Here's yet another way to split up your daily practice time:

Warm-up: 10 minutes

Arpeggio Drills: 20 minutes

Speed Drills: 20 minutes

Freestyle: 10 minutes

Here's another way to split up your daily practice time:

Warm-up: 10 minutes

Scales: 10 (Pick one per day and work it!

New Song: 30 minutes

Freestyle: 10 minutes

Over the past several months, I've received several requests to offer a one-hour practice regimen. So, here's one way to fill an hour:

Warm-up: 10 minutes

Scales: 20 minutes

Sightreading: 20 minutes

Freestyle: 10 minutes

More to follow...

The best way to get better at sightreading is to do it regularly. Spend fifteen minutes a day sightreading for a month. You'll be amazed at your progress.

One of the most useful tips I've ever received about sightreading is to learn to read ahead in the music. If you're reading ahead, that intricate turnaround going into the bridge won't surprise you. So, just as you would while driving, keep your eyes open to what's up ahead and be prepared.

When you first look at a piece of sightreading, scan over the entire piece to get an overall sense of what you'll play. Make a mental note of the most difficult parts. Once you've gotten an overview, gothrough each of the hard parts you've noted. Check fingering and synchopation, and make notes on the page where needed.

Taking a minute or two to do through this process can help you perform the piece with far greater accuracy.

When sightreading, one of the most difficult things to deal with is syncopation. Here's a little trick I learned from the First Lady of Bass, Carol Kaye:

Multiply by two. In other words, if the song is in 4/4 time, think it in 8/8. This can often make it a lot easier to deal with the syncopated parts of the bass line.

I've mentioned this before, but since we've been looking at transcribing solos, it is worth repeating.

It is not required to transcribe in sequence. Often, it helps to find two notes that are a little apart from each other. The notes between the two you've found will be either between the two notes, aboe the higher of the two, or below the lower of the two. Just knowing that much will help you find all the notes in between.

This concept will also work with short prhases within the solo. Figure out one phrase, then figure out another. What you have learned will help you figure out the stuff in between.

Continuing on learning to solo, here's one we often don't think about -- learn from guitarists. No matter your chosen genre, you can get tons of soloing ideas from guitarists. Yes, I know, guitars have skinny strings. We tell guitarist jokes almost as often as we do drummer jokes. Get all those laughs out of your system, then get serious. This week, spend some time studying guitar solos, transcribing as much as possible.

Last week I told you to study some Bach. This week I'll offer a companion thought for budding soloists. Study horn players. Learn from them.

There are a ton of horn players out there, but the one whom everyone points to is Charlie Parker. You can cheat and buy the book - in Bass Clef even - or you can do what all your heroes did and transcribe his solos yourself.

Either way, you'll learn tons about note placement, phrasing and a whole lot more.

When I was teenager, I saw a documentary on Cream. Jack Bruce was (and still is) one of my heroes, so when I heard him say that Bach was the "gov'ner of all bass players," I paid attention. In fact, I spent the next three months studying Bach's bass lines.

Don't laugh. Jack was right! Analyze Bach and you'll discover two things:

1. He used darn near every chord progression found in today's music, and

2. His bass lines are powerful and melodic, propelling the music like a freight train.

So, grab some Bach piano or organ music and study the master.

For too many players don't really practice. Instead, they spend a little time playing things they already know. Certainly, you should warm up on scales, exercises and riffs you know well. This limbers up your fingers, and helps you get focused. After five to ten minutes, however, it's time to start working on things. If you're not working, you're not practicing. You're just playing, and that's very different. So... don't play. Practice!

Calluses are an integral part of playing bass. But sometimes they get too thick. If you're not careful, the can get so thick that they slow you down due to drag. You can also rip them right off the fingers, especially on the plucking hand, which means you have to start all over growing a good callus.

One easy way to keep them in check is to file them down slightly using a nail file. If you don't have one, ask your girlfriend for an old one.

We're still mixing up the notes of a scale to create new exercise patterns. This week's pattern -- play two, skip one and play again. Like this:

1 - 2 - 4 - 2 - 3 - 5 - 3 - 4 - 6 - 4 - 5 - 7 etc.

