Have you been playing the bass for years and seen little to no improvement in your bass playing?
Do you feel like you are stuck in a musical rut?
Your minimal progress with your bass playing may not be a direct result of a lack of musical talent, but rather a lack of understanding when it comes to setting the right musical goals and just how to set these goals!
Apply a specific formula that accelerates the learning process and literally yank yourself out of your musical rut!
Set Mutant Bass Goals that will Guarantee Results for 2010!
When setting musical goals, there are 2 things that you need to keep in the forefront in order to ensure that you will succeed in surpassing your goals.
- Understand the Bigger Picture: Keep your goals balanced. Running scales and modes up and down your fretboard for hours a day accomplishes nothing, if you don’t understand the “why” (AKA musical context behind those scales). Obsessing over learning every musical theory accomplishes nothing, if you don’t hear and comprehend simple melodies and chord progressions.
- Make it Mutant: There is a specific formula that accelerates the learning process and GUARANTEES NOTICEABLE results in a short period of time!
Understand the Bigger Picture (What Goals to Set?)
Keeping your goals balanced ultimately simplifies and accelerates your learning process.
If you focus on running scales up and down your fretboard to “master the fretboard” you will accomplish just that.
And the next time you end up in a jam session or improvisational environment, you will still feel lost on your fretboard, because your ear’s don’t hear the chord changes or the actual scales/modes that would sound good over those chords.
In order to keep your goals balanced (you do have to set multiple goals) remember this:
FOR EVERY GOAL, SET AN EQUAL AND OPPOSITE GOAL!
Here is a list of equal and opposite topics for goals:
- technique > groove: For every technique, focus on the groove for that technique. Eliminate the need to play fast and just make it feel good.
- technique > theory: Apply every technique in a harmonic or melodic musical context.
- theory > hearing: For every musical concept, aim to hear the concept before you think the concept. Hear before you think.
- soloing over chord changes > grooving over chord changes: Make sure your groove matches the intensity of your solo.
Make it Mutant! (How to Set Your Goals: The Specific Formula)
There is a specific formula that will accelerate your learning process and GUARANTEE NOTICEABLE results in a short period of time!
Apply this formula for each specific goal that you have and you will literally yank yourself out of your musical rut!
– Measurable: Each goal needs to be able to be measured. A metronome can be used to measure speed and technique. A daily journal or log and can be used to measure how often something was done. An ear training program such as EarMaster can measure how accurately you are hearing intervals and chord qualities. Being able to measure your goal keeps you on track, keeps you motivated when you see the results materializing, and tells you if your goals need to be adjusted (too easy or too hard).
– Unique: Each goal needs to be unique and specific. “I want to play faster” is not good enough. “I want to be able to walk a bass line to Giant Steps, with the half-note on a metronome beating at 80 BPM, for 10 minutes” is much better. Being unique and specific will give you an eagle-like focus, make your goal measurable, and keep you on track.
– Timely: Each goal needs to have a time limit. Short term and long term goals need to have a definite deadline. Deadlines can motivate, keep you on track, and also determine the smaller goals that will be necessary to achieve the larger goal.
– Achievable: Make each goal achievable. Quadrupling your slap bass chops in a single day is self-defeating and nearly impossible. You will only frustrate and discourage yourself. Take on many small goals. Have you ever climbed a staircase for a large building? At first when you look up the building itself seems impossible to reach the top. But when you take on one small step at at time, and not consume your thoughts with the the single goal of reaching the top, you will eventually reach the top. When you look back (or down) you’ll be amazed how much progress you’ve made. When you see that you’re almost there, the motivation begins to snowball, and so does your progress.
– Natural: Keep your goal natural. Passing 10 EarMaster lessons in one day is possible, but may not be natural. Moving too fast can leave some cracks in your musicianship. Those cracks may resurface 2 years later making it more difficult to fix!
– Tweakable: Always gauge whether the goals you are setting are too high or too low. Still adhere to your deadlines, but keep your goals tweakable. Having a mindset that is set in stone can only lead to more frustration. The learning process is faster when you are having fun.
