Beginner - Stuck/Disoriented

[OnlyJerry]

Hello fellow bassists,

Pretty close to 3 weeks ago i bought my first bass guitar, with absolutely no former experience with instruments. I set out on the journey feeling motivated and expected to have a hard road ahead of me.

I started looking into basic knowledge and technique(Thank you, Studybass). After a while I was made aware of Dmanlamius whom also has been of great help to me.

At the moment I know a few basic riffs, I have some knowledge of chords. I have tried looking at tablatures and playing some songs, but I feel the tempo is too quick, and i can't follow it. My speed hasn't developed enough yet.

I feel somewhat lost/disoriented, not knowing which direction I should take. I would sincerely appreciate your advice, guys. Please give me a few heads-up on what to practice

PS: I'm searching for a local teacher, but they are basically non-existant.

[TJ55]

I started exactly like you just a few months ago. No experience and no teacher option. I picked up Complete Bass Method and lurked around here and things are slowly but surely coming together. The structure of the lessons is easy to follow and the examples make it fun to practice. Each lesson builds on the previous one so you are always making progress and will solve your lack of direction issue.

Don't worry too much when the guys around here are talking about things that don't make sense to you. They will slowly start to fall into place I assure you.

Amazon.com: Hal Leonard Bass Method - Complete Edition: Books 1, 2 and 3 Bound Together in One Easy-to-Use Volume! (9780793563838): Ed Friedland: Books

[Tmw2011]

The main thing is to stick with it. There are great books (like the one mentioned above), video series, youtube clips, and the like out there. And especially the resources here at TB. The community is darn helpful. As far as learning resources, I've found the production and quality on Teach Me Bass Guitar with Roy Vogt (who comes through Talkbass occasionally and seems to be a nice and helpful guy) to be excellent, even though it is a bit expensive. But like they say, the course is designed to cover the material for about 2 years’ worth of lessons.

You can also find teachers who will give lessons over Skype if you can't find any decent ones in your area, as well.

Play with other people if you can. If you can't (or even if you can, when you're not playing with others,) work with a metronome, drum machine, or drum machine computer program. You can also track down software like Guitar Pro, which you can find music/tabs for songs you like, and drop the speed on it to a manageable tempo to play along and build up the speed, increasing the tempo as you get better. GP is a great piece of software, but the full version can be expensive, especially with the instrument packs, but man those things sound so much better (and more realistic) than the base midi sounds.

Ruts like this happen in just about any learning process. You'll plateau for a while and then suddenly a new breakthrough will occur to start you on the journey to that next level. You just have to work through that plateau, and don't give up.

[MalcolmAmos]

What to practice? IMHO things that will let you play songs. Question then is what do I play in the song. Answer - chord tones. Take the notes of the chord being used in the song and build a groove from them. Our job is to lay down the beat. Then take that beat into a groove, and lead the rest of the band to the next chord.

OK how to practice that. Again IMHO play from fake chord, lead sheet, or standard notation. Tabs are OK to peek at for specific stuff, but, do not rely on them for all you do. Why? How many tabs can you keep in memory?

What do I look for on those fake chord, lead sheets or standard notation songs? The chords or the bass clef.

• So..... get some basic generic bass lines into muscle memory. Roots, fives, and eights are generic to all chords, except the diminished will have a b5. So you have to adjust for the diminished chord. But, you do not see all that many diminished chords. So R-5-8-5 is going to work over a lot of chords.
• Major chords will have a 3. R-3-5-8 or R-3-5-6 is one I like.
• Minor chords will have a b3 R-b3-5 or R-b3-5-b7 works well with m7 chords.
• Dominant chords (G7) will have a 3 and a b7. It's major so it'll have the 3 and the dominant seven is the b7.
• Diminished chords will have a b3 and a b5 and probably a b7 also, i.e. Gm7b5 = R-b3-b5-b7.

Practice with some fake chord sheet music and start with just root notes, add R-5 when just roots get boring. Then throw in some 8's and the correct 3. Bass Exercises: One Octave Major Triad

Roots, fives, eights and the correct 3 will play a lot of bass.

Backing tracks are a friend. Pull up some - the Internet is full of backing tracks - and see what else you need to be practicing.

Some good information on this Theory from Carol Kaye

Good luck.

[hrodbert696]

Well, if you can find a teacher, that's the ideal. If not, use studybass.com and the youtube teachers like DMan. Watch your wrists and hands, make sure you don't strain yourself with bad technique. I'd also say get a scales book and work on running scales -- it will build both theory and technique and enable you to figure out songs faster.

You can also get a bass trainer that will speed things up or slow them down without changing pitch, so that you can work on learning a part slowly and then bring it up to speed. TASCAM*CD-BT2 Portable CD Bass Trainer - Find the largest selection and guaranteed lowest prices at Musician's Friend..

