What's your practice routine?

[ZiggyPastorius]

Hey, everybody. I'm curious what people who play instruments on here do for warm-ups, cool-downs, and practicing? Theory? Technical exercises? Learning songs? Any instrument works, trumpet, guitar, or in particular, bass.

When I first started playing the electric bass, I practiced about eight hours a day (at the least, I basically spent all day in my shed practicing), and I would practice basically songs and ear-training (trying to learn the song's bass part by listening). That was a good start. Unfortunately, I haven't done a lot of that in a long time, and don't spend much time outside of Jazz band, symphonic band, and orchestra (school, basically) strictly learning songs. Anyways, nowadays, my warm-up routine generally consists of scales, arpeggios, pentatonics, et cetera. A practice routine I start today and worked on for a while, was I set my metronome at an acceptable speed for an extended-time workout, then I would begin on a scale tone (C for example), play the major scale in nearly straight sixteenths (I would play a quarter note for the first note, then sixteenths 'til the next scale tone), then move to D and play its mode in C (Dorian), the same way. I do this all the way up the C major scale, up the neck of my bass. Then I do the same thing, but switch it to a natural C minor, or harmonic C minor, whatever, but keep each scale tone I begin on in the key of the the ascension. I don't know if that makes sense, but it goes like this:

C 8 D16 E16 F16 G16 A16 B16 C16 (back down all 16ths) then a measure of the note "C" in sixteenths, then

D8 E16 F16 G16 A16 B16 C16 D16 (back down all 16ths) then a measure of the note "D" in sixteenths, then...

so on and so forth. Then I'll do that in like C minor, so replace the E's with E flats, the A's with A flats, and the B's with B flats.

then I do the same thing, but in a different scale, like Bb as my starter note, and do it along the Bb major scale Bb C D Eb F G A Bb.

I like this exercise because it helps my technical skill and makes me think about scale theory. Feel free to use this if you'd like :p Seems like a pretty standard practice. That's not all I do, but that's what I was doing today, so I shared it. I also do a lot of improvisation practice.

So, anyways, what do you guys do for practice/warm-ups and such?

[ZiggyPastorius]

No one here is a musician? :confused:

[ColinEC]

For drums, I usually just start doing doubles and slowly start getting faster. I do the same thing with my feet on my bass drum, but instead of doubles I do singles.

I will sometimes also do some hand stretches before playing to prevent my hands from going numb while playing.

Pretty simple, not much to do. Just a few things to get my hands and feet warmed up.

For piano, I run though different scales, chord progressions, and simple songs that focus on technic.

[ZiggyPastorius]

For drums, I usually just start doing doubles and slowly start getting faster. I do the same thing with my feet on my bass drum, but instead of doubles I do singles.

I will sometimes also do some hand stretches before playing to prevent my hands from going numb while playing.

Pretty simple, not much to do. Just a few things to get my hands and feet warmed up.

For piano, I run though different scales, chord progressions, and simple songs that focus on technic.

Sounds good. The thing I listed was something I made up that day because I felt like I needed a new practice routine :p Normally I just play a bit to warm up.

[vm1971]

Hey, everybody. I'm curious what people who play instruments on here do for warm-ups, cool-downs, and practicing? Theory? Technical exercises? Learning songs? Any instrument works, trumpet, guitar, or in particular, bass.

When I first started playing the electric bass, I practiced about eight hours a day (at the least, I basically spent all day in my shed practicing), and I would practice basically songs and ear-training (trying to learn the song's bass part by listening). That was a good start. Unfortunately, I haven't done a lot of that in a long time, and don't spend much time outside of Jazz band, symphonic band, and orchestra (school, basically) strictly learning songs. Anyways, nowadays, my warm-up routine generally consists of scales, arpeggios, pentatonics, et cetera. A practice routine I start today and worked on for a while, was I set my metronome at an acceptable speed for an extended-time workout, then I would begin on a scale tone (C for example), play the major scale in nearly straight sixteenths (I would play a quarter note for the first note, then sixteenths 'til the next scale tone), then move to D and play its mode in C (Dorian), the same way. I do this all the way up the C major scale, up the neck of my bass. Then I do the same thing, but switch it to a natural C minor, or harmonic C minor, whatever, but keep each scale tone I begin on in the key of the the ascension. I don't know if that makes sense, but it goes like this:

C 8 D16 E16 F16 G16 A16 B16 C16 (back down all 16ths) then a measure of the note "C" in sixteenths, then

D8 E16 F16 G16 A16 B16 C16 D16 (back down all 16ths) then a measure of the note "D" in sixteenths, then...

so on and so forth. Then I'll do that in like C minor, so replace the E's with E flats, the A's with A flats, and the B's with B flats.

then I do the same thing, but in a different scale, like Bb as my starter note, and do it along the Bb major scale Bb C D Eb F G A Bb.

