10 Tips to Improve Your Bass Practice Routine

I once read that to master anything you need to dedicate 10,000 hours of practice to it.

That’s what they say – whoever they are – but in reality, it’s a bit more complicated. You can throw endless hours of time at a craft, but knowing how to practice correctly is WAY more important.

Today, I’m going to show you how to supercharge your practice time and take your bass practice routine to the next level!

Let’s dive in!

Originally published in 2020, this post was updated and republished on August 16th, 2023.

I’m a big fan of practicing with purpose. The biggest problem I see most bass students struggle with is the fact that they practice the same old things over and over again – instead of working towards a goal.

While some of you might recognize the term SMART goals, others might not. Basically, with this kind of goal setting, I’m trying to steer you away from vague goals like “I want to be a better bass player” and towards practical goals (the kind that will actually make you a better bass player).

SMART is an acronym that stands for: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.

Sounds great, but what does this actually mean?

An example of a specific goal is: I want to learn how to play walking bass lines.

Here we have the concrete item – walking bass lines – not just something as broad as playing the bass.

Other specific goals could be – memorizing bass chords, understanding certain scales, or learning how to slap like a demon.

Once you have a goal, you need something to measure it by.

A measurable goal is something like: I want to learn how to play walking bass lines over a simple jazz standard like “All The Things You Are” at 100 BPM.

In this case, the measure is playing a very specific bass line at 100 BPM.

A goal is attainable if it’s realistic – it needs to be within your reach.

It’s all good and well to want to play at 160 BPM, but the reality is that it will take years of practice to be able to play at that tempo.

A relevant goal is closely connected to you and your personal musical goals.

For example – I should learn the genre(s) I aspire to and focus on that (those) specifically.

Timely refers to giving your goal a deadline. Deadlines provide structure, motivation, and accountability for your efforts.

So a timely goal might look something like – I’m giving myself three weeks to learn this jazz standard.

In conclusion, here’s your ultimate example of a SMART goal for bass lines:

By leveraging SMART goals, you’re able to make your entire bass practice feel way more realistic and achievable.

Many people shy away from the thought of any sort of diary, but this is really such a great way to keep track of what you’re practicing each time you pick up the bass.

It allows you to see what’s working and what’s not. With this information, you can choose to ditch certain aspects of your practice or find new ways to approach a specific problem.

This approach is as much about figuring out what is working as it is about figuring out what’s not working. By eradicating superfluous effort, you can focus your time and attention on the parts of your playing that give you the most benefit.

For anyone who’s ever spent some time in the gym, you probably know that it’s almost impossible to work all your muscles at the same time.

The correct way is to focus on one or two muscle groups before you move on to the others. People typically work through a few types of exercise in a gym session, too, like stretching, strength training, and cardio.

It’s the same with playing the bass (or any instrument for that matter).

Instead of simply drilling through the same exercises, it’s important to divide your practice into different categories so you consistently work on all the essential elements of playing bass.

These categories include:

Let’s unpack each of these.

This might sound obvious, but practicing your technique is an essential part of becoming a better bass player.

This can range from working on basic techniques such as hammer-ons and pull-offs, all the way to mastering popular bass techniques such as slap or tapping.

By focusing on bettering these techniques, you expand your general understanding of the bass guitar.

Not only that, but brushing up on your technique allows you to improve your finger strength, coordination, and agility, and gets you more familiar with the fretboard.

Think of visualizing a fretboard as building a mental map of it. And with that mental map, you’ll feel so much more connected to your instrument and able to navigate it in complex situations.

It’s pretty logical – if you don’t have to think about where everything is, you can intuitively navigate the fretboard and divert your focus to more complicated tasks.

This visualization will also help you when it comes to some very advanced aspects of bass such as composition and improvisation.

If you need some help with this, check out my guide on mastering the entire fretboard in 7 steps. These bass fretboard charts are very helpful in visualizing and remembering what notes go where on the bass.

Improvisation is one of the most satisfying aspects of playing any instrument. It’s where all of your bass skills come together in perfect harmony!

