Geoff: Hi, it's Geoff and Lauren here.
We are back with another episode of Ask Geoff and Lauren.
And we're here today to talk to you about practicing.
And if you've got any questions, you can jump in and join us in the comments section below
this video.
We're always keen to kind of learn some new ideas.
So keep the conversation going and join us in the comments section.
Lauren, we're gonna start with Livio's question, "Ciao, Geoff and Lauren I have a question
for you, how do you structure your practice routine in terms of time spent on the bass
and the exercises you do in order to get the most from your practice time?
Do you dedicate a lot of time to scales and technique or maybe more to practicing the
pieces?
It would be nice to know how professional players practice so we can steal some suggestions.
Thanks a lot," Livio.
Shall I just jump in, Lauren, and give you some ideas about how I...
Lauren: Yeah, absolutely.
Geoff: ...sort of to balance things.
It's funny really because I think that regardless of what level you are, like everybody benefits
from playing chromatic scales and, you know, scales, and I tend to practice shifting exercises
and drills when I start.
I'll post some links below to various ones I've shared on my YouTube channel.
The things...I have just been on a holiday and I got back yesterday and I had a gig last
night.
And I haven't played the bass for at least a week and a half, and when I turned up at
the gig I just practiced chromatic scales up and down the bass just really slowly...
Lauren: Yeah, yeah.
Geoff: ...just to kind of remind myself where all the notes are.
Lauren: Yeah.
Geoff: And either that or kind of shifting drills and moving up and down the neck.
I kind of find that centers myself and I pretty much do some form of that every time I practice,
particularly with the bow, it's really the best way to do it, in my opinion.
I normally am practicing scales and arpeggios in some way.
And it's usually they'll be related to whatever the piece is that I'm playing.
So I like to really integrate everything that I'm doing.
So if I'm practicing, I don't know, a piece in B major it would be really useful to practice
just B major triads moving around the bass over, you know, play [SP] octaves in as many
different ways.
And I'll often do exercises like I'll play a B major arpeggio across two strings and
then I'll play across three strings and I move up one way and back down the other way
and then I'll try and reverse it and then compare the tuning of both ways through.
So I'm kind of practicing it in several different ways and trying to keep the tuning as consistent
as possible.
So, essentially, the hard way will still sound as in tune as the easy route.
Lauren: Right.
Geoff: So that I tend to do little things, exercises like that.
Lauren: Right.
Geoff: I tend to do that certainly when I start playing the bass every time.
I don't tend to practice as much techniques over the minute, but you know, there certainly
has been times that I'd also need to look at a specific technique issue.
And then I'll work on the main thing that I'm working, which could be learning a piece
or perhaps practicing something specific.
So, you know, improvising, other minute I'm working on walking bass in five, four.
So I might record myself.
I find, the more the experience that I get, the more useful recording myself is and the
more problems I hear that I can't identify whether I'm playing live.
And I know it's an obvious one that we talk about it all the time in the same way that
using a mirror is really effective, but definitely recording yourself back.
I just find that I learn so much about my playing, you know, that I never would have
known if I hadn't been really been doing these video lessons.
Because I'll listen back to the recording of myself and I think, "Why do I always play
an open string louder than a normal string?"
or whatever the random issue of the day is, you know.
Lauren: Right, right, right.
Geoff: But, you know, I tend to sort of suggest the same things to my students.
I guess the only thing that I would be doing is when I have new students, I'll perhaps
be focusing more on the technique side of things as well.
You know, I kind of probably be like scales warming up, a bit of scales, a bit of technique,
and then whatever this topic of the day is that, you know, whether you're learning a
steady piece or what have you.
But yeah, essentially, it's pretty much the same kind of thing for all of us.
There aren't really any secrets, it's just about getting in a practice room and getting
it done.
Lauren: Right.
Geoff: But how do you...?
So let me just read the question to you again because Livio asked questions quite specific.
How do you stretch your routine in terms of time spent on the bass with the exercises
and get the most from your time of...yeah, how do you balance scales, technique and practicing
your pieces?
It'd be really interesting to hear how you go about it, Lauren.
Lauren: Yeah, well, I think that there's two parts to this question, you know.
First, how do you sort of separate...at least what I'm hearing Livio is asking is how do
you separate the technical practice with all of your exercises, etudes, that kind of thing,
and then the rest of your music.
So that's one part of it, and then also making every minute count essentially because not
everyone has a bunch of time to devote to practice.
Geoff: Yes.
Lauren: Very few people do, you know, so you want to make that time count.
And so for me, I learned pretty early on that planning was everything, because if I just
went in the room and said, "I'm just gonna practice," then I got very little done, you
know.
It turned out that I was in there for say an hour I would probably get like 15 good
minutes because it would just be spent trying to figure out, you know, what to work on.
So that's a big thing for me in making the time count is planning.
I usually plan the day before for the next day and I'll sort of break down, you know,
how much time I ideally have that next day, which could change on a whim because we're
human and things happen, but you can still sort of give a ballpark idea for, "Okay, I
want to spend 10 minutes on my slow scale and then I want to spend 30 minutes practicing
the Bach," and then within that you can, you know, mark little things that you want to
work on and how you want to go about it.
