advice needed

[iron_man]

hey, i jsut started playing bass a little while ago and i was wondering if any1 had any tips on learning songs and writing music.

[brassed]

To learn songs, find a song you are interested in (a tv theme song or something simple) and try to figure it out by ear. If you are looking for a harder song, do all you can to figure out the key and stuff then look up tabs for it. Very important: Listen to the songs while trying out the tabs, there are alot of crappy tabs out there. My room mate and I sit down at nite and play along with adult swim music and commercials (vonage commercials kick ass)

Learn your scales and basic theory. Apply what you have learned from the songs that you figured out.

[AGCurry]

Originally Posted by iron_man

hey, i jsut started laying bass a little while ago and i was wondering if any1 had any tips on learning songs and writing music.

First of all, you play a bass, not lay it. Laying a bass can help develop a relationship (love and/or hate), but to make music, the instrument must be played.

[Howard K]

Basically, stick on a CD of a tune you know well and learn to sing the bass line, or the melody line or whatever part it is you want to learn.
Once you can sing it, pick up your bass and find the first note... then the second.. then the third... and so on. This might take trying all twelve notes for each note of the part you're learning, that's fine, it will quicker and easier the more you do it.

Tabs are crap. They dont contain any rhythmic notation which is vital for a rhythm section instrument like bass. You canmt learn a piece of music frmo tab, you have to listen to the CD as well, so why not just learn the whole lot be ear.

If you want to learn a song, do it by ear, that's the most musical way to learn music, IMO.

[Howard K]

Originally Posted by tim99

I agree that TAB on the internet is crap because most is wrong, but your point that TAB is crap because it does not contain rhythm is bogus. No one I know uses TAB without having the CD handy. Both TAB and standard music notation can not begin to pick up the actual feel of the music. So if you use TAB or standard musical notation, you still need to listen to and play along with the CD.

I get your point, and personally I always prefer to hear music if I'm going to play it, because I dont read well at all, but I still believe tab is rubbish. If you are starting out you are far better off learning by ear and/or using notation.

It is completely possible to interpret and perform a piece from music from a sheet with no recordings to go from. You cannot do that from tab, at all.

G---------
D---------
A---------
E-0-0-0-0-

Is that four crochets? Two quavers, a crochet and a minim? Tab is not even a notation, it's a diagram of 'where to put your fingers'.

Of course the dots are only an approximation of the feel of any piece of music, just as words are on a page, but in the same way as you interpret the words on a page to mean something to you, you do the same with written music.
I'm learning to read music now, slowly, and most of what I learn is the melodies to jazz tunes. I think this a perfect example, the notation doesnt detail swing, I have to interpret it, but at least the placement of the notes in bar is given

Tb s lk wrtng wtht ny vwls r pncttn sm wds cnt b rd s esly

[VRT_RONBO]

Originally Posted by iron_man

hey, i jsut started playing bass a little while ago and i was wondering if any1 had any tips on learning songs and writing music.

It's not hard to learn songs you like from TABs. I agree with Tim99 to start with easy songs. Eventually you will have bass lines that are interesting to you, stored in your head. This will lead to you being able to write your own interesting bass lines.