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Practicing The Way You're Going To Play

Practice & Mindset Beginner 1 min read

Updated

A very important part of bass practice that is often overlooked is how you hold the instrument. Whatever strap height and posture you use on stage, match it in the practice room. The more consistent your position is between practice and performance, the faster muscle memory locks in and the more reliable your playing becomes.

Originally published August 24, 2014, lightly edited for clarity.

If there is one piece of practice advice that has done the most for my own playing, it is this: always practice the way you are going to play. I think a very important aspect of practicing the bass guitar that is often overlooked is the way you hold the instrument when you practice. Debates on exactly how high or low you should position the bass I’ll save for another post. The main point of this post is to suggest that however you decide to position your instrument, that you practice your bass in the same way you plan to perform on it. I believe that the more consistent you are with this, the quicker the internalization of the muscle memory. The following video addresses this idea directly. Practice method is one of the fundamentals I teach. For personalized coaching on building consistent practice habits, online bass lessons via Zoom are available.

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