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Originally Posted by yazmeister  hi all
so i have trouble staying focused and diligently and consistently practicing bass. I pick it up every few weeks for a few days, practice scales and do some trumpet exercises on bass- i have a huge book of them. |
You can use those, however the bass is an accompaniment instrument.
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I don't know what my problem is... I think I don't have enough direction and get discouraged when I don't see progress. Or maybe scales are just boring... anyways, to help me stick to a routine/give me guidance i was going to buy some books with bass lines and general instruction from amazon and practice the content
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I think you can not see the overall picture. What you will be doing with your bass. If you have a goal then it kinda pulls together. I suggest you work toward playing with other musicians - live or your CD's.
Not familiar with that one however most books will help. Some are very specific - you need a general little of everything book right now. Bass guitar for dummies is a good little of everything book. Here are some pages from the book
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/conten...eat-sheet.html
Then
www.studybass.com is a very good free instructional site.
Here are some pages from the site.
http://www.studybass.com/lessons/bass-chord-patterns/ http://www.studybass.com/lessons/bas...iad/exercises/ Quote:
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Also, I was thinking of getting a teacher. The one I would get is a professional jazz guitarist/bassist, but his main instrument is jazz. My friend had him (for guitar) and didn't like him because he made him play blues... but i wouldn't care that much. Are teachers extremely useful or is it better to teach myself and save 100 bucks a month?
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Nothing beats sitting knee to knee with another person. Four lessons for $100 is a good deal, you will spend that much on books and in teaching yourself your instructor does not know what he is doing.
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and lastly: I practice scales by playing them slowly with metronome (80-100 bpm) at quarter notes and saying each note as i go up and down the scale, in each position it can be played. Then i bump up the metronome to 120 and play it eighth notes. is this a good method, or is there a better one for learning scales? I've checked out pacman's but i thought it would be better to learn the scales before i learn the key. thanks so much, sorry for the length, I'm a very lost bassist...  also- could anyone recommend songs with mediumly hard/easy basslines? genre isn't important. thanks again
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Scales IMHO are for when you get lead breaks. You will not be getting any of them for awhile so...... Scales are a rite of passage thing. We have to do them to get our fingers knowing how to find notes, and to learn where the notes are on the fretboard, however, chord tones instead of scales is where I think you should spend your time. Why? Well our instrument is an accompaniment instrument and we do that best providing chord tone accompaniment. Right now leave the melody notes to the solo instruments. When you start getting some solos then your scales will come into play. So right now, work up some chord tone bass lines and put them into muscle memory - like you have been doing with your scales.
Chord tone bass lines:
In the beginning there were root notes, and they were good. Did what we need and let us lay down a good beat. But, roots by themselves got lonely so in looking around for a partner it was found that the 5th makes a perfect match so......
R-R-R-R is a good starting bass line. Change the root when the chord changes in the song.
R-5-R-5 makes a little more interesting bass line and it's generic. Is being generic important? If we can get some generic bass lines into muscle memory - when we see a chord name and automatically pull up a generic bass line for that chord - we don't have to be thinking what we are going to be doing next and our bass lines can work into a groove. Groove is the goal. Why is the root and five generic? Well every basic chord is going to have a root and a five. So, it will work under a lot of chords.
Now the 8 is also a root just in another octave so roots, fives and eights make good bass lines for a lot of chords.
The 3 is not generic, however, gives your bass line direction. Use the 3 with major chords and the b3 with minor chords, i.e. R-3-5-8 or R-b3-5-b7 and you've added some color and direction to your bass line.
The 7 is specific. 7 with maj7 chords, b7 with dominant and minor seven chords. R-3-5-b7 for a dominant seventh chord or R-3-5-7 for a maj7 chord.
The 6 is neutral help yourself to 6's. I like R-3-5-6 or how about R-R-3-3-5-5-6-5.
The 2 and 4 make good passing notes help yourself to the 2's and 4's just don't linger on them or stop on them. The root, five, eight and the correct 3 will play a lot of bass.
Remember in the beginning there were roots and roots were good. The root needed a partner and the 5 is a perfect partner, so just roots and fives will play a lot of bass. But there is more so get some favorite bass lines - four for right now - One for major chords R-3-5-6, one for minor chords R-b3-5-b7, one for the dominant chord R-3-5-b7 and one for the diminished chord R-b3-b5-b7 into muscle memory. Those four will let you play a lot of bass.
That will give you something to shoot for and keep you busy for awhile.
For the big picture..... pull up some backing tracks and see if you can play over the chord progressions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4x0u...eature=related This is what you will be shooting for, going to take some time. That F#m75b looks like a lot of trouble.
Not a step for a stepper - try - R-b3-b5-b7
Where you have two chords in the same measure like the Em/Eb7 four beats to the measure so you only have two beats for each chord how about R-b3 and then R-b7. It's your bass line - use R-R for both if you like.
This may help.
Notes on the fretboard, cheaters?
I suggest you print this off. Too much to absorb in one setting.
Good luck.
