do you remember your first "ah hah" bass moment?

[Ammioz77]

Been studying about 7 months now and I just had my first real "ah hah moment." I'm partly self taught with the occasional lesson (although they are becoming regular now thank goodness) with a good friend who is a monster bassist and music teacher. We sat down to start working on Chicago Song and he was teaching me how to "feel the groove." Not worrying about notes but getting time and the feel. I used to be a drummer and still play percussion so I thought I had it nailed. It wasn't until I opened up space in my counting and started playing a little behind it that I really felt it for the first time on bass. The light went on! And stayed on. Next thing I knew I was playing the part - including some slapping (which i have just learned - another technique that is being demystified for me). I'm hearing time and space in the pocket a whole 'nother way now...!

What was your first "ah hah" moment?

[Coeball]

never really had one just lots of small progressions.

[GingerConor]

just a while ago when i learned triplets for slap, they sound so cool, and u do alot less then u think.lol

[jayarroz]

when I figured out how to spell chords by the way of the shape of my hand, instead of thinking what all the accidentals where in the scale!

[SubXero]

I think for me it was when I started playing stuff by ear and just kind of kept going at it til I could play whatever it was I was aiming for. After I sort of got better at that, I can now play a lot of things much better. All the techniques you learn can't be put together correctly until you come to that sort of realization...for me it seemed to happen a little under a year of playing, although I had no official teacher...but I did watch a lot of youtube videos on how to play!

[Nyarlathotep]

I don't really remember any ah-ha! moments from before I left my bass playing for a while, but I do remember the first from getting back into it.

DLing the tab for Whole Lotta Love, and going "holy carp! its only like one main riff, plus some fills!". Made me realize that you don't have to have like 50 riffs in a song to make it good, or groove for that matter.

[WhiteKong]

mine was when I relized there was such a thing as a bass guitar

[professor_bills]

MIne was when I found out the notes I THOUGHT I was hearing in my head was actually teh keyboardist's left hand

[skeptikal]

I had my first 'ah-ha' moment about 3 weeks ago. Me and a buddy who is a great bass player and bass teacher as well were doing scales up and down 1 string, 2 octaves, etc.. It was pretty awesome actually. Instead of doing just root+5th or root+5th+3rd I figured out what notes I could play and in what key I was playing in. It's definitely helped me out alot. Granted I'm not Jaco but I really figured out how to groove.

[Skapunkgiz]

First mega "ah ha" moment - was when i first started playing walking bass lines for ska - hearing the bass line bring the music together is an awesome feeling.

[benthughes]

When a teacher of mine explained the major scale. Not what it is but why it is. From there I realized that all of my scales and modes have a "shape". This was cool!! Then there was the issue of overcoming the muscle memory when playing chromatic fills or leading notes...whatever. Learning that basic thing and how everything pretty much revolves around a strong knowledge of the fundamentals.

IMO you can be a monster player without theory. What it does is helps you understand what you're playing and convey it to others.

[Spikeh]

I think my first moment like that was finally realising how to hold the neck and finger it properly... the correct technique progressed me by miles over night

[Pstewart]

Taaaaaake ooooon meeeeeee

[Linkert]

I noticed how "easy" (at times) it is to learn out songs by ear. I was just screwing around by the computer and then this song comes on and i just started playing the bassline
Linkert goes Ah-hah!

[nbw]

The day I figured the big pattern of the major scale and could play it from any position and instantly saw that with that I knew the Minor, phrygian, jazz minor, and some other scale all in that. After practicing running the scales while looking at the scale chart all of this hit me like a ton of bricks in less then a 5 second time period. It was a Zen moment.

I'm still waiting on the ah ha moment for slapping, specifically tips on creating compelling slap lines. Oh and figuring out the basic scheme in creating chords out of scales and be able to do so on second nature..
I have a long way to go.

[Wootsticks]

When I realized that I could move scale patterns to anywhere. My lesson teacher kind of sucked, he just gave me a sheet with an ionian scale and an aeolian scale (of course major and minor at the time) written on it and told me to practice them over the next two weeks. I learned them in one night and then an hour later I was goofing around and I was like. WAIT. 3-5 2-3-5 2-4-5 could ALSO be 4-6 3-4-6 3-5-6!!! That was my FIRST ah-ha moment.

[lowtide]

I was listening to Stevie Ray Vaughn speak and he made me realize that sometimes it's not all that important. Here's an mp3 of Stevie speaking: http://www.buzzardsbass.com/music/ar...SRV-Speaks.mp3