To much to do, not enough time

[Knottyhed]

It occurred to me today that my practicing has become very unfocused. So I wrote down everything I felt I should be practicing and tried to work out how I can effectively practice it all in the time I have available.

 

To cut a long story short, I couldn't do it, it's impossible. I'd need 5-8 hours a day of free time, so basically I can only practice properly on weekends.

 

So I guess I need to prioritise... do a full practice on weekends and work out an effective approach in the week.

 

At the moment I feel I'm in a catch 22, I want to continue building on the stuff I'm good at (technique/speed and solo improv) whilst at the same time building up the areas I feel aren't so well developed (reading skills, repetoire, chord voicings, ear). However, it seems I can't effectively do both on 2 hours a day.

 

I guess alot of people on here have the same problem, so I was wondering how you prioritise? Or is this just an impossible conundrum for people that have a day job?

[Virgman]

I hear you.

 

Right now I work on this...

 

Picking exercises I got from Batio but modified a bit so they can be used in an actual situation. This includes some arpeggios too. Maybe 1/2 hour of this.

 

Power chord exercise. I don't use power chords much but I run through them for 10 minutes or so just to stay familiar. I might have to defend myself against hip-hop or disco someday and I must be prepared.

 

I do the above stuff first to get it out of the way so I can do the FUN things...

 

Jazz which I enjoy the most such as:

 

Various songs from blues to standards. I go over a few blues solos too.

 

The jazz stuff breaks down to chords, melodies, improvising.

 

If I'm watching TV I'll maybe do some more picking stuff. Any picking exercises I do are part of a scalar pattern I use when I solo.

 

The jazz stuff is where I spend most of my time.

[gennation]

I always start by just playing melody, not melodic/fingering patterns, but real melody. It makes me more aware of the head, heart, mind, and hands within a couple of minutes.

 

I'll either grab one note and try to get all those things together to create and new melody on the fly, or I'll pick an existing melody. Then I'll try to stay on melody and enhance it as I go.

 

I find this way I'm forced to not fall into "patterns" and it allows me to go back and figure it out theory wise and then apply a deeper knowledge to theory to it.

 

I also sing/scat along with my playing. I can't tell you how much this puts the ear in control of your playing.

 

This is a great way to spend your first 20 minutes to a half hour as you will learn something new almost everyday and it'll open doors for you for the rest of your practice.

 

There's 1000's of ways to avoid ruts.

[Knottyhed]

I should definately sing more along to my playing to help develop my ear I tend to do it for a while and then somehow it slowly slides out of practice regimen (a bit like my reading practice)

I'm not stuck in a rut though, I just have so much I want to work on and not enough time to do it. To give you an idea, currently I'm working on

Reading
Scale exercises involving "finger rolls" on to adjacent strings
Pentatonics 'hop-scotching' accross the board.
Arpeggio's - triads, 7ths and 9ths. Major and minor (I'm *always* working on this!!).
Harmonic minor scale exercises (i'm just not as good at this as major/minor)
Chord work (working on stuff/ideas from chord chemistry)
Transcribing solos and songs.
Repetoire, have a number of technically demanding songs I am trying to get to performance standard at mo.
Improvising (backing tracks)
Working on stuff for my band (keeping existing songs up to scratch, practicing my solo's, learning new stuff).

To make doing any of those things worthwhile I need to spend a minimum of 20mins on it... and really I could easily spend an hour on any of them and really that list is probably the tip of the iceberg anyway!!

Currently I just work on things at random as the mood takes me, some things I won't practice for a whole week, other things I'll do every day for a while then forget about them (singing/play and reading being 2 examples!). So it occurred to me I should structure my practice, only I can't see a sensible way of doing it in the limited time I have available.

The more I think about it, the more I think this is a bit of a daft thread - the answer is that I'll just have to accept that i can't practice *everything* every day like I want to.

[Jasco]

Buy and read the book "On Practicing" by Ricardo Iznaola. It should answer your questions.

[Knottyhed]

Buy and read the book "On Practicing" by Ricardo Iznaola. It should answer your questions.

 

 

It'd better be good Jasco! I just ordered it on Amazon for

[Jasco]

Yes, it's a fairly expensive book. LOL

[Jonah523]

My experience with using practice time efficiently has been that it's all in combinations of tasks. What works for me is to pick music that interests me, and in playing through it, identify the various left/right hand techniques that are important for that particular piece, and work on those, as they relate to the music... The bottom line for me has always been that practicing technique is like watching paint dry, and if I have a piece to relate it to, it's easier to do, and more applicable. Also, it's important to remember that a lot of music will share the same technical difficulties (finger independence, clean changes, voicing, etc.), and so they won't ever really be out of your practice regiment.

You may already be doing this, and if so, I apologize for reiterating something you already know. If not, I'd say give it a try, and see what you think. Practicing is pretty personal, and you might not like my way of doing things. There are lots of great books out there on the subject. I personally love The Art of Practicing. That one helped me a great deal.

Cheers!

[Mark Wein]

God, I gotta find some to time actually attempt to practice...

[Knottyhed]

My experience with using practice time efficiently has been that it's all in combinations of tasks. What works for me is to pick music that interests me, and in playing through it, identify the various left/right hand techniques that are important for that particular piece, and work on those, as they relate to the music... The bottom line for me has always been that practicing technique is like watching paint dry, and if I have a piece to relate it to, it's easier to do, and more applicable. Also, it's important to remember that a lot of music will share the same technical difficulties (finger independence, clean changes, voicing, etc.), and so they won't ever really be out of your practice regiment. You may already be doing this, and if so, I apologize for reiterating something you already know. If not, I'd say give it a try, and see what you think. Practicing is pretty personal, and you might not like my way of doing things. There are lots of great books out there on the subject. I personally love The Art of Practicing. That one helped me a great deal. Cheers!

 

 

Hi yeh, I'd already been thinking along these lines... if i give myself a few sufficiently challenging peices to work on - a mix of stuff to work out by ear and stuff to read off the page I guess I can cover most of my basses at once.