Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I think I can divide the instruments that I play into three categories: those that I don't practie, those that I do practice, and those that I really have the best of intentions to practice but ... Okay, maybe a fourth: instruments I know how to play and would practice if I owned them.

I don't practice guitar, really. Oh, I practice tunes on the guitar, but I'm practicing the tunes -- I don't really sit down with the guitar and say, "I'm going to practice guitar now; I'm going to work on speed, or such-and-such technique." I play the guitar, and whatever practice I get happens while I'm playing. (I'm not discounting the idea that I should practice, only noting that I basically don't.)

The same is true of bass guitar, and most of the time also the mandolin (though if it's been a while since I've touched a mandolin, I'll spend a few minutes running through chords and work on left pinkie accuracy). Also for recorder and hand percussion, though those really go in the "well I mean to practice but..." category, since I know my tone and breath control need a bit of work, and there are some drum patterns I have to think about too much when I play them.

And then there's the double bass, which I do practice -- not every day like I intend to, but three or four times a week. The thing is, taking it to Three Left Feet rehearsals is mostly practicing those tunes on the double bass, but pulling it out in my dining room in the afternoon is specifically to work on technique, tone, precision, intonation, bowing, etc. When I pick up the electric bass guitar in my bedroom, I'm just running through tunes or composing new ones ... keeping my hands familiar with the instrument and my calluses firm, yes, but really more "playing" than "practicing". On the double bass I do the boring "work on getting better at playing this instrument" stuff. Before my oud pulled itself apart again, I practiced the oud as well.

I know I said that the left hand would come easy on the double bass because it's just like a slightly longer bass guitar, and as far as being able to just pick up the instrument and pluck tunes that's been pretty much the case in first position, but since it lacks frets, some extra time working on intonation seems like a good idea, and I'm trying to get used to using my left hand a little more like the descriptions in the method books and a little less like a sloppy folk-guitarist (I hook me thumb, and I'm trying not to). And I'm still working on positions other than first. And the bow is still a very thing for me. Basically, I was ready to play familiar first-position guitar and bass guitar lines in front of an audience after the first few days, but still need to work on being solid beyond that.

On the oud, I was practicing scales with quarter-tones in them, as well as technique. Ooh, come to think of at, I can play those on the double bass as well ... Uh, later, I think.

I also practice on the drum kit -- not playing familiar tunes at all, just working on technique, patterns, getting into and out of patterns, getting back from fills, even the snare drum "rudiments". (Hey, a paradiddle comes in handy when moving around the set of Roto-Toms, all the more so if you don't have to think about it to do it.) But it's been ages since I ran scales on a guitar for more than about twenty seconds, and when I decided to learn how to do a rasqueado the way it's described in the books (leading with the pinkie) instead of the way I invented before I knew there was a name for it (leading with the index finger), I just made a mental note to start doing it that way at band rehearsals until I got used to it -- I never sat down and practiced doing proper rasqueados. (For the record, I currently play them both ways, depending on where my fingers are going next.)

So there are instruments I play but don't really practice, and other instrumnents that I do practice.

And then there's the piano, which I keep meaning to practice but seldom get around to, and the baritone horn and trombone, which I mean to work on but am still a bit intimidated by (I'm not used to sounding that bad on an instrument, and horns are so different from anything else I play that I didn't jump into that with a head-start as I do with most instruments). If I had a saxophone or a clarinet, I would practice those.

Lately I've been thinking that I should just have all of my instruments that I don't take out of the house on a regular basis, out of their cases and arranged in one room, and make a schedule to practice each in rotation, a few every day.

Speaking of instruments that regularly leave the house, I'm starting to think that the double bass is just too much to carry if I'm also going to be playing anything else. I can handle two guitars, or two guitars and the recorders, or one guitar, recorders, and a drum or two, but the double bass plus anything else means two trips from the car and at least one of those trips carrying a really awkward load. It'd be worth it if that were the only instrument I was playing, or I suppose for a recording session, but as much as I like the double bass and as much as I like having that low octave sounding out, the fun is offest a bit by the hassle and I'm not sure the strong low register is important enough to anyone other than me. So I'm thinking of hauling it up to the music room on the third floor, where I can leave it out of its case and not so much in my way as it is in my dining room, so that I'll actually practice it more often, instead of keeping it on the ground floor for ease of carrying out to the car.

And as long as I'm writing about music: the sheet music I ordered arrived today. Whee!