how long before losing skill?

[zer0_point]

im not sure if you guys can relate or not, but ive been having some family issues and **** and have not been playing alot. How ong before you guys start to get rusty on your skills and playing.

[Naveed Afzal]

I think when you dont play for a week your skills are sharper then ever.
Anything after that down hill, but its all physical, you dont really lose your ear, i feel like once you develope it its never gone.

[halfdeadhippo]

From my experiences, you never lose your skill. It just gets buried and might take a little bit to get back to where you were before you left off, but you'll eventually get back to where you were before. It really depends on your skill level, how long you go without playing, and how often you played before you stopped, all in conjunction.

[Linkinbassist]

I get a bit rusty after more than a week, but aside from that, no...

[Jimbobntnr]

im not sure if you guys can relate or not, but ive been having some family issues and **** and have not been playing alot. How ong before you guys start to get rusty on your skills and playing.
after 3 years it took me 5 months to get back to where I was. Take care of your family.

[Mr. Pickle]

sometimes a long break can be more beneficial than playing everyday.

[WhoDidTheElf]

I've stopped for a month or so and just hopped back in. Fingers were sore, and my fretting hand would hurt after shorter periods of time. But for the most part it felt the same.

It's different for every one though.

[The_Red_Death]

A couple weeks to a month won't hurt, really. You'll be a bit sore after playing for a while, but that's about it. Good luck on working things out with your family.

[dragonzmad]

my ears feels rusty after not being thoroughly exercised for a few days. My fingers feel rusty after a day or two

[TheBassman238]

I find if i stop playing for 2 weeks and play again i notice i start to lose my agility and feel of the fret bord... but i never lose my ear sice even when i listen to a song on the radio i disect it...

Family first bass later... You can always get skill back but not family(that was deep)

-TBM

[FunkMetalBass]

instantly.

I have to constantly play, or I die.

[Saitoku]

I've had to neglect my bass quite a lot this last semester on account of my workload in class, but after a few days of solid practice I'm playing just as well as ever.

[tim_commerfordism]

I never really get worse, can you?. If i dont play for about 2+ weeks my technique and speed will deteriorate slightly, but nothing completely noticeably really.

[FenderJazz]

Approximately 3 weeks, 2 days, 5 hours, and 42 minutes.


Sorry to hear about your family. Good luck with that.

[apacherosepeacock]

mmm a month and a half is the longest iv gone without playing.... but then so much happened in that month i dunno whether i lost any skills or not- i think my speed and stamina probably went down a bit though.... got back to playing though - my fretless playing and my pitch and everything was as good as ever though

[FillInTheBlankHere___]

It all really depends what your current practice routine and skill level is at. I know that as a fairly serious classical performer, without a solid practice every day, I can notice differences in my playing.

However, I'm much less serious about electric bass, and as a result, I really don't notice much difference over the space of a week or so like most people have said.

[Low_End_Communications]

If I'm not playing bass, I'm usually playing bass, so my fretting hand will always be exercised, but my plucking fingers may get sore if I don't play at least a couple hours a week.

[TakeThePowerBack]

I didn't play much bass for a while, played a bit more guitar, and I just started up bass again and I'm playing a lot better.

[rhinestone04]

I completely agree with whoever said that you get better after a week of not playing. Longer than a week can be kind of iffy, but a week gives you time to shift your mind and maybe come up with new ideas and such. Infact, I feel like I start to lose skill after playing too much.

Also, I see skill as the application of technique. You never lose technique, but your skill level is relative to how much you play. Sure, your skill will go down, but you can build it back up. It's kind of like school sports in the sense that your at a certain skill level at the end of the season and it slowly declines till the next year. It's not that you'll lose a lot of skill, you'll just have to warm up a bit more and build it up (so basically, a day or two will get you back into it, unless you've abstained from bass playing for like a year).

Technique, however, doesn't fade. Sure, you may be sloppy when you pick up your bass, but you KNOW you are sloppy and therefore have perfect potential to clean it up. Technique is more of the knowledge of the physical actions rather than the actions themselves (IE, you won't forget how to slap but you may be sloppy at it at first and you'll know you're sloppy).