It’s a flummoxing phenomenon during practice, but it’s real!
Find out why falling prey to this common practicing mistake is so detrimental and what to do about it: Nailed it in practice, but in the performance, at the lesson – not so much!
Why, oh why!?
#A1
Fly in Practice, but Fail in Performance
Video Transcript
So, I’m curious if this has ever happened to you: You’re practicing. You’re nailing it. You’re sounding great. You’re sounding awesome, so you’re beginning to feel really, really good about your upcoming lesson, or your upcoming gig. So you pack up go to the gig or or to the lesson then you step on the stage or you enter your teacher’s studio and you play the piece that you felt so confident about and you’re falling apart!
It’s not doing what you thought it would do. You’re faltering. It feels as if you’d have never really known it and you ask yourself: “what’s wrong with me?” So don’t worry, this is very common. This is typically what happened. You most likely didn’t know it as well as you thought and here’s why. When you practice it at home, ask yourself if you had a bunch of false starts. But you fixed them and then went on and as the practice progressed you got better and better at it and didn’t have that many false starts to begin with. Now after a pretty good practice session, the last few times when you practiced it you nailed it!
But the truth is you had to get it wrong a whole bunch of times before you eventually did get it right and after that long extended practice session when you played it the last time that’s what’s sticking in your memory. That’s why you’re getting up from the practice session going I’m good. The truth is that next day after that really successful practice session when you sit down and practice it again, you probably will have those false starts again until finally getting it right.
So what happened at the lesson or at the gig is exactly what would have happened if you would have sat down for another practice session. We just kind of erase all these wrong false starts in our minds. So what’s the remedy? What’s the way out of this? How can you test yourself to make sure that you’re truly ready?
First, refine your practice. Avoid false starts to begin with. Avoid falling into “error loops”. I’ve done other videos on that topic.
Second, do the test. Test yourself. Test yourself if you’re gig or lesson ready and this is how you do it: You practice, do your thing, whatever… take a break. Take a long break. Come back next day. Then you sit down and you got one chance. You’re cold. You’re not warmed up. You haven’t played it a million times wrong or right or whatever. You just get to the bass cold. Can you play it in your mind? Can you hear it before you start playing? Can you do something like talk yourself through the sections of the tune? And now for the litmus test, can you play it correctly right out of the gate on the very first try?
If you really want to go all in with that test, hit record on a camera because then you’ll know. And if you’re nailing it… you’re ready. If you don’t, you just need a bit more practice. Also make sure that you keep your tunes warm because they don’t stay warm and ready to go forever. The takeaway? Practice in such a way that you nail it out of the gate when coming to the bass cold. That is your litmus test whether you know it or not yet.
Oddly enough this trick will make feeling an odd meter like a 7/8 rhythm much less difficult.
…and yes, Sting inspired this!
#A3
Video Transcript: Odd Meter made Easy!
The seven is kind of jarring you know, every time you expect the downbeat to come a little later than it does. So it kind of throws you when the downbeat shows up an eighth note early.
But in that tune the bell of the drums goes straight through so every other bar is coinciding with the downbeat of that bell and the other bar in between is coinciding with the upbeat of that bell and that creates a much more calming overall feeling. 6….7…
[🎵[🎵[🎵 Ari Playing Bass [🎵[🎵[🎵]
As you were seeing, I was trying to mark out with my body the bars where the downbeat is and the bars where the upbeat coincides with the metronome. iI just feels like you fall into this odd meter rhythm every other bar
Animal inspires Position Shift on the Bass Fretboard
An elegant and powerful position shift on the bass fretboard that works for countless scales, chords and tunes was inspired by an animal. It’s snappy and snippy!
Get the scoop about this position shift in the books and wall chart:
You can find this musically effective scenario in many songs – but it’s important to get the fingering right to nail it! Root-5-8 Fingering – Get the chops for root-5-8!
#A18
Root-5-8 Fingering – Get the chops
Video Transcript
Root – 5 – 8 patterns – you will encounter in so many different songs. All kinds of styles. They stay out of the way, they really cement the tonality but they still sound like they create movement and they kind of sound dramatic because they’re all these big jumps in there.
They do present a little bit of a technical challenge, however. There are typically two ways how you can finger these guys. One way has your first finger on the root and the fifth and the octave are spread out between two fingers. It’s perfectly fine to use this kind of fingering, especially when you only have, let’s say, roots, fifths, eighths and maybe flat sevens.
[ 🎵🎵🎵 Ari plays a 1-5-8 groove 🎵🎵🎵 ]
As soon as you need the third, for example, you’re better off fingering these two notes with one finger. So it’s good to practice this movement in isolation.
[ 🎵🎵🎵 Ari plays the drill 🎵🎵🎵 ]
You can, sort of bar these two, as long as you’re mindful of muting. You don’t wanna let them both ring. I aim to lightly tilt my hand, without too much movement. Make sure these notes are connected. I recommend you practice this with every single finger.
Go all the way, [ 🎵🎵🎵 Ari plays the drill 🎵🎵🎵 ]
And the other direction. [ 🎵🎵🎵 Ari plays the drill 🎵🎵🎵 ]
The most important thing is: do not over-grip. We tend to overwork. The goal is to let go of anything you don’t need. When I play these very slow, I sort of sit on the string and while I sit on the string I move my hand and it’s important to not do this:
[ 🎵🎵🎵 Ari demonstrates what not to do 🎵🎵🎵 ]
That’s gonna knock your tuning out [ 🎵🎵🎵 ] Try to get these nice and clean and connected, then this is going to be there for you when you get to play one of those root-five-eight songs.
