We're so back - 22/10/24
Hi! Been a while, huh? Let's pick back up where we left off, journaling and playing bass.
I'm still journaling, I now integrated the calendar/habit-tracking system I used to have, here's how it works.
For the current month, I have a double page spread. A line for each day, where I write an event or an appointment I have to go to, then
what habits I did that day. After that I have a space for stuff scheduled in the next months, and a memo on the habits I'm tracking.
Usually, people have a column for each habit, however that would take up too much space on the page, and so I have a unique system (at least I think it is, I haven't seen anyone else do this) where I use a compound symbol. Each habit is a line of the symbol for the day, and they combine to make a full symbol.
The habits I track are ridiculously easy to do, for example "Write one sentence", "Transcribe 1 measure of music by ear", even my bass practice routine is heavily simplified. I usually do more than the minimum (expect learning by ear, that shit is tough).
I heavily toned down my standards for what a good practice routine should be, last post I said that it should be around an hour, but even
then that's too much for the days where I feel like shit, and it had a lot of steps (Physical warmup, scales, practice known song, learn
new song, bla-bla-bla...).
I pretty much simplified it to two steps, practice a known song or exercise, and work on a new song (by ear). If I were to really just do the
bare minimum of these two things, it should take about 10 minutes, but when I'm having fun and I'm engaged, I can play for up to an hour.
At the end I write about the day's practice session in my journal.
By the way, I'm not ampless anymore! I got a used Hartke HD25 combo amp for under 100 Munies. It's way bigger, heavier, and louder than I
expected. Posts on Reddit and Talkbass exaggerating how quiet 25 Watts are had me thinking I was about to get a tiny little baby amp, however
the pain I felt in my arms from having to carry it all the way back home says otherwise. I'm still sore.
I finally got cables, and it feels so good to hear myself clearly, I still need to have the volume dialed all the way down or else I'll
get noise complaints. It feels very weird to have the sound actually bounce around the walls of my room, and the bass be more or less
prominent based on where I'm standing.
I got way more to talk about, but this post is already long enough, and I don't want to bludgeon you with more information, the next post should come soon. Cya!