Play all the way up and down a two octave scale. As always, start at a slow tempo and work the speed up AFTER you've gotten the notes under your fingers.

Currently, we're mixing up the notes of a scale to create new exercise patterns. This week, play two notes at the beginning, then two at the end, like this:

1 - 2 - 8 - 7 - 2 - 3 - 7 - 6 - 3 - 4 - 6 - 5 etc.

Play all the way up and down (or down and up, from the top). As always, start at a slow tempo and work the speed up AFTER you've gotten the notes under your fingers.

For the past two weeks, we've been mixing up the rhythm we use to practice scales. We're done with that for the moment, but let me go back to mixing up the notes. Here's one that can be fun and challenging while teaching you the relationships between the notes.

Choose a one-octave scale as a base. Now, play it up AND down at the same time. Like this:

1 8 2 7 3 6 4 5 5 4 6 3 7 2 8 1

As always, start at a slow tempo and work the speed up AFTER you've gotten the notes under your fingers.

Continuing to mix up the rhythm when practicing scales, here's another variation on the theme. This time, alternate triplets and sixteenths. Two-octave scales work best for this exercise. Like this:

1-2-3 4-5-6-7 8-9-10 11-12-13-14 etc.

Here's one I just remembered this week. Play your scale as alternating eighth notes and triplets. Like this

1-2 3-4-5 6-7 8-7-6 5-4 3-2-1

This really helps cement the difference between eigthts and triplets in your mind. Plus, it's sort of fun!

For the past two weeks we've looked at building arpeggios from basic scales. If you have put time into this, you may have noticed that you can now outline any chord within the scale. So, now, when you see a chord you're not used to seeing, at least you know how to walk a bass line through that chord without stumbling.

By the way... you did practice this exercise on minor scales, too, right?

Building on last week, this week let's do 4-note arpeggios up and down the scale.

Play the scale as a series of four-note arpeggios, like this:

1 - 3 - 5 - 7 - 2 - 4 - 6 - 8 - 3 - 5 - 7 - 9 - 4 - 6 - 8 - 10

This time, as you work your way up through the scale, you're actually playing a series of arpeggios that outline each 7th chord - I, II (minor), etc. Make sure to use the natural 7th, no the dominant. It's best to do this one across two octaves, not one. So... off you go. Have fun!

Here's a fun little exercise to use once you've learned a basic scale. It works with pretty much any scale and can dramatically increase your ability to use it without having to think too much.

Play the scale as a series of three-not arpeggios, like this:

1 - 3 - 5 - 2 - 4 - 6 - 3 - 5 - 7 - 4 - 6 - 8

As you work your way up through the scale, you're actually playing a series of arpeggios that outline each chord - I, II (minor), etc. Have fun!

Last week, I suggested you make a list of all the things you'd like to address in the coming months. There are a few things to consider when planning your overall practice schedule:

1. Do the easy things first. If you need to work on left-hand accuracy, do that before working on speed drills.

2. Plan "Circuit Training". When you have more to practice than you can accomplish in a single session, plan a rotation so that each element of your plan is addressed every second or third day.

3. Tie areas together. Take a look at your list. Are there things that are closely related? Plan accordingly so that you are maximizing your return.

Yes, such careful consideration requires time and energy. The rewards, however, are worth it, in terms of time spent and progress made.

If you followed last week's advice, you took the time to review the past year's progress, and acknowledging your weak spots. The best way to address each item on your "work list" is to actually list them out, then spend a part of each practice routine addressing each one. If you have more things to do than you can address in a single session, you'll need to prioritize your list. We'll talk more about the next week. For now, grab a pencil and paper (or your practice journal!) and make your list.

This week, as you get your new year started, take the time to review all you've done in 2008. Make sure you take note of the advances, and give yourself credit. Look at the weak spots, and determine what you will do to improve in those areas. By taking the time to work through this process, you will gain a clear picture of where you want to go - and how to get there - in the coming year.