I'm a mediocre bassist.. Help me be a good bassist!

[Bierce85]

Hey guys,

I'm a drummer of about 14 years but I've always played bass on the side because of my love for chord progressions and the way the bass underlines them in music. I'm starting to feel like I'm really a bassist at heart and want to make the move to bass in a new band with some friends so I can be more involved in the melodic aspect of the music instead of being stuck behind the drums trying to tell the guitarist to try an A chord. Hah.

Anyway, I've got a really great ear for intervals and finding the root of the chord but I've never really been able to decode the fretboard in a way that would give me the ability to freely use my imagination when grooving with a band and add in those little fills between chords that we all know and love when they're called for. I've tried learning scales and I can't seem to make any practical use for them as far as applying them in a creative way. I find myself all the time humming the basslines I would play over songs to myself, and they sound great! I just can't actually play them. I really have no desire to be a fast or technical bass player, just someone who can contribute to a great live band with thoughtful, musical playing.

My question is for those of you who feel like they can improvise over a progression or play your instrument as easily as you can hum to yourself.. how did you gain this ability? Was it from copying the licks of your favorite players then putting your own spin on them or just strictly scales? A combination of both? Are there any particular resources available that could help with this? I'm really not big on books but I love DVDs...

Any help would be greatly inspirational!

- William

[troyus]

for me a lot of this is just intuitive, but one good way to start is pick some bands with basslines you really like and start learning those licks, scales, whatever they got that you dig... then learn another guys, and another, and another... and then eventually you start mixing it all together and come up with your own style. Since you have a lot of percussion experience, look at incorporating some of the patterning from that instrument into your playing. I can come up with some pretty unusual progressions because of a background in piano... they're not really unusual on a piano, but when you play piano on bass, it is. So maybe play drums on your bass, in a way.

[mutedeity]

Get a tutor

[6Steve6Harris6]

Play in a band.

I sat in front of a music book and dicked around on bass for the longest time, and got nowhere fast.

Immediately after I joined a band, I started making progress in leaps and bounds.

It's difficult to learn an instrument when you aren't really sure how it fits into a band situation. Once you've been playing in a band, and you finally understand your role, learning becomes so much easier (and more fun to boot!). You'll swear that it came to you all at once.

[NickInMesa]

Agreed with the join a band thing, which means you have to find a band that will be ok with a beginner bassist, which is not always easy as you age.

Studying chords and playing arpeggios is also something you get something out of. You simply learn what sounds right and your hand techniques improves over time.

As a drummer you are obviously strong on the rhythmic but not the melodic part.

[RexNFX79]

Originally Posted by 6Steve6Harris6

Play in a band.

I sat in front of a music book and dicked around on bass for the longest time, and got nowhere fast.

Immediately after I joined a band, I started making progress in leaps and bounds.

It's difficult to learn an instrument when you aren't really sure how it fits into a band situation. Once you've been playing in a band, and you finally understand your role, learning becomes so much easier (and more fun to boot!). You'll swear that it came to you all at once.

I agree! You can use books or DVD's to get a foundation but the quickest progressions that I made as a player were by playing in a band. If you have access, it would be good to maybe take lessons. When I was starting out, I found that I made the most progress playing in original bands that forced me to develope my own grooves. Good luck!

[scottbass]

If you can hum the bassline you want to play, you have already created that bassline. Now all you have to do is translate that to your hands. Maybe you could record your hummed bassline, and then work with it note by note to identify what notes you are actually humming and then make your fretting fingers play those notes. As far as the fills, yeah - what troyus said. Learn different fills (and other patterns) that other bassists use, and then practice, practice, practice.

When troyus - and lots of other people - say "it's intuitive" what they really mean is they have a well-practiced file cabinet and muscle memory. The file cabinet is in your brain, and it contains all the fills and other patterns you know. As you pull one out of the file, the signals get sent down your synapses to make your fingers play it using muscle memory. And if you wanna get better faster, then you have to practice more. And if you want a structured way to learn faster, get a teacher. In-person lessons are the most effective, IMHO. But maybe you will find a DVD or series of YouTube videos that work for you.

Good luck.

[Edinburgh_Bass]

Totally agree on joining a band. There's nothing quite like it for learning fast... and having a great time!

Tune in and listen to the bass playing on as many musical styles as possible - the notes being played, and the silence. If there are modern players you like, I would suggest finding out who their influences are and studying them. Going back in time to the roots - there's nothing quite like it.

The biggest piece of advice I would give a relative beginner is to learn the music behind playing the bass - don't just learn shapes and patterns. Think in terms of notes, and how they relate to each other, and not what fret you are holding on what string.

One of the first things I was taught which was very powerful for me, is using 1 finger per fret, and shifting your hand position as you play to accommodate the music. This allows for comfort and will eventually lead to a natural style. With very little movement, you can cover octaves smoothly and precisely.

I'm gonna rip-off Victor Wooten here, but he's so right when he lists the fundamentals:

Notes / Articulation / Technique / Emotion & Feel / Dynamics / Tone / Rhythm & Tempo / Phrasing / Space / Listening - they all influence each other in an infinite number of ways. I would seriously recommend his DVD "Groove Workshop". This should be standard issue to every bass player!


That's my ramblings for just now.

All the best

[kdiggity]

There's a lot of good advice here already, and I'd like to try and add to it.

I'm relatively new to the bass (compared to many people here), and what I found to work for me when I was first starting out was basically what these members have said.

