Forgot how much I missed bass!

[Bassinator89]

I haven't played in a very long time, and I even sold my amp. Then recently I got an acoustic guitar but it's not the same. So today I took out my ol' schecter bass and took a whirl around here and remembered how much I missed bass playing and the whole culture of people around it.

I'm going to start playing again, and I was just wondering what anyone else did after a long hiatus to bring themselves back up to speed quickly?

[fathergoat]

Yeah. I quit for a year and a half, which isn't much but still. My sight reading was ****, and I couldn't remember much in general.

After the hiatus I went back into it using better technique and such so I guess it wasn't a complete waste.

[Sammy_L_D]

Hahahaha! Another old poster.

I haven't taken a hiatus from any instrument. I don't play bass as much these days though except for Church really.

[Naminator]

The longest hiatus I've experienced is about a week.

Stupid msn was the **** back then.

[jollygiantchris]

yeah I was physically unable to play from july 06' until august 07' didn't take long to get back into it at all and i took the opportunity to clean up my technique a lot

its like riding a bike it's just getting the finger strength back up to speed

all i did to get back up to speed was play a LOT i did my practice routine which is something like

-10 minutes speed exercises as a warmup (half with pick half without)
-20 minutes running over old material (practicing difficult to play parts mostly)
-Improvising and recording an off the cuff solo in a randomly selected minor key usually 3-6 minutes long
-Writing bass lines until i run out of ideas can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 1.5 hours then recording them and writing them down
-Improving and recording an off the cuff solo in a randomly selected major key usually 3-6 minutes long <---i don't always do this solo because i don't like playing i have feel that i have difficulty expressing myself in major keys and really thats what soloing is all about

afterwards i will sit down and listen to what ive recorded and organize them appropriately and i will listen to my solos and think about the parts i liked and didn't like and imagine how i could have made the solo more interesting and if theres any sections or lines from the solos i can pull out into complete basslines

during my time being unable to play bass i decided when i was able to play again that i would take it a lot more seriously then i previously did so ive only started using this practice regimen the past since mid September or so but it has been EXTREMELY beneficial to my playing and you might notice i spend almost all my time writing/composing personally i began playing bass because i wanted to write my own music so thats how i practice but each to his own but if you do what i do you will get back up to speed very fast :) and just remember playing an instrument is just like anything else in life you get out of it what you put into it

[ohcleverhansyou]

I'm suffering from bass withdrawal too, I won't be able to play for another two months. My bass playing sounds better in my head than real life, so maybe it's for the best.

[Richi]

I took an intentional break from bass over the summer. When I got back to college, I sat down with a drummer, told him that I hadn't played for 3 months and just asked him to jam with me while I got back up to speed. So we did and everything came back like second nature.

So my advise is to sit down with either a drummer or a drum machine and just jam. Get back into the swing of groovin and you'll be set.