I like this exercise because it helps my technical skill and makes me think about scale theory. Feel free to use this if you'd like :p Seems like a pretty standard practice. That's not all I do, but that's what I was doing today, so I shared it. I also do a lot of improvisation practice.

So, anyways, what do you guys do for practice/warm-ups and such?

i have no real routine...
dabble, doodle, warm up, tweak, leave, come back, tweak, program, play all over the keys... pick up the guitar... leave, come back. oh, coffee...
do some more keyboard work... .chords, patterns, run some beats, all hand programmed, usually..
then all of this practice and nooding will usually (9 out of 10 times) end up in material for a tune,.... which is cool!

so i have no real practice format, but what i DO know..... it gets things moving... and usually projects and songs come out of it.

VINCE
:D

[Dagless]

I don't really have a practice routine. For the last 2 years I've been working on a soundtrack to my game. When I'm working on it I'll just sit down infront of my keyboard with Logic and just play away :o but I don't play other peoples music anymore it's all just work.

[ZiggyPastorius]

Indeed. Sounds a lot like me, I usually just mess around now on my actual instruments. I basically plug in my Duet and record various stuff, or for actual practice, I just play random stuff. Problem is, for a long time, I've felt like I have no real skill as a classical creativist, so to speak. I have the technical and theoretical skill as a bassist/musician, but the only time I ever feel very creative is working with Electronic music. Even then, I rarely feel creative, but, I may just be kind of hard on myself. Anyways, keep it coming! :) I like hearing other people's views of practice/music.

[spoon man]

When I first started playing Drums 2 years ago I didn’t know ****** basically all I knew that I had to use sticks instead of a plectrum. I had been play bass for like 4 years before then so the warm up changes were different in ways the 1st few months I was getting killed after sessions due to not doing hand ,arm ,leg stretches before playing. It wasn’t until I read an issue of modern drummer which had an article with on warm up routines and how to get the most out of you self when playing. So before jamming with mates or on own my 1 I do hand stretches and leg/foot warm ups like stretches (for my legs/arms/hand) and I find moving my feet in circular motions for a few seconds helps but also listening to some really kick ass music before playing helps gets me in the mood/grove and I stay away from sugary drinks like redballs, cockstar ect....they only give you a sec 15min rush which afterwards just burns you out your better off with water or something with out the words energy drink on the lable/can. But when in a group session I find that doing a few cover songs to start off with like we are doing seek and destroy by Metallica and walk by Pantera but we also do a kind of improvised thing where the Drums, Bass, Guitars will start off and then we all follow who ever leads its a good way to get creating songs but so far the whole keeping in time is the hardest thing to keep up with for my self gotta get a metronome…..:)

[bartelby]

Since I've stopping playing in a gigging band I've been really lazy. Most of my bass playing now is just to work out parts to program sequencers.

I need to start gigging again...:(

[rockosmodurnlif]

Practice? I wake up and piss excellence. :D

[Raymen]

I go with the warm up on pieces I know for a while, then I read through the piece I'm learning. I practice 8 bars at a time of just melody, when I'm not confident in a piece. Then I go back and do the same with the chords. When I'm comfortable I try and play both together.

I keep doing this till I can play through the piece, or I get bored, or I get frustrated (which is usually the more the case especially when It's a hard piece). If I'm comfortable I play as much as I can through the piece, then I stick a rhythm accompliment on my keyboard and raise the tempo as fast as I can comfortably and accurately reproduce the piece.

I then go back to playing what I know, then I fiddle about trying to play jazz and blues (as there my favorite styles) ... . Then I learn all the current chords I use... well some of them all I can before I get bored ... I have a short attention span with parrot fashion learning :o