That's a big thing for me is not only saying, "I want to practice this piece," but, you
know, making a little list of things and spots that I want to go over and how I want to go
over them.
So, you know, if I want to work on, say, the Bottesini, it's not just Bottesini 30 minutes.
It's, "Okay, Bottesini, from the first phrase, the first eight bars where I start playing,
I want to focus on the libretto in the first note.
I want to get that exactly how I want to get it," whatever that means to you.
Geoff: Yeah.
Lauren: And then on this last bar the phrase, I'm really hitting such and such notes pretty
off-key, that kind of thing, you know.
Geoff: But that's specific stuff.
It's so interesting how you think, your practice, and the stuff that really makes it different
or a difference, you'll identify that problem and then you practice it and then you'll come
to the next session and you have forgotten it.
And it's a bit like if you ever get into the practice of either doing audio recordings
or writing down notes in your lessons when you're studying with people, and then, you
know, if you don't do that and as a teacher you say all the time students come back the
next week and they've completely forgotten something you spent 20 minutes talking about
because you feel that so much stuff, and it's the same in the practice room that you go
through, and you'll be like, "I couldn't play this yesterday and I've completely...I've
just spent loads of time playing the stuff I already know and not really fine-tuning
those areas."
So it's really just a point.
Lauren: Yeah, and that's another thing too is that you're not gonna be able to fix the
intonation of one spot in one day maybe.
Geoff: Yes.
Lauren: You know, very rarely have I worked on intonation in one spot and then it'd just
be perfect for the rest of my life.
I mean, it's just not how it works.
Geoff: Yeah, that's so true actually.
Lauren: You have to do a lot things.
Yeah, you have to do a lot of things over and over again, and that's where the line
is drawn of like, "Okay, am I just doing things over and over again with no result or am I
doing it and getting better slowly?" and that's where recording is great so you can see your
progress.
And also, if you plan your practice and you write in your journal for three months in
a row, work on intonation in Bar 5 and you're probably not going about it the right way
and you need to sort of...
Geoff: Get advice, go to a teacher what the hell is going on.
Lauren: ...figure out again.
Yeah, and that's all...yeah, and that's all...that all plays into using, you kn ow, your time
wisely and making sure every moment counts.
Because if you're practicing the same way, that takes time, you know.
And if you're not doing it right, then you might as well just not do it.
And so there's that.
But then also what Livio was asking about, how to divide it up between technical exercises
and scales and then pieces, I mean, there's no right or wrong answer.
I think technical exercises are great, scales, great, I play scales, shifting drills every
single day, but it gets to a point where if you're working on these exercises for a specific
technique, are you able to then apply them to your music?
And that's something you need to be thinking about, you know, because there are people
that I've known and students that have had that can play the exercises beautifully, but
then when they have to use that same technique in a piece of music they're not able to apply
it.
So that's another thing that you need to be thinking about.
And in that case, what I would do is, so you're having trouble shifting or whatever, take
a spot in your music and make that an exercise.
And instead of practicing the shifting drill this week, maybe say, "I'm gonna work on this
shift from here in this piece and that's gonna be my shifting drill for this week."
That's something I do all the time, so yeah.
Geoff: The pieces show you the way for the technical exercises.
So if you're playing like, you know, like a Mozart piece, you might suddenly realize
that your spicatto play isn't particularly crisp and you're not able to get that off
the string stroke that you need.
Lauren: You absolutely will.
Geoff: And then it makes sense that you'd be practicing Mozart 39 and spicatto technique
in the same session because it all falls in, and then go back in recording yourself and
really...
Lauren: Yeah.
Geoff: ...being able to make, focusing on what you need to do.
It's not kind of set put thing in way.
There's a lot of crossover between all of the aspects of your routine.
Lauren: Yeah.
And also knowing, you know, going off of that, knowing what you need to work on but also
what you don't need to be necessarily hammering in at this moment, like you might be working
on, let's just say, shifting drills every single day, but your shifting might be okay
right now, so you don't need to spend 30 minutes doing that.
Or, you know, your spicatto might be okay, but you're not playing anything that require
spicatto.
So maybe instead, for the music that you're working on, you might need to work on another
technique.
That's another thing about just being smart about your practicing
Geoff: After that there's nothing more motivating than being sent a load of music or...you know.
Lauren: Oh, yeah.
Geoff: Especially if you...you know, when you get those gigs that are really important
and, especially if you're playing original music or something that really...you know.
I mean Lauren did a conservation where she was playing [inaudible 00:10:44].
And I'm sure that if you got the music in advance, you would have been like working
through it and that would have shown.
Lauren: Yeah.
Geoff: Yeah, it shows the way and definitely it's pretty motivating.
Lauren: Yeah, the first, yeah, there's along the same lines, there's nothing more motivating
than the first rehearsal.
Geoff: Yeah, yeah, that's true as well.
Lauren: Well, okay, okay, now I know what I need to work on.
Geoff: I think we all do.
So listen, Livio, it was a great question.
Thanks for bringing it up.
We really appreciate it and we'd love to hear, you know, everyone at home what your thoughts
are about getting the most from your practice routine and balancing these different aspects,
jump in the comments and let us know, and we'll see you all next time.