In my last post, I talked about the fact that I needed to work on time management. I have been thoroughly failing at this. I’ve been having pretty big issues with motivation and the longer I go without getting enough work done, the more stressed I get about that work and the less I ultimately get done. I’m the type of person who avoids stress with distraction and procrastination, so as I’ve become more overwhelmed by the work I’m not getting done, I’ve had to find new things to do to keep myself from liquefying into a puddle of panic and guilt.
Excuses, excuses, I know, but cut me some slack, it’s a rough time we’re in. Of course, I can admit that the distractions I commonly turn to might not be the best. My most common distraction is YouTube, and I normally have a solid backlog of videos in my Watch Later, and though I’ve found a lot of great new content to watch, I’ve been whittling it down enough that I’m rapidly losing it as a distraction. Thus, I’ve had to find a new distraction and have taken the opportunity to do something that I’ve wanted to do for several years: learning bass.
Two years ago, a friend of mine had a cheap starter bass that he didn’t need. Looking to make a quick buck, he sold it to me for $20. It clearly wasn’t anything special, but it was a solid starter. I attempted to play with it for a little after I got it, but the songs I wanted to play were far outside my beginner’s ability. You can’t exactly go straight to Les Claypool’s crazy slap bass on your first day. I’m sure I could’ve found easier songs to play, but at the time it wasn’t really a priority, so I ended up focusing more on guitar instead, where I had a few years of experience.
Since then, my bass sat in my closet, accumulating dust. When I found out I would be stuck here at Rowan in quarantine, I pulled the bass out of storage while I was visiting home and brought it back here. A few days ago I finally tried to play it, and the effects of long term storage were obvious. The strings buzzed like hornets in a tin can and the first three frets on every string were dead notes. After some research, I found out this could be fixed by adjusting the truss rod in the neck to give the neck a bit more of a bow. This scared the shit out of me. I had deliberately avoided doing maintenance like this on my guitars, instead paying to have them professionally set up and being careful with them to avoid needing it done again. I couldn’t do this for my bass, as COVID-19 will have closed down Guitar Centers (and I’m cheap and don’t want to spend the money), so I did it myself. It was nerve-wracking doing it on my own for the first time, but at least I know how to do it now.
I’m by no means good at it yet. I’ve looked up some easier songs to learn and am trying to pick up more simple, fundamental techniques before I really get into slap. I’ve got some blisters forming on my right hand, which is a real pain in the ass to type with. That’s what I get for not using a pick, but I’ve been told using a pick on bass is something of a sin, and besides, it’s more fun without one. In any case, I’m going to try and get at least a little practice daily, and maybe with this addition I can get back into the groove of getting things done. Lord knows I need the motivation. Besides, I’ve been told that time management is easier when you have less time, so maybe keeping myself more actively busy instead of passively distracted will help in the long run.
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