Varied Practice

 

I have been wanting to tighten up my rhythm skills but do not want to work through tedious rhythm studies. My solution is to start going through Jon Liebman's Funk Bass book. The book is full of over 100 exercises of funky rhythms. There are 2 reasons why I went this route - fun and varied practice.

Fun - Let's face it, slap bass is fun. Rhythm exercises can be boring. Especially, when those exercises have you playing the same note all the time. But when you get to slap the bass, it makes the exercise better.

Varied practice - Varied practice is the concept that mixing things up helps you learn faster. Since I have worked on rhythm in the past with traditional playing styles, that type of exercise will not be new to me. Varying the playing style to practice rhythm with a slap bass technique creates a new learning paradigm. This forces my brain to reapply concepts it learned a different way in the past. In theory, this improves learning. 

We will see how it works. How can you apply fun, varied practice today?