Stamina

NKS

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Hey Guys,

I used to play every single day when I was at school, but now I play a lot less, specially because of my job. Since I reduced the amount of playing, I've notices that my hands get tired a lot quicker, I haven't lost the ability, in other words, I can still play the same songs and hard parts but I get tired quicklier tan before.
So do you have any tips or excercise to get my hands back into shape? :lol:
 

da-vonk

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Throw away your television....! 8:
 

Lex

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Practice "Throw Away Your Television" by The Red Hot Chili Peppers!
 

MaxOnBass

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or throw television sets. That will make your hands stronger 8:
When I moved from practicing 1 hour per day do at least 3, a little thing called gripmaster helped me quite a bit..
 

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Yeah man, practice practice practice.

Even when you're not 'playing bass', you can still be playing your bass....i.e if your watchin somethin on the tv just have your bass in your lap, unplugged, and just play around with it. You don't need to concentrate or play any particular song or riff, just play whatever your fingers hit....it'll strengthen them up again in no time
 

jester

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Stamina is not just a matter of hand strength, not that strength is not important of course. And of course practice is essential
not only for stamina but for being a bass player. For stamina you should take care of your general health and well being. That
means eat and rest well, do a little exercise, minimize stressors. If bad habits or life's stressors catch up with you your wellness
will suffer and so will your bass playing. Do you have increased stress lately? In general do you have a sense of well being or do
you kind of drag yourself around trying to cope with things?

 

NKS

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Well, I definetly have much more stress now that I work, but I think that the problem is the lack of time that I can take for playing.
I know that I should practice more to regain my stamina, but, do you know any excercises in particular that would help me regain strength?
 

Lex

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Stamina is not just a matter of hand strength, not that strength is not important of course. And of course practice is essential
not only for stamina but for being a bass player. For stamina you should take care of your general health and well being. That
means eat and rest well, do a little exercise, minimize stressors. If bad habits or life's stressors catch up with you your wellness
will suffer and so will your bass playing. Do you have increased stress lately? In general do you have a sense of well being or do
you kind of drag yourself around trying to cope with things?


This I DEFINITELY agree with!
 

Lex

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Trust me it's worth reading.
 
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Hmm i'm gonna trust your judgement on this one...but if it costs me a better present there will be trouble ;)
 
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Reviving the thread...

Hi,

I'm quite new to the forum, and to the bass itself actually (been playing for about 18 months), but there is one persistent issue that I would like an opinion on from the experts. I decide to post this here rather than open a new thread since I think it fits in with the previous posts. Shortly after starting to play bass I joined a band and played some gigs with them, and there I always had the problem that practicing the songs at home I could maintain my technique and play conistently for some time. But as soon as it got to the rehearsal room or on stage, I would significantly increase the force of my finger attack and be able to play only for a short period of time before the fingers would give up. This phenomenon of course being due to the rather noisy environment in the studio.

After several months of just practising at home (every day though, consistently), I am now in a band again, and the same issues arise. This time the material is a LOT more demanding and I feel like I have made a great deal of progress, but I still can't really find a way to make my playing consistent in terms of picking force. I realise that possibly the simple answer is to either force myself to practise with a really hard attack even at home or to turn up the amp and play lighter in the studio, but I also don't feel that's appropriate to our style of music (Metallica covers and similar stuff).

So I thought I'd see what you guys have experienced in this area.

Thanks a lot in advance!!

P.S. The aforementioned book is on the Christmas List as well as the Bass fitness one suggested in another thread... I've already done a lot of reading on the stamina subject, I'm just looking for some casual opinions ;)
 

Matthijs

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My choice would involve a bit of both. Play a bit harder at home and turn up your amp and play a bit lighter when rehearsing. I usually actually prefer the less powerful attack of lighter playing since it evens out your tone a bit as well. If you really want some bite in there just turn up the treble a bit :)
 

jester

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I think this happens to everybody, in a rehearsal and much more in a live situation dynamics get louder. Try to pay
attention to not overdo it, make sure you have a good position so that you can hear your amp, and don't expect to
hear your full bass volume in a rehearsal or live. You have to play with a little bit of "trust" to your playing without
hearing it so loud. Try to focus on the overall sound of the band. Rock music needs a louder attack, take it easy on
the first songs and deliver when you get warmed up. Ideally, you should warm up before you start playing of course...

 

Florin

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I think learning to control the technique is the most important thing. I play the same home or rehearsals or gigs (if I'll ever have, haha)
You don't actually need to use force. The force needed to play bass is minimal, if you don't play upright, or Flea style.

And for most of the rock stuff, a medium - light technique is better for a more sustained, bigger sound.
 
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Thanks for your answers, I guess I will just have to adjust both ways a little bit towards a compromise. I'm ok with my heavy playing technique (I don't mean "force" as in trying to rip the instrument apart, just relatively strong for a clear percussive element of the sound), I just want to be in control which at the moment is not so much the case (as you mentioned the sound is a lot more even when you play with light attack, but watching someone like Rob Trujillo who has perfected the heavy attack shows that it's possible).

I guess I will do some experiments and see what happens with both ways of playing. A controlled compromise sounds like a good idea, I want my playing to be strong, but not to the extent to which it goes when I play with the band, get excited and stop paying attention to my right hand. 10 minutes later my fingers are killing and I'm like "What just happened?"

Thanks for your advice guys, I have to say this forum is the best thing that can happen to any bass player, I only joined like a week ago but I've already read most of the material on here and it is gold. Hats off to everyone for their time and devotion spent on sharing their knowledge with the less experienced people! I'm very glad I can (soon) be a (hopefully active) part of this community :)
 
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