This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he shares the one habit that separates more experienced players from the rest: accurate rests.
I review a lot of practice videos from students, and it teaches me just as much as it teaches them. There’s one thing I notice that makes me think, “this person’s good — they’ve probably had real music lessons before.”
It’s accurate rest timing.
A surprising number of players nail every eighth note and quarter note in a phrase, but then just let the last note ring out indefinitely instead of stopping it. If the notation says “half rest,” the correct performance is two full beats of actual silence.
The more advanced a player is, the more precisely they tend to respect rests and note lengths exactly as written.
I noticed this constantly back when I used to host jam sessions, too — the stronger players in the room were almost always the ones with the most accurate rests.
This is something you can improve a lot just by paying attention day to day, so if you’re self-taught, it’s well worth focusing on rest length specifically. I’m reminding myself here too — it’s easy to get sloppy about it in daily practice.
I’ve also made a basic drill video for practicing accurate rests and note lengths. Just press play and run through 7 minutes of daily basic practice.
Subscribe to my YouTube channel here for more daily practice videos like this.
Timing details like rest length are easy to overlook in your own playing — exactly the kind of thing a teacher catches in seconds.
Want Personalized Feedback on Your Playing?
This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to fix alone — and where having a teacher makes all the difference.
At Line on Bass, I offer an online lesson service where you send me a video of your playing, and I give you specific, detailed feedback — every single day if you want.
Students from around the world are using this to fix exactly these kinds of issues and steadily improve their jazz bass skills.