Hey, can any of you guys help me out with finding some stuff to practice other than just the songs the band's playing to help me improve quicker?
Bassing
-
- Rated: 5 ↑
Aug 20, 2007 8:20 a.m. IlovetheRamonesandShostakovich:
-
- Rated: 41 ↑
Aug 20, 2007 10:11 a.m. dubkitty:
the number one thing that got me going on bass was learning/working with jazz-style "walking bass" lines...i picked up the bass when i was going to San Francisco City College in the mid-80s and took a jazz improv lab course in a class which had seven guitars and no bass. the instructor implored someone to play bass, and i figured "hey, this is my opportunity to learn." we had two pieces of music that we worked on all semester, one of which was a Freddie Hubbard blues in "F," and by the end of the semester i could walk in the key of F like a mofo.
please pardon me if i'm telling you stuff you already know, but walking a bass line is basically connecting the notes of a major chord or dominant-7th chord with passing tones...if you wind up on any one of the notes in the chord on the 1 and 3, you can get by, kind of like the way that you can busk your way through with only a little knowledge of mandolin if you just comp on the 2 and 4. if this interests you, just try playing a simple 12-bar blues progression and mess with different stuff. at first i found it easiest to be relatively linear, walking up from the tonic on the low string to the tonic an octave above in two bars and then back again (which you can accomplish in the most primitive way by simply playing a major scale with a passing tone or 2), but once you're comfortable with it you can jump all over inside that sequence.
the other thing i found to be of pivotal importance is to work on getting locked in with the drummer...when i played bass in rock jams, i used to actually stand in front of the drummer with my foot touching the bass drum, so i could feel the kick drum hits as closely as possible.
hope this helps!
-
- Rated: 40 ↑
Aug 20, 2007 10:19 a.m. Pseudo Man:
Good advice Dubkitty.
-
- Rated: 41 ↑
Aug 20, 2007 10:42 a.m. dubkitty:
i spent years figuring out some of these things, and if i can pass them on and save someone else the stumble time, i'm happy.
-
- Rated: 41 ↑
Aug 20, 2007 1:31 p.m. dubkitty:
the other thing i probably ought to talk about is the fact that you have to think of playing bass in a totally different way to playing guitar...typically when i try to record stuff, i wind up having to take out at least 50% of the notes from my original bass part because it's just too busy. fewer notes is almost always better than more when playing bass, unless you're playing jazz-fusion or jam-band music. but one's typical approach to guitar, especially for lead players, is to put as much as you can into an individual part. because bass notes have such an emphatic character to them, and such a long waveform, if you get too many notes going it makes the whole bottom end sound muddy...visualize those long bass-note waveforms going out into a room, and how quickly they'd begin to cancel each other out.
if you look at bassists who play a whole lot of notes in a piece of music, say, Stanley Clarke, Chris Squire in Yes, Geddy Lee in Rush, or Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead, they tend to use a tone with a lot of treble and a very clear, controlled tone in the bottom. you almost HAVE to do that if you're going to play a whole lotta notes. you've got a certain advantage here in that as a viola player (violist?) you've got some exposure to orchestral writing and the idea of relatively simple parts combining to create a complex whole.
-
- Rated: 28 ↑
Aug 20, 2007 1:45 p.m. cyclopssam:
learn yer modes&pick random notes on the fret board always fun!
-
- Rated: 24 ↑
Aug 20, 2007 2:53 p.m. Parabar:
I'd also recommend studying Motown, Stax and reggae bass styles. The bass parts are key to driving the music, but do so with simplicity, tone and feel, and those concepts can be translated to other styles too.
-
- Rated: 41 ↑
Aug 20, 2007 3:07 p.m. dubkitty:
absolutely...a lot of the bass playing in punk and post-punk (e.g. the Clash, PiL, early U2) is derived from reggae in particular. "Gloria" by U2 is a perfect example, with Adam's dubwise bass rumbling around the Edge's echoing harmonics in the chorus.
-
- Rated: 41 ↑
Aug 20, 2007 6:08 p.m. bwallace1:
another good example of a bass player is a friend of mine that played for Sly and the Family Stone. his name is Larry Graham. he's also played bass with Prince some. Larry has his on style and he's pretty good, too.
-
- Rated: 41 ↑
Aug 20, 2007 6:16 p.m. dubkitty:
he'd be the source if you're trying to do the slap-and-pop style of bass playing as seen in funk bands...after all, he invented it.
-
- Rated: 17 ↑
Aug 20, 2007 6:58 p.m. CnW:
Playing bass is a lot of fun! Our bass player likes to walk---a lot. He gets more compliments for playing quarter-notes than I get for playing 16ths! Our lead singer asked me if I played any other instruments. When I listed bass, he protested. "Isn't that the same as guitar?" he asked.
(Everybody here could have answered him in unison).......
Only if you approach it that way. As a bass player I've never been told I needed to put more notes in. But how you use those notes is everything. It's a feel thang. Dubkat knows whereof he speaks.
-
- Rated: 204 ↑
Aug 20, 2007 8:19 p.m. Proteus:
All good advice.
If, as an orchestral kinda girl, you'd like to explore more fluid bass-playing that fills an expanded role in an ensemble, you might listen to Tony Levin and/or Trey Gunn. They both play touch-style 10-or-more stringed instruments which include not only bass register, but higher ranges as well.
Which is not why to listen to them (except to realize that sometimes they're playing a couple of musical lines simultaneously in different areas of the instrument). The reason to listen is that they both have an absolute command of a number of ways bass can work in a piece of music, from punchy/funky/stacatto to melodic, slinky, and legato. In fact, very bowed-like techniques – except that the parts are not bowed.
You can hear them in various versions of King Crimson, as well as in solo and side-band projects.
-
- Rated: 41 ↑
Aug 20, 2007 8:36 p.m. dubkitty:
Tony has also played with a host of other people, ranging from John Lennon to Peter Gabriel...his playing is especially prominent on the Gabriel albums "Security" and "So."
-
- Rated: 5 ↑
Aug 21, 2007 9:15 p.m. IlovetheRamonesandShostakovich:
Cool, thanks for the advice everyone! If anyone neeeds any advice on classical string playing, let me know =P
-
- Rated: 0 ↑
Aug 22, 2007 8:50 a.m. dmartin:
This post has been deleted
-
- Rated: 25 ↑
Mar 13, 2008 12:38 p.m. Shuie:
Randomly cruising around Youtube, I found this link-
http://uk.youtube.com/user/zumazmusic
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rouMhpYVcX8
The guy shows how to play some of those 80's basslines that I'd just never paid any attention to, but are actually lovely pieces of work. Intricate, solid, supportive and surprisingly adventurous. From bands like Duran Duran, Kajagoogoo, and Haircut 100. The guy plays very well, playing the original line with the track and then a bit of slowed-down explaining.
Nice change from the James Jamerson, Paul McCartney and Jerry Scheff I usually enjoy working on.