Before I started learning (read: imitating) the songs I liked, I searched around on the web to learn some basic techniques and theories. I had a general idea of how to move my fingers and do whatever, but it was helpful to actually see how the pros were moving their fingers, their hands, and so on.

One place that I found to be really helpful for understanding bass theory and how it fits into music is: http://www.studybass.com/

There is a LOT of information in there.

To actually see people playing, I just checked out YouTube. There are many, many clips that you can watch. One in particular that may be helpful is: http://www.youtube.com/user/MarloweDK

The main site: http://playbassnow.com/

Once I felt I understood some of the basic theory and technique, I began choosing songs that I liked from different styles and genres of music. It helped if they were songs that I already knew pretty well, this way I could kind of "feel" my way through the bass line and know if I made a mistake or wasn't playing it right.

Armed with this list of songs that I liked/knew and wanted to learn how to play, I went to: http://www.bassmasta.net/

They have bass tabs for a TON of songs. Not all of them are 100% correct, which is where "knowing" the song helps - you can tell if the person who tabbed it messed up a little (or in some cases, a lot). Once I had the pages for these songs bookmarked in my browser, I would (and still do all the time) load them up in iTunes, load the page(s) of tabs, and start playing along.

Lastly, all of this aside and out of the way (or hopefully under your belt) the biggest factor for improvement is what some of these other TB-ers have already said: play with other musicians.

I found myself improving by leaps and bounds once I began doing this. There's nothing like it for improving and honing your skills, and it's just so much more fun than sitting around by yourself.

When it comes to playing with other musicians, don't worry that you're just beginning. You'd be surprised how many people just like to jam, whether they're beginners or pro. Maybe, like you, they'd like to try out a new instrument and don't want to waste their bands time. Or maybe they used to play and have been looking for an excuse to dust of the ole' (insert instrument type here). Find these people online through online places such as CraigsList, at your local music store bulletin board (do they still have those?), and of course, places like TalkBass.

You could also try asking people you may already know. When I started playing bass I began asking my friends if any of them happened to play any instruments and it turned out that a couple did. Now I have a guitar player and a trumpet player who I jam with all the time. These were friends that I had known for years, but we just didn't connect on music until I got into bass and asked them if they happened to play anything. Maybe I was just lucky, who knows.

Anyway, in the relatively short period of time that I have been playing bass, I have found that through practice, more practice, and even more practice, and by using free resources like the web and jamming with other musicians, I have really been able to improve. I know that I still have a long way to go before I can call myself a proficient player, but sometimes I'll finish playing or practicing and say to myself, "Damn, you're really getting it. How did this happen?"

Like anything else, it just does.

Hope that helps,

- kdiggity -

ps - I recently started messing around with percussion. Bongos, congas, etc., and I've noticed that it has helped my with my timing on the bass, and coming up with interesting progressions and licks. So I can completely relate to what you're talking about.

[Bierce85]

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the thought out responses! I would like to clarify that I'm not a complete beginner.. I have decent form and have played a handful of gigs with reggae and rock bands. The main thing I'm trying to achieve is freedom to move around the fretboard while always coming back to the correct note when the chord changes. Again, my ear is great and I never play the wrong note without knowing it's wrong, I just have a lot of trouble finding the right ones sometimes! This has always been the most challenging aspect of playing bass to me. Rhythmically, I feel like I'm more than good enough to groove with a band and did take a lot of that aspect of my playing from my experience on the drums.

Basically, I feel "melodically challenged". Being that the fretboard is not linear like the piano, it's sort of an awkward learning experience and I'm trying to gain as much "melodic freedom" as possible...

[vlxyooper]

One of the things that help me expand past the fifth fret was to learn the two-octave scale (maj, min, pent, etc) and efficient position shifts. That really opened things up for me. Playing a five string gives a greater range, but moving around a four string fretboard is every bit as possible.

Also, quiz yourself on the notes you're playing and how they function in the scale (root, fifth, sixth, etc). Play through some common changes slowly and think about the relationships between the notes and the chords you're playing over. Doing this slowly helps your mind process the information and build new connections. Over time (weeks, months, years), you'll internalize it and play things you had to think about before without even realizing it.

[giacomini]

Hello!

I just want to tell u about how I've become a bass player. I played the piano for about 12 years before picking up a bass. I did know some guitar too, so it wasn't hard to decode my knowledge to the bass, but when I picked it up, the first year I spent learning it by myself and a friend asked me to play in his band, so in this way I was getting better and better, but one other thing I did was to play along with records I liked and trying to learn the bass line. Eventually I looked for a teacher, but that was 2 years after I was in the band. I wanted to smoothen my skills because I couldn't slap (was too heavy on popping, a real mess! ) and because I was getting my right arm and hand real stiff after playing in a 3-4 hour gig... the tutor helped me a lot with technique, so now I can play all day long without pain!

I guess a good advice would be listening and trying to emulate what u listen (I know this is the method of many bass pros). Like Bierce85, I felt melodically challenged too, since my first instrument was the piano, but I got thru this practicing. It will help if you play melodies on bass. Pick up a tune you can sing and play what you are singing. As soon as you find out the notes don't look at the fretboard, try to find the notes this way. For melody playing, I would say that the 4 fret left hand position is better, because you have to place your 4 fingers in a "preset" position, and when you have big interval jumps, you can always slide up or down til the right fret. You could try a fretless too, they're great melody players!! And you'll have to focus on intonation and there's the mwah sound when you slide, making the fretless a real singer (cellos, uprights and fretless electric basses on their upper register are considered the most human voice-alike instruments, which helps a lot to "sing" out melodies on bass).