You have to shed before you shred

Practice.  It is my temple.  Everybody does it differently.  For me, the most important thing is to pick up my instrument every day.  Noticeable improvements in my playing have not happened over night.  They happen when I develop a way to challenge myself consistently for a long period of time.  I have recently developed a way to practice scales.  This year I was introduced to the Francois Rabbath technique (vol.3) of practicing scales.  This was a finger-opener for me, as I learned to play scales up and down each string, across the neck horizontally at each position, diagonally, backwards, and in intervals.  Working through this book was wonderful, but he only covers the major and minor scale.  

As an improvisor, I need to have more than two scales up my sleeve.  So, I began using his philosophy, and applying it not only to the major and minor scales, but also all of the modes of major, minor, harmonic minor, melodic minor, gypsy scales, augmented scales, pentatonic scales, and symmetrical scales.  When I first started working through the book, I would practice one key a day.  In the morning concentrating on the fingering, and in the evening concentrating on the bowing.  This was OK when dealing with one scale at a time.  But when you want to practice all of the scales, it becomes overwhelming, corners are cut, and the muscle memory does not stick.  

I began to assign a mode to each day of the week, and played that mode in each key, going down in 4ths or up in 5ths depending on if that week I was practicing the scale from top to bottom or from bottom to top.  I would practice the scale on each string, then crossing over at different places on the neck, always to a metronome.  However, I found that there were still more scales I wanted to practice, and practicing all twelve keys every day didn't allow for enough focus.  And besides, practicing the scales should be the warm-up of the day, leaving room for learning tunes, reading, transcribing, arranging, composing, working through rhythm exercises, and crooning at the piano.  

Now, every day is assigned three scales, and two keys (a tritone apart).  The scales are always assigned to the same day, but each week brings a new set of keys.  For example, Wednesday's scales are Lydian, Harmonic minor, and Augmented.  This week I will practice these scales in B-flat and E, and next week I will practice them in F and B.  This way, every six weeks, I have practiced every scale in every key.  It also allows me to focus on two keys a day, and really get them under my fingers.  It is also convenient that the two keys are a tritone apart, because in some scales, like the diminished scales, there will be overlap.  I have it in on a chart, and each week I move over a paperclip, which tells me which keys I am to practice.

So I practice six scales a day (three scales in two different keys).  I practice them up and down, in intervals, horizontally, vertically, as arpeggios, and then I improvise on them.  Then I move on to what the bulk of my practice should be.  Right now I am working out of Oscar Stagnaro's Latin Bass Book, 

a great play-along which helps me feel rhythms and sight read.  There is also a section on some South American rhythms in a fast 5/8, which is still hard for me to feel.  I find that I am used to playing odd time signatures, like in 5 or 7, a bit slower.  When you speed it up, the feel changes, and you have to feel the "big 5" or 7, feeling everything in half notes.  I have found some Greek and Balkan music challenging for this reason.  I have also been transcribing - Slam Stewart solos off of Bird recordings, Mingus tunes from his UCLA concert.  I have been arranging - I want to play a Ravel string quartet as a duo, which is fun because I get to decide which parts are the most crucial, and which can be implied.  Composing - a couple little melodies, some with words.  My friend Ben Davis tells me he will give me a lesson in Indian and African rhythms sometime this week out of a book his teacher at the New England Conservatory published.  I also have a Astor Piazzolla score coming to me in the mail - a contrabass tune he composed called "Kicho."  

So, I have my hands full.  Less talk, more rock.