goes to show that even a songwriter needs a memory jog to play tunes he’s done a few thousand times before. 
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