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There’s an old Greek story about a wrestler named Milo of Croton.
He won the wrestling at the Olympic Games six times, the first time as a boy, back around 540 BC. People were telling stories about his strength for centuries afterward. And the legend of how he got that strong goes like this.
Milo of Croton and the calf
When he was young, a calf was born nearby. Milo picked it up and carried it on his shoulders. The next day he did it again. And the next. Every day the calf got a little heavier, and every day Milo carried it, until one day he was walking around with a full-grown bull on his back.
The Roman teacher Quintilian, writing some six centuries later, got it down to one sentence. In H. E. Butler’s English translation: “Milo, having accustomed himself to carrying a calf every day, ended by carrying it when grown to a bull.”
It’s almost certainly not literally true. But strength coaches still tell it, because it’s how strength works. Find the most you can handle today, work right at it, and let it climb a little at a time. In the gym they call it progressive overload.
Speed on the bass works the same way, and almost nobody practices it like that.
How most of us practice speed
What most of us do instead:
We put on a comfortable tempo, play along, feel fine, and never get any faster. Or we crank the metronome way past what our hands can do, flail for a while, and decide we’re just not fast players.
The first one is carrying the same calf every day and never letting it grow. The second one is walking up to a full-grown bull on day one.
Find your max tempo and train right at it
Do the Milo thing instead. Find your max tempo, train right at it, and watch it go up, the same way adding weight works in the gym. Minutes a day, not hours.
- Find your max. Write down the fastest tempo you can play.
- Stay there. Practice at that tempo until it becomes comfortable.
- Raise the bar. Once it’s comfortable, there’s a new max tempo.
- Stop when you tense up. Don’t play if you’re not relaxed. The second you sense yourself tensing up, stop.
That’s the same thing I have my students do. It works like lifting weights or running, because when we play fast, we’re engaging in a very physical activity.
Most of that speed comes from your right hand. Here are three right hand drills for upright bass speed to work on, and here’s what to do when somebody counts off a walking tune at 300.
Milo didn’t start with the bull. Write down today’s max tempo, and carry it every day until it’s comfortable.
Go deeper
Rhythm Changes in All 12 Keys at 400 BPM
Rhythm changes in all 12 keys at 400 beats per minute, five choruses each, plus a written-out bass line for every key.
