A common, but not easily recognized barrier to productive practicing, is simply the waste of practice time. When asking students the question, "What did you practice this week?" they often respond by telling me how much they played the bass. It is important to recognize that having the instrument in your hand does not necessarily result in practice. A major step in developing good practice technique is to learn to stop noodling. When you touch your bass, and you are not playing music that you have previously decided as your task to work on, then chances are, you are noodling.

I have found that when we add up a student's practice time and then make a list of topics covered, the result is that the majority of time was not spent practicing. Here is a simple technique I encourage you to try. For the next seven days, when you pick up your bass, if you are not practicing, put the instrument down. Decide what you want to practice, and pick up the bass again.

Write on a piece of paper the time you spend noodling and the time you spent practicing. If you cannot list the topics you have worked on each time you practiced, you are probably still not being honest with yourself. "Well, I just sort of jammed and worked on improvising a lot," is a poor substitute for practicing.