How do you tune a bass? Three methods and one bonus method that’s really cool. Okay,
Method #1: somebody in the band has a legit note let’s say I got this digital piano here that’s definitely going to be in tune. This is a low A and I have that note. Typically a tuning note is A. First you want to hit the note… hit your string… too low. Do you hear that? Okay so what do you do? You hit the A…
I know I’m too low so I’m gonna go up while this note is ringing and what I’m looking for is for that wawaawa to become a little slower and at some point the wawawawa
it’s gonna settle in that’s when I’m in tune. You get this
Wawawawawa
If I overshoot, it’s the wawas are going to start again… [Music] Hear that? wawawawawawa… They get faster and faster because now I’m already going to the next note, right. Now I’m too high. What do you do when you’re too high? You don’t want to just tune down and call it a day, you want to tune down below the pitch you’re aiming for and then back up
Why? It holds the tuning better. So now I’m gonna go down below where I need to go hit it again, and the wawas stop.
What I just showed you with the piano you can do with the bass as well, now my A supposedly is in tune. Now, I’m gonna tune my E string to that let’s say it’s somewhere south. Fifth fret so you got to be careful when you hit the open A, you wanna make sure that you don’t stop it from ringing – this is what happens in the beginning sometimes. You hit the A and then you hit this A and then you inadvertently stop the A from ringing. You need both of them to ring. You need to think that through if you put your finger there to hit the fifth fret on the E string to get the same note A, you’re gonna have a hard time because the goal is I want to hear them both at the same time so… too low… grip over… and make the wawa stop.
And now you do that with all the strings: fifth fret, open; fifth fret, open; fifth fret, open, okay? Hey, when you tune make sure you’re not doing this by accident, see how it changes the pitch?
You’re gonna have a hard time – and not in tune. You can also use the seventh fret, then you get the octave. But going up you get the same octave. Fifth open, fifth open, fifth open. If you go from top down: seventh open, you get an octave difference.
Method #2: use the harmonics. Harmonics are great for tuning because they ring for a long time. It’s ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing. What you want to hit is the seventh fret and the fifth fret now I got a D. Wait a minute, wait a minute. If I hit that note it’s a G, how come it’s a D? Well it’s because it’s a harmonic, right, so when you hit a harmonic in order to hit it you wanna find the soft part of the tip of your finger and hover it exactly over the fret. You’ll have a much easier time you go a little bit see I can get a note out of this whole area but I can only get a harmonic if I’m pretty precise.
And the frets don’t line up with harmonics either by the way. So they don’t line up and in some cases, just like now, the harmonic note bears no resemblance with the actual pitch there, right. Seventh fret is, however the same note, so I’m going seventh fret on the G string, harmonic. Fleshy part of my pinky takes care of that and then first finger, fleshy part of my pointer and I’m putting that on the fifth fret and I get that.
Now this happens to be in tune, I’m going to detune it Wawawaw starts, right? Wawawaawaawaaaawaaaaa right?That’s where you’re at. If you kept going it would start again. Okay and then you do that overall, the strings and you’re good.
Harmonics are not equally tempered like my frets are. They are equally tempered so this – because this is a fifth, the G string, right, it’s a fifth, D. Because of that D is a touch too high, but it’s so little that you’re actually fine.
Method #3: the tuner. I like those snark clip-ons you can turn them every which way so you can see them. They got one button and that is the button that switches them on and off, and in the back it you can if should you ever need 438 or some different tuning system, which is very rare in our world, and it doesn’t hurt your instrument they’re reliable and they work pretty well for basses
I got my little snark up here and I’m pointing it into one of my cameras. Now you’re on, okay. So, beautiful thing, hit the note too high turns yellow goes up, again don’t tune down to pitch, tune below and tune back up. Now you want to go slow, because once you’re shot over, you have to go back down again.
There are also tuners you can plug in. Also tuners on the computer. Sometimes when you look at a tuner you’ll hit the note and then it’ll bounce a little bit too high and then settle right in that’s normal, so ignore the first spike. Some tuners have a needle that bounces around in the middle and when it’s not right it’s like red or yellow whatever and then it gets green -that’s what you want. Some are strobe tuners so there are different bands that are turning and you want to make those turn as slowly as possible there like: fast, fast, fast, fast, slower, slower, slower, slower and that’s when you’re in tune. Peterson strobe tuners do that. They’re chromatic tuners that can pick up which pitch you are on and they can even pick up an Eb flat, as it isn’t in tune yes or no. See, these tuners are smart. I’m playing a bunch of notes and that tuner has got me covered.
Low String Tuning Issue Now sometimes what’s going to happen is you’re going to put this on there and then you’re going to tune your – shall we say – E string or even worse B string, right. And the tuners sometimes don’t pick them up that well, but what happens is they pick up like an overtone, like for example, sometimes I hit my e and my tuner says B. I’m like hey, but you know what, what the tuner hears is the overtone and the B is the fifth of the E so it hears an overtone. What you can do though, if you’re confused if it’s the low B and really don’t like it, hit the octave as a harmonic. Why as a harmonic? Because then it keeps ringing and you can change while you can look at your display. If you however, do this… and then I can’t hear the note anymore.
And here’s the bonus method: it might be loud, you can’t hear yourself, there’s no tuner you can plug into and you need to, on the fly, get ready. So here’s what you can do. Rather than pluck pluck and hear there’s no sound. Put your hand here and feel the vibration. You can actually feel it, if it’s out. Put the bass in tune and then do this and go down oh I can feel it – it’s like a vibration and you’ve slowly turn it up, I feel the vibration get slower, zoom, zoom, zoom, at some point it’s stopped and I overshot it. I gotta go back down again. Don’t overshoot. Yeah, that feels pretty close let’s check the snark, there we go. Hey, thanks for tuning in and always tune up! We tune, because we care.
