Practicing Ideas

I am looking for some new practicing ideas.

I have been doing Dman's awesome lessons and wanted more ideas on what I could do. The premium lessons are really good if u can get them...really inexpensive and worth the pocket change

What/How do you practice?
How long do you practice?
Recommendations?

I love being able to post questions and get a variety of answers from a variety ages and cultures

Thanks for the help

I've been stuck in a bit of a rut with playing and not really practicing. But what I have been practicing is improvising walking basslines from chords out of my jazz Fake Book (for jazz band) and working out songs by ear. And playing whatever Dman throws out next. I think I practice for about 20-40 minutes a day properly but playing for at least an hour... It should be the other way round but I think I need some sort of inspiriation or guidance as to what to do next... I guess I should just challenge myself with harder and harder songs...

In all I'd say learn some theory if you haven't already because it makes your life as a bass player, or any type of musician, so much easier

This is the kind of question where everyone posts massive chunks of writting so....

I practice so that i will do a number of things in order to improve each aspect of my bass playing.

Ill do the dman warmup thingie, then a few simple riffs in order to warm up my fingers and improve general hand strength.

After that I play a reasonably hard song to improve my hand co ordination when played quickly, it will also improve general speed. Usually i leanr a song or riff too, and practice a bit of improv. I usually just pick up my bass and play about for about 15 mins, about 4 times per day, hope this helped.

You will have a dictionary of tips once everyones had their say ^^

PS-100th post, yay, i think i need to include more content though, as i dont feel i have contributed to this forum that much in the way of advice

I've been playing for a while, and through experience I've found that just playing at all is practice. I don't have any set routines in my practice. I just experiment with new ways to put notes together. I play between 3-5 hours a day intermittently. Sometimes more If I'm really feelin' it.


I do a song I know well to start out normally, but most of my time is spent experimenting. If I play something I like, I run with it. If I don't like it I change it till I do. I switch techniques to see if it sounds better played in some other manner and so on.

I also think a great deal of my study lies on youtube. Watching great players is always a source of inspiration. As well as visual pointers on technique as well as showmanship. I could spend countless hours on youtube watching great people play gain a lot of knowledge from their techniques then try them on my own. You will find this helps a lot, but you have to pay very close attention to the vids. On that note pay close attention to Alain Caron and his four finger plucking.

I practice around an hour and a half aday,maybe more.I larn songs that are for my level,then train theory,chords scales and stuf

I play a song I know by heart and think "I really need to learn some new stuff." Then I can't think of a song to learn so I just back to playing the usual lol.

I learn as much of the hardest song I can think of at the time. To help me grow

Then Ill learn something easy the whole way through and play it to the song. helps with my timing etc

Learn a bunch of new material, wether its a technique or song

from there on I write. riffs, songs, solos etc

Warm Up
Practice scales for a 20 mins or so.
I usually just play my own music for a few hours, changing things here and there, trying different things out. I don't really learn songs anymore, although the odd time I hear a bassline and want to learn it but most of the time I just improvise. I reckon I practice for at least 3 hours a day, but if I'm sitting around watching TV or whatever I'll pick it up and practice a little more. So pretty much any time I have a spare second I pick up my bass.

My advice for practicing would be try to have a little structure in what you do. If you practice for only one hour a day then try make it a constructive hour, make the most of the time. You would be better off practicing for one hour a day, rather than practicing 3 hours every other day. So its important to be consistent in your practice routine even if you only practice for an hour a day, make sure its every day.

I play for very short times all day every day. Really, my practice sessions are only like 10-40 minutes long, but I play 3 or 4 times a day. It's just how I learn.

Ill tell you what i think, If you get bored, Pickup your bass, If you have nothing to do pickup the bass. Play it on your down time. Find some friends that are a little better skill lvl then you and play with them it will drive you to reach there lvl and when they get better you get better .

I only play when i get bored or don't have anything to do.
If i set a schedule or anything, i'd see it as a chore and give up.