...that 95% Plus Of Other Bass Books And Courses Don't Have

In the previous articles in this series I've been sharing some stories from back in the days when due to a string of upcoming gigs - that kept me from being an archetypal starving musican! - I had to learn how to play walking bass to a reasonable level in just 9 days.

Now yesterday I told you that the book that did the trick for me was Ed Friedland's book BUILDING WALKING BASS LINES.  And I ALSO told you that I made more progress with my bass playing in the 80-100 hours I was practicing with that book than I had in the previous 4 or 5 years of my bass studies.

At the time I didn't think much about that.

Or why it was.

Or why Ed's book had ticked the boxes for me.

But as they say hindsight is a wonderful thing.

And with the benefit of it, the main reason for all these things was that the way Ed's book is laid out, WHEN COMBINED WITH THE APPROACH I TOOK TO LEARNING FROM IT, created 80-100 hours of practice that were almost perfectly aligned with the principles of deliberate practice.

Now you may not know much about deliberate practice - a guy called Malcolm Gladwell popularized it in a 2008 book called Outliers.  Now most people get their knowledge of deliberate practice from Gladwell - and that's a mighty shame because Gladwell misinterpreted what deliberate practice is and what constitutes deliberate practice in favour of a catchy slogan: The 10,000 Hour rule.

However one of the things that Gladwell didn't explicitly state - and that people therefore don't know how to correctly interpret - is that it isn't 10,000 (or however many hours)  of practice that's the key, it's that the hours of practice that you put in are done with a system that uses as many of the principles of deliberate practice as possible.

As per my story, approx 100 hours of deliberate practice was enough to improve my bass playing more than in the previous 4 or 5 years (which included 18-20 months with a teacher touted as the best private teacher in the UK - with the benefit of that same hindsight it turned out his teachings were almost 180 degrees contrary to the principles of deliberate practice).

Now back then, I managed those 100 hours or so in 9 days.

Like you, I'd struggle to do that now due to work commitments, family commitments, etc.

But 100 hours can be racked up in a little over three months by most people.

And if you're using deliberate practice to guide and inform your learning you'll surprise yourself with how much progress you'll make.

I'll circle back to the intersection of deliberate pratice and walking bass lines in the 5th (and final) article in this series.

In the next article I want to talk about the three reasons why I believe every bass player should learn to 'walk' on the bass.  Click the blue CONTINUE button below to find out what those reasons are!

Previous Articles In The Series

1. Why I Had To Learn To "Walk" On The Bass - https://how-to-play-bass.com/bwblw-had-to-learn

2.  How I Got Through My First "Walking" Gig With 10 Days Practice - https://how-to-play-bass.com/bwblw-first-walking-gig