Dream Theater bass virtuoso John Myung is featured in a new article published by Guitar & Bass magazine, offering up Top 10 tips to becoming a better player. Following is an excerpt from Myung's rundown.

Warm Up

Myung: "Warming up is something all musicians should do and it’s something that’s related directly to maintaining the physicality of playing the bass. It’s really important to warm up so as to avoid suffering the negative side-effects of over-playing, such as tendinitis. When you start to practise, just play slow and try to play slow for a while – at least 20 minutes to an hour. Whatever it is that you’re doing, play slow and build from there.

We tend to forget sometimes that playing an instrument is a physical activity and there are muscles involved that you shouldn’t simply shock into action. I think with any athlete, and there’s a definite athletic correlation to playing, it’s best to always warm up. Do your best to play slowly and carefully before you actually go for it.

It’s only when you rush that you wind up hurting yourself. My warm-up is often just playing a simple pattern and moving it up in half steps to the very top of the neck, then working my way back down. If you can’t think of something cool to play, just work on a scale. That’s cool enough!"

Find Role Models And Heroes To Aspire To

Myung: "It’s essential to help you grow and develop, especially when you’ve only just started to play bass. I really loved Geddy Lee of Rush, Chris Squire of Yes and Steve Harris from Iron Maiden. I really identified with the music from those bands, and I tried to combine the harmony and adventurousness of the arrangements of Yes with the metal-esque edge from Iron maiden.

Then add to this Rush’s indefinable chemistry and ability to write tracks that are just really interesting to listen to. Those three bands really got me motivated to start playing. It was very much playing along to their records that made me want to be part of a band.

But I also studied classical and jazz musicians, and their discipline, sense of organisation and how they play was a whole other great resource of information to draw from. My job is to be aware of all these great resources that are there and try to draw from them and organise how that works in my playing the best that I can. That’s what you have to do to evolve."

Learn How To Be A Team Player

Myung: "When you’re playing in a group, whether it’s your first, second or 25th, you’re immersing yourself with individuals and the goal is to create meaningful music. The important thing to realise is that meaningful music comes with everyone’s respect for one another and everyone doing their part to make it the best it could possibly be.

So it’s very much about learning how to be a team player. One of the standard problems or issues in any situation is that there’ll be songs you really love and songs you don’t love as much. With the latter, the solution is very much about figuring out a way of getting to that point where you play just as well, just as passionately on your least favourite songs.

And when you’re looking for the source of the problem, start with yourself. Maybe you’re playing it the wrong way or with the wrong approach. So maybe just changing your approach could lead you to the place where you’re playing the song better and appreciating it more."

Go to this location for Myung's complete list.