By practicing improvisation, you’ll learn how to create music spontaneously. This will help with everything from live performances to writing songs to expressing your creativity.

You can practice improvising by playing around with root notes, playing different sequences of bass scales, or simply jamming along to some beginner songs for bass!

Transcribing is the process of listening to a piece of music and learning to play it. This can include the melody, chords, rhythm, and other musical details of a song.

This is an important skill as it allows you to understand and learn music by ear, analyze its structure, understand musical form, and perfect your technique.

It’s also really easy to practice!

Start by listening to the first 10 seconds of a song, then play the notes you think you’re hearing. For an extra challenge, you can also write them down.

Work your way through the entire song in this way. When you nail it, move on to a more complex piece of music.

If you want to learn more about this, check out my article on ear training exercises for bass players.

The final category for practice is genre-based focus. This involves a deep dive into specific genres that are relevant to your goals and the style of music you want to play.

Focus on specific techniques of the genre and study some of the greats in that genre.

You’ll find that each genre requires a different skill set and that by learning songs from different genres, you develop a balanced and holistic set of bass-playing skills.

The next step to improving your bass practice is to record yourself.

Can you remember the first time you recorded yourself speaking or singing and played it back? I’m guessing you cringed a little – but that’s okay!

And that’s why recording yourself is so powerful.

It gives you the ability to listen to yourself in a way that is much more reflective and true.

The other awesome thing you get from recording yourself is the ability to go back and listen to your progress over time.

Sometimes you might feel like you’re not making progress when you really are, and being able to hear yourself from six months ago is the perfect proof of this!

This tip is quick but sometimes not so easy – remove any distractions while you’re playing.

If you’ve got a phone next to you or you like to play with the TV running in the background – turn them off!

If you’re using your phone for a metronome or to record yourself, disable any notifications and please don’t go on Instagram!

This will allow you to really focus on your practice and get into the groove of playing consistently.

Practice is pointless unless you’re doing it regularly. Both you and I know that you’re not going to see any real improvement unless you’re picking up your instrument throughout the week – it just doesn’t work that way!

Do yourself a favor and commit to practicing four to five days a week. Even if it’s only for around 30 minutes a day, this will get you way more results than if you crammed in one three-hour session once a week.

Remember, consistency is KEY.

Always be on the lookout for great players, artists, and bands to draw inspiration from – this will keep the flame of passion burning for years into your bass-playing journey.

Looking at other great players who are further along with their journey right now will give you something to aim at in context.

It lets you know that with the right, consistent practice, you can also get to their level!

Have you ever felt like you’re playing the same old thing over and over and feel, well, a little bit stuck?

This could be because you’ve limited your instrumental vocabulary. To fix this, I always suggest learning more vocabulary.

And the best way to do this is to imitate other bass players and make some of their vocabulary part of your own. This is where transcription (part of tip three) comes in – you listen to bass players that inspire you, or you try to imitate a groove that sets your soul afire.

If at all possible, try not to use bass tabs or notation for this – simply use your EARS! And if it feels too tricky, slow it down! You can change the replay speed on any YouTube video in the settings menu.

I’ve spoken ad nauseam about the need for consistency when it comes to improving your bass routine – and the best way to do that is to make playing bass a habit.

Once you’ve developed a habit, you no longer need to think about having to do it. Think about brushing your teeth before bed or walking your dog when you get home from work – these behaviors are baked into your routine, and playing the bass should be too!

To make playing the bass a habit, you can implement two really effective steps

There are various ways to reduce friction when it comes to practice time, but one of the easiest is to never put your bass away after practicing!

Leave that baby out in the wild – wherever that may be.

Putting your bass under your bed, in the cupboard, or basically anywhere that requires an extra step to get it into your hands creates unnecessary friction.

Consequently, you’re way less likely to get your bass out and get practicing.

I know it sounds simple, but I live and die by this rule!

And there we have it. If you want to enhance your bass practice routine, then definitely try out everything that I detailed in this article. I guarantee that you’ll find your practice so much easier to stick to!

And if you want to learn more about supercharging your practice, then join the SBL Academy.

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