How do you practice?

ampeep

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I used to take my bass (& amp) out & just play along to CDs for fun. However, since joining a uke group I now need to practice specific songs. I've always disliked playing bass alone, so I practice with my classical guitar. Since I normally fingerpick, I play whatever bass lines I can with my thumb & the remainder of chords with my fingers. Seems to work; I now only take my bass out when I'm playing with others.

Does anyone else do this?
 
I practice by playing with a small group. That's how I started, it's hard to practice home, alone.
 
I am the opposite of UkerDanno. I practice alone. I do play in a ukulele choir, but I view that time in our weekly sessions as observing what to focus upon rather than true practicing.

Used to be very good at practicing every day, as in I would concentrate on learning chords and techniques. Now, I practice learning new songs for the first part of a practice session and reward myself by playing then what I feel like playing, often changing ukes to get a different sound. I might go a few days without playing, which was very rare for the first few years.

When I first started, I always played in one particular chair. Now, it is on the bed when in the house, and on an outdoor lawn chair when outside.
 
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UkerDanno & Laura have very different ways; am still curious about what others do.

I think Laura's talking about playing ukulele, not bass. I play and "practice" my uke at home all the time, but it's hard to practice bass home alone unless you have recordings or someone or something to play along with, IMHO.
 
My practice regime is not as strict and structured as it should be for best progress. My Uke sits by my chair and when I get a quiet moment, at any time of day, I pick it up and play a song or two - might even sing along as well. I try to work through the list of songs that my Uke Club uses and also work on any of those that were difficult or even just tricky at our last meeting. If any new songs are emailed out then I make sure that I've played then through at home before going to the Uke Club.

At some point I plan on getting a copy of Uke 365 and working through it. I'd like to do something with finger picking too, when I find something to get me started and then fed with suitable new pieces - suggestions welcomed.
 
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I know that this thread is quite old now, but I thought I'd share my regime.

With no musical knowledge; cannot read music etc, I just initially play my ordinary ukulele along to a song that I also sing (badly), and record it.

I then re-write the music for the bass, initially sticking to the root notes, and then filling in with the obvious and simple pairing notes - ie CG, FC, GD etc etc. I play my recording and accompany it during which I can tell how well the method work is working by ear, and occasionally I may have to go backwards and forwards to get a sequence of notes correct. I find it a lot easier to work this way rather than involve other players who might just get a bit fed up going backwards and forwards repeating a handful of bars.

For the more complicated songs I invariably resort to uTube to try and get a feel of how the pro's do it - usually well outside my simple capabilities, but I adjust my music paying as much regard to the structure of the original song as I can.
 
Sorry - somehow the forum contrived to post this twice.
 
As a further update to this aged thread. I joined a new band last year and in March this year, I asked if them if they would mind if I recorded the practice sessions we did. There were no dissenters , and so began a bit of an epic journey. Each week I'd record about 25-30 songs and load them to my Dropbox and share them with the band. They thought this was brilliant for them to play along with and practice and was a huge bonus for them. As for me, I use the recordings once again to practice my bass and this new band have very kindly allowed me to become their bass person. Very humbling and a great spur to my practising. I shall never be anything great at the bass, but I do know that just having a bass in the band makes such a difference to everyone.
 
With the songs and sometimes use the tools from where I purchase the music sheets from.
 
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