I've played bass for about a year and I decided that a way to help me improve would be to show some of my stuff to bassists who are about 2000x better than me. I'm looking for critique, something to help me improve as a musician.

This is me playing around with a G Blues Scale, all the notes I played are within 2 shifts, so it doesn't really move much around the neck.
http://www.garageband.com/mp3player?|pe1|SMHcLXHdpu3JOQW6Z2BjBpsw

Now before you guys go off on me I think I should first evaluate my playing and say what I think I need improvement on.

Tone isn't great, there are a few spots where I accidentally hit a string and create a bit of noise.

A few spots where I hesitated when I played sounded really bad.

Some spots get pretty repetitive, so I need to work on making it sound more interesting.

My overall volume consistency was bad, some notes were played way louder than others.



So please add in, say if I did anything good, and please help me to grow as a bassist.

It sounds like you might be moving your hand a lot. Try using your fingers more while keeping your hand as stationary as possible. Also the song does not stay in time, you might consider recording against a drum track to improve that.

Otherwise, not too bad. :)

It sounds like you might be moving your hand a lot. Try using your fingers more while keeping your hand as stationary as possible. Also the song does not stay in time, you might consider recording against a drum track to improve that.

Otherwise, not too bad. :)

I recorded on my MP3 player and I don't have a metronome or anything in my room, although now that I think of it I can probably just burn some drum tracks to a cd and play over it.

Thanks for the comment though, it really helps.

First thing I noticed was your lack of timing. Try playing with a click track or a drum track to help tighten that up. Second thing I noticed is that your attack is off... some notes are really strong and jump out at you, others are too weak and don't fit in continuity with the rest of the groove. That is probably weakness in your fingers doing that.

Lots of string noise too, but that goes away with practice. Just $.02! Otherwise, very good start!

First thing I noticed was your lack of timing. Try playing with a click track or a drum track to help tighten that up. Second thing I noticed is that your attack is off... some notes are really strong and jump out at you, others are too weak and don't fit in continuity with the rest of the groove. That is probably weakness in your fingers doing that.

Lots of string noise too, but that goes away with practice. Just $.02! Otherwise, very good start!

Thanks!
I found a site that has free drum tracks that I can use, so I figure I can make up something to a drum track or 2 and maybe upload it in like a week or so. I want to have a sort of documentation of my improvements, so I can see what I need to work on more and what I am doing good.