Originally published August 24, 2014, lightly edited for clarity.
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.
Read the transcript
Now, the first thing I'd like to talk about is the height of your bass. This is going to be a critical factor in the way that your left hand is going to operate, because we need to find a balance between both arms' lengths, you know. If it's too low, it's bad for the left, if it's too high, it's bad for the right. Now generally speaking, with the body of the instrument sitting right on your stomach, will put it in a proportional balance to each arm's length. Also, having the neck hang up, as much this way, is, it'll just hang without you holding it, because it's very important that when you play, that your hands, when they come off the bass, nothing's holding the instrument, like you're not leaning down holding it, pushing down the right arm, or holding it up with the left, at all. You want your hands totally free to play the instrument, okay?
Now, we, you can make these adjustments later, you don't have to do this now, um, but generally speaking, if I have my, um, you want to find out what your performance position is going to be. So I would start with the bass sitting on your stomach, with the neck hanging up as much this way as it'll just hang without you holding the instrument, and then when you sit, then, huh, approximately that position, you think? Yeah, that, yeah, maybe even a smidge higher, but, yeah, okay, and maybe a little more centered to the body. Try that. Mm, now I have the neck up more, if you could get it to hang right about there, I think that'd probably be good for you.
The thing that you got to watch out for is that if you sit down, you want to make sure that nothing changes. I see, because the mistake a lot of people will make is that they will practice one way physically and then play another. Right now, it's not a deal breaker, it's not going to like destroy your playing or anything, but it will slow down technical development. Mm-hmm. So, you know, if somebody's practicing like this all the time, mm-hmm, you know, and then they go to play in their performance position, they stand up and the instrument swings around to a completely different position of the body, you're essentially sending conflicting information to your muscle memory. That makes sense?
All right, so basically the rule of thumb is, really just always practice exactly the way you're going to play, okay, in every way that you can possibly think of. So, like I said, this is my performance position, so as you see, when I sit down or stand up, nothing changes. Mm-hmm. Okay? Does that make sense? Record this, is this, is that all right? What I'm gonna record this, no. Actually, I recommend that you record it. Okay, good. And, uh, that you can also get video software that works through Skype, that you can actually record through Skype.
Oh, that's what I need. Yeah, okay, because that way you can record the video and the audio. Terrific. That's so, and you can like create a library of lessons that you can always go back and watch the lesson over and over again. Okay, that's one of the big, big advantages of Skype. Oh, terrific, okay, I appreciate you mentioning that. Yeah, it is. That's just an application I can get through Skype? Yeah, the application I use is called Call Recorder. Call Recorder, yeah, it's specifically for Mac, with Skype. Okay, and it works very well. Great, great, I'll have that next time. And so, exactly what you're seeing, like, you can set it to record both windows, or you can set it to just record, you know, like what you're seeing of me right now, mm-hmm, is exactly what it'll record. Okay, terrific.
Right, so the first thing, uh, you know, like, don't, again, don't worry about this now, but one of the big things that you're going to have to really get going first is make sure that you get the height of the bass organized, and also make sure that if you sit down or stand up, however it is you're going to practice, it's going to be exactly the way it is when you play. That makes a lot of sense.
All right, um, do you have any questions to start off with? Not so far. Did you get the videos I sent? I did, yes. Yes, any questions on those videos? Because the video should have covered the height part. Did it talk about the height part on that? Yeah, I think it did. Yeah, uh, it did. Okay, the one thing that, that...
