Day 3 - Of Techniques and Improvisation

When I was younger, my tomboy self was involved in all the sports teams and competed against other schools. The teams I enjoyed most were hockey and soccer. As a member of these teams, I hated practice sessions where we would do drills and exercises, because at the time, my young, uninformed mind did not see how running up and down a hill twenty times would help me score a goal.....this was until I ran out of breath after running five steps during a game and got the ball ruthlessly tackled from me. 

Music practice is like playing for a sports team. Doing exercises and drills is the most boring part, and most times we prefer to just jump into the fun action that is performing. Sadly but true, exercises are a very, very important part of your playing, even though they are painfully boring. I have grudgingly accepted that I need to focus more on my technical exercises. This in the long run will make playing even easier, and I believe that with good technique, you cannot run out of improvisation ideas. At least three eighths of my practice session will have to have technical exercises such as scales and spider exercise. Additionally, the session will include improvising a bassline over a backing track. During today's session, I found that it is easier to come up with reggae basslines. Rock is also fairly simple. I also practiced the blues scale, which I used to play over a shuffle backing track. I am now ready to take on the bass world. Let's see how this goes!