Problems learning a song

[liquidation]

Hi, I have been learning bass since September, I play around 3 hours a day. I decided to try and learn Bombtrack (RATM), my first song. I have the Bass White Pages to learn it from. The problem is it took me best part of 4 hours to get the intro down. Is this normal with my level of experience? Also if I didn't have the tab, how long would you expect it to take to try and trancribe a whole track similar to this? Again with my level of experience
Thanks

[Slaine01]

Some songs I learn by basicaly just playing along with the track and pretty much nail it in a couple of run throughs, others take longer.
I've been playing for over 30 years and never learnt a track via notation or Tab, I make basic charts for myself as I learn the tune (basically the keys of the changes etc ) and that does me fine.
But some songs still do my head in.. and i get frustrated and move into the .." insert expletive here.." mode as sometimes I just cant "hear" the progression.
I tend to "see" and remember patterns on the fretboard for songs more than understand the concept eg...."mixolydian into 6.2.5.8. turnaround after 2nd bridge" kind of stuff but that is because I never had lessons or studied theory on my own over my musical career.
I guess what I'm trying to say is - dont beat yourself up over it, as we all go through this, its part of learning your craft and as you play more you will find that you will pick up things that you will store in your Bass Playing toolbox that will make it waaaay easier as your experience grows.
Dude, you've only been playing less than 5 months - you'll be fine..
If you know of any good teachers in your area then book a lesson and use this track as an example of what you need some direction in.
Good luck mate.

[Dennis99]

I hope this doesn't turn into an ear vs. reading thread, but I agree with Slaine01. I would suggest using your ears to transcribe songs. Get a program or device that allows you to loop over sections and/or slow them down. I use a program called Transcribe for this - works great.

I have been playing bass about the same amount of time as yourself and I learn everything by ear. However, I've played guitar for a long time and have developed my ability to transcribe already. It was very hard at first. Over time however, this will pay off big time. I am learning 4-5 songs/week by ear on bass despite having played for a short time. My main difficulty is right hand technique.

I would start by picking songs where you can hear the bass line well and don't start with Geddy Lee or Flea, you will get pretty discouraged pretty fast. Choose simpler bass lines to start. This will get you off and running and you'll be having more fun. I have been using studybass.com. On that site, the author posts example songs (under the common patterns lesson section) which are ranked according to difficulty as well as a "Classic Bassline" designation. I made a goal in the first 6 months to transcribe all of the "1" difficulty songs that he flagged as classic basslines. It's been fun so far!

With all of this said, you can not replace having a teacher and learning to read standard notation. I am also working through the Hal Leonard Bass method series by Ed Friedland. This is coming slower and I expect I'll see less return based on my needs as a hobbyist player. However, I want to be the best musician I can despite where and how I play, so I'm learning to read as well.

Good luck!

[jtroska]

The more songs you learn, the easier it becomes. Since this is your first song, you're basically having to memorize each and every note as a separate entity. It could be equated to memorizing each letter on a page of a book.

As you learn more songs, you will start to see repeating patterns--almost like words. It's much easier to learn a sentence of, say, 10 words than a string of 50 letters. Soon, you'll hear a song and think of it in terms of "two easy parts" rather than 100+ different notes.

Learning your intervals will be a big help. Don't be afraid. I don't mean you have to study jazz and classical. Just get familiar with the sounds of basic intervals like perfect fifths, major and minor 3rds. major and minor 7ths, octaves, etc. When you learn to recognize and how to reproduce these intervals, you'll soon have a pretty good idea of how song are played before you even pick up your bass.

Like I said, don't be afraid or concerned. It'll happen mostly on it's own over time.

[Milky]

The intro to Bombtrack still catches me sometimes and I've been playing for over 10 years.

What part are you having trouble with learning? Making your fingers work or just remembering the patterns? I find helpful to listen to the song part by part. Really get the bass line into your head where you can sing it and then take it to the bass. Do it slowly note by note. Even if you have the tabs for the song, you still have to hear how the bass line fits in with the song, and that has to be done by listening.

Good luck and keep it up. It only gets easier, trust me

[YeahDoIt]

I suspect that different players require different time to learn material. It is a personal thing. I find some songs easier to learn than others. I use tabs, or listening and playing along with recordings, watching the bass player's hands on videos, some music might be written out in standard notation. It might take me a week to play Bombtrack with lots of mistakes for myself or for a neighbor, perhaps 100 plays to get it to the point where I can play it (poorly and with some mistakes) for an audience, and perhaps 200 plays to perform it well enough for performance with a band. Maybe I'm slow but I find it much harder to play publicly, there are lots of distractions. Sometimes I practice with the TV on to simulate playing in the presence of distractions.

[PrietoBass]

Hi,

I have been playing for nine months. At first I'd get frustrated when I couldn't follow a simple tabbed line on Guitar Pro 5.

But as I kept working on things like finger exercises, flexibility (get yourself a book called Bass Fitness and follow through), intervals, scales, etc, I found out that coming back to the songs it was much easier to play.

About after three or four months I started getting more and more into theory, started learning how to read music (not tab). Between the Ed Friedland Method book, the Jazz Theory Book, and The Evolving Bassist book my ability is now starting to take off.

Finally, two things that are really helping me learn my way around the fretboard are 1) transcribing (I use Transcribe) and 2) playing songs from a non-tabbed source (I'm using the Latin Bass Book for this). It may take me up to several weeks to learn a song well, but after learning it the most important benefit is that I know where that D-flat is on that eleventh fret, how it looks like on the staff and most importantly, how it sounds.

If you don't have friends you can practice with, Band-In-A-Box is your friend.

I don't aspire to become a professional musician, but I still want to be the best musician I can be. Hearing the results of my hard work when I am jamming in my music room makes all the difference in the world!

I hope this helps.