Kind of silly since I should’ve known it before from playing guitar…
The way B2B was built and the explanation with the shapes, scales and so on there was a moment in the course in which I went: “urrrghhh, why didn’t I notice? pentatonic scale always fits because it’s the shared notes between major and minor.”
Maybe Josh even mentioned it in the video but it clicked a moment before.
I also frequently use the imaginary shapes to find my way on the fretboard but there wasn’t a singular “aha” moment. More accepting it as a good method to have remember less from the B2B course.
Finally had a little victory today and a small ah ha moment!
I’ve really been playing badly for a couple of weeks and it was starting to make me shy away from picking my bass up . I wasn’t getting any sort of satisfactory rhythm or timing even with tunes I previously prided myself on playing to a standard that made me happy .
So today I went all the way back to the beginning of my bass journey and it has all started to come back together. Baby steps only but I’m a lot happier than I have been in a while with it all and found myself playing for hours today in between messing around with my newly delivered Harley.
Smiling has been a rare occurrence for a good few weeks but today I managed to crack a few grins
@Mac That’s great, man! I go through periods like this also.
@Gio@JoshFossgreen Is what @Mac is talking about just part of the cycle of learning, plateauing, learning, plateauing,…
Is there a point where you get good enough where this isn’t an issue?
Does it just come down to playing everyday to keep your mind on it and keep plugging away?
My aha moment came just a few weeks ago. I’ve sent away one of my short scales to be painted (and it was my primary instrument for finger style playing) In its absence, I’ve been using my Stingray thats normally reserved for playing with a pick. Because of the “newness” of where that Stingray pickup is located, I guess I was subconsciously compensating and magically one day started playing a riff using the floating thumb technique, completely by accident!
I had tried this technique several times in the past and it never felt right. I always ended up on the thumb rest of the other bass, and never moved… But in that moment of accidental floating thumb, I realized how wonderful it was and knew instantly I would never go back!
I think the feeling changes.
There may be a place where the feeling of “I’m not good at this” goes away, and you get so used to the troughs and crests of progress that you think “I’m not a bad player, and I’m not getting worse, but - oh dang, gotta sprinkle some fresh things in the routine…” The problem is the same.
Some kind of maintenance gets forgotten - a technique that you shed (shedded?) for months (for some special reason or tune) hasn’t been used in a while, and it’s rusty - whatever the reason, it happens.
Having different routines to work different muscles/memories/techniques/ideas is crucial at these points…
That is so true.
I’m finding that I get some sort of tunnel vision when practicing something new and everything else fades into insignificance. Then when I go back to other songs I was comfortable playing the cooperation between my brain thoughts on what should be happening and my fingers dexterity has faded sometimes quite dramatically
+1 to everything @Gio said, @eric.kiser. I would also add that honestly, I do have my days where I don’t think I’m very good, and I know other pros go through that too - there’s a Lee Sklar interview I think about a lot where he was saying something to the effect of (paraphrase) “after 40+ years of recording in the studio, I still have thoughts the night before a session like ‘man I hope I don’t suck tomorrow, I hope I can think of something good to play’, etc.”
I think the distinction is when you’re more advanced, the suckage is more subtle and sometimes just in your head - obviously Lee Sklar doesn’t suck and never has and never will. But subjectively, I think the doubt and the feeling of plateauing is natural and I can definitely relate.
But -
I’d be curious if @Mac was really playing things worse, or if his ear just got better and started noticing flaws/issues that were already there, but now with a more refined ear he’s able to pick them out and start improving them. Not saying that’s necessarily what happened, but I think it’s a thing that happens to people in general.
I remember phases in my early days of playing where I thought “wow I sound so good, the stuff I’m playing is so cool,” and then I would listen back to recordings months or years later and be like, “oh wow, my rhythm wasn’t that good, and my tone was weird.”
Honestly even looking back on some of my cover videos from years ago on Youtube, I remember recording them and thinking “perfect, nailed it!” and then I watch them again now and notice mistakes or sloppiness I didn’t catch back then. Such is life!
Thank you for your replies @JoshFossgreen@eric.kiser and @Gio and a totally different perspective which has certainly got my brain thinking in a different way .
I had never even considered that someone of your abilities had “off” days and probably do not have the “ear” to pick one out if you did lol
I hadn’t thought my ear might be improving ( I hope so) and if it is a lot of that credit must go to your teaching oh Jedi master.
On another note, I do wonder if I did play everything perfectly if I’d get bored and quit
P.S
I do suffer from the never quite being good enough as a child syndrome which probably doesn’t help
That’s interesting about Lee Sklar worrying about sucking in a studio session. It’s somewhat comforting to know that even people who you regard as super human are human after all.
What’s amazing here (and important for the beginners around here) is that there probably even was a time when Sklar did subjectively “suck”, very early on. And he didn’t let hit stop him, and he kept on working through it. 90% of mastering anything is perseverance.
Going in to the studio for 40 years, and still having doubts, but still going in and getting the job done - that’s what differentiates a professional from an amateur. The curse of Perfectionism can be one of my many demons too, and your point about becoming more and more self critical over time is a really good one to think about.
Oh yeah. I can definitely attest to this for myself. Thanks for this Josh. I’ve seen this happening but I didn’t quite have this perspective on it. It made perfect sense when I read it.
There is, of course, stuff like the “Dunning-Kruger effect” (originally applied to over-estimating oneself, but equally valid to under-estimating one’s skills) and the “impostor syndrome” and similar things that shine a light on those aspects of human psychology that have to do with how we perceive and rate ourselves, and none of us is immune to them, one way or another.
Being older/more mature makes it easier to tackle, though. I think some of these self-doubt moments would have hit me much harder in my younger days!
Probably does not qualify as an ah-hah, but I was playing Otherside today (for the millionth time), and at some point in the song I noticed that I was not paying attention to the physical aspect of playing (which finger to pluck with, which string to pluck, what note to fret next and with which finger, etc). I was just playing the music. Or rather my fingers were playing the music, because they were on autopilot. Anyway, it felt so good… This is probably what musicians feel when they play music. Hope I’ll get there sometime!
Not sure this is a ah hah moment but I thought I would share…
When I got the bass I went through the knobs and couldnt really tell the difference between the different settings but when I was going through then yesterday I could really make out the differences between the tones… So strange I couldnt hear them before I thought there might be something up with me or them or the fact that they are the same pick up they just sounded the same lol… Not sure what happened there…
It sounds like your ear is getting trained the more you play.
Good on ya for even bothering playing around with the knobs too. I’m too lazy or just plain forget to do it or even try the active switch to be honest. I sort of like the sounds I’m getting and tend to leave it at that.
Same as pedals. I have a few but I’m too damn lazy to take them to my outdoor practice area. Shameful really after spending the cash I did on them
