30 minutes a day. five blocks. no wasted reps. the whole routine is on this page — free, no signup, no email.

most people do not need more practice time. they need the time to count.

1. 01

   one variable at a time

   change the tempo or change the notes. never both. if you cannot name the one thing you are working on right now, you are not practicing.

2. 02

   find the tempo ceiling

   your real tempo is the fastest you can play it five times clean in a row. not four. drop the metronome ten bpm below that and live there.

3. 03

   isolate, do not run through

   playing a song start to finish is performing. loop the two bars that break, at half speed, until they stop breaking.

4. 04

   record one take

   phone mic, one take, listen back. you will hear timing and buzz that you cannot hear while your hands are busy.

5. 05

   log it or it did not happen

   date, tempo, what broke. two lines. next session starts where the last one ended instead of starting over.

same five slots, same order, every day. set a timer for each one and stop when it goes off — even mid-phrase. the timer is the point.

1. 5min

   hands

   warm up and buy back your left-hand independence

   one finger per fret, metronome at 60. play 1-2-3-4 up the neck, then permute the order: 1-3-2-4, 1-4-2-3, 2-1-4-3, 4-3-2-1. no buzz, no cramping. if your hand aches you are squeezing the neck instead of fretting it.

2. 5min

   time

   put the click where it is uncomfortable

   halve the metronome and hear it on beats 2 and 4 instead of every beat. one note, quarter notes, then eighths, then sixteenths, then back down. last minute: mute the click for two bars and keep playing — check whether you are still with it when it comes back.

3. 7min

   fretboard

   know where you are without looking

   pick one note and find every instance of it on the neck in 60 seconds, saying it out loud. then octave shapes from each string. then this week’s scale, two octaves, up and down, eyes off the neck.

4. 8min

   tunes

   one 8-bar section of a real song, by ear

   no tab first. loop eight bars, find the root movement, then the rhythm, then the fills. check tab at the end to catch what you missed. eight bars learned properly beats a whole song learned wrong.

5. 5min

   play

   free groove — no metronome, no goal

   play whatever is in your hands. this is the block everyone skips and it is the one that makes you sound like you and not like an exercise book.

four bars of tab beats four paragraphs of theory. low e on the bottom, standard tuning.

G |------------------------------------1--2--3--4|
D |------------------------1--2--3--4------------|
A |------------1--2--3--4------------------------|
E |--1--2--3--4----------------------------------|

G |-------------------|
D |-------------3-----|
A |------3------------|
E |--1----------------|

G |----------------------------|
D |----------------------------|
A |--------------5---x---5-----|
E |--3---x---3-----------------|

G |-------------------|-------------------|-----------|
D |-------------------|------2---5---4----|-----------|
A |------1---5---4----|--3----------------|-----------|
E |--3----------------|-------------------|--1--------|

a short session you actually do beats a long one you keep postponing. pick the one that fits the day and run it properly.

the block does not change. only the fretboard slot does. run the cycle, then start over with a harder tune.

1. week 1

   roots, fifths, octaves

   the three shapes that get you through most of a gig. every song you touch this week: find the root and the fifth without thinking about it. name the notes out loud while you play them.

2. week 2

   pentatonics and walking

   minor and major pentatonic, two octaves, one position per day. then walking: root, third, fifth, approach. play it over a ii-v-i until the approach note stops being a decision.

3. week 3

   muting, ghost notes, dynamics

   the same lines you already know, but quieter. left-hand mute, right-hand mute, ghost notes on the off-beats. record it. the goal is that the groove reads even with the pitch taken away.

4. week 4

   transcribe eight bars

   by ear, no tab, written down, played back at tempo with the record. this is the week that converts everything above into something you actually own. then start again at week 1 with a harder tune.

the routine above is yours — no account, no email, nothing held back. a free bassmapper account is just where it lives: the block, the timer, and the fretboard maps for every key in it. no card, no trial clock.

still want a human? get in touch.