Meanwhile, just pick relatively simple songs to learn and work up from there. If you don't hate U2, Adam Clayton is a great example of a bassist who keeps things simple but supports great songs. Try some of their repertoire.

[Kriddy]

It really depends what your goals are, and what kind of music you like. I've been playing for several years and been in 2 bands, and this is what I did:

I like playing songs. I don't know a diminished 7th from a root fifth (or even if that makes sense), but I can read tab. Google for lists of easy songs and see is there are any on the list that you like. Hopefully there are some on that list. Start with those.

The internet is your friend. Download TUXguitar for your computer and install it. It is awesome and easy to use. You can then use it look at songs in tab that you can download from sites like UltimateGuitar. Guitar Pro files will open in TUX and you can play along with them, slow them down so you can practice, and follow along with the tab.

As you get a handle on easier songs, you can start looking at this that are more challenging. And believe me, if you just keep plugging along, you will surprise yourself at what you will be able to play. Remembering tab isn't any different from remembering anything else. Eventually it all turns to autopilot and you just know songs.

Now if you're more interested in jazz and/or improv style playing, that is a whole other can of worms. But I think what I mentioned here is a good way to get started no matter where you end up going musically. If you have some friends with similar musical interests, see if they want to come along for the ride. Playing with other people is a great way to learn too.

Hope that all helps. Have fun.

[OnlyJerry]

Thanks for all the answers! As stated before, this is a very helpful community. I'm going to look into the books and lessons you guys suggested, maybe that Roy Vogt material is worth the dollars.

My goals are to be able to do improvs and play stuff that I have made by myself. Ofcourse being excellent at reading tabs and playing the songs would be awesome. My biggest desire would be to get to know my guitar and be able to sit down and produce beautiful tones straight out of my heart

[Jim Campbell]

Originally Posted by OnlyJerry

Hello fellow bassists,

Pretty close to 3 weeks ago i bought my first bass guitar, with absolutely no former experience with instruments. I set out on the journey feeling motivated and expected to have a hard road ahead of me.

I started looking into basic knowledge and technique(Thank you, Studybass). After a while I was made aware of Dmanlamius whom also has been of great help to me.

At the moment I know a few basic riffs, I have some knowledge of chords. I have tried looking at tablatures and playing some songs, but I feel the tempo is too quick, and i can't follow it. My speed hasn't developed enough yet.

I feel somewhat lost/disoriented, not knowing which direction I should take. I would sincerely appreciate your advice, guys. Please give me a few heads-up on what to practice

PS: I'm searching for a local teacher, but they are basically non-existant.

find some more reading material and work on that for at least part of your routine.....learn the chord tones of the diatonic scale.....start with one key a day and practice arpeggiating all over the fret board......ie; Emajor7, F# minor 7,G# minor 7,Amajor 7,B7,
C#minor7,D#minor 7b5.....they are the same intervals in every key......theres 6 months worth of work @ 2 hours a day right there.....try to learn things by ear.....if you hear a melody or a lick,try to figure it out.....

[Hutzbordello]

lowly build your speed up, dont expect to be playing Iron Maiden lines right away. Bullet by the Misfits used o be too fast for me, but i got that down in time. just took practice

[Russell L]

Don't forget the old technique of grabbing the insturment and making up something to do on your own. Whatever comes off your fingertips first is good. Make it a loop and do it over and over. Something will come up in your mind about it. You will begin to see patterns on the fingerboard, and hear what they sound like. It may even remind you of something you've heard before. Keep going and, eventually, you will begin to feel the rhythm and sound flow through you. Do this long enough and often enough and you will be grooving.

It's like saying, 'forget the lessons, or any kind of study, but just play.' Take whatever skill you have and say something in the best way you can in your own words. Easy. Nothing needed but you and your bass.

[FunkyD]

Play your major and minor scales up and down the neck, including the open strings, along with a metronome at a comfortable tempo. This will help you learn the neck and the patterns, and will build dexterity and muscle memory. Tweak the tempo up and down a bit for variety. As a beginner I did this daily for months before trying to learn tunes, I wanted to have a good foundation and develop good habits rather than be a hack. Yes, it was a bit boring, but it was also very rewarding in that I had a shorter learning curve for things later on. Good luck.

[Darth Handsome]

Originally Posted by OnlyJerry

I have tried looking at tablatures and playing some songs, but I feel the tempo is too quick, and i can't follow it. My speed hasn't developed enough yet.

Play them at your own pace. No one will put you in front of a firing squad if you don't play these tunes at the same tempo as the recordings. Play "OnlyJerry" versions of the songs.

Don't get discouraged.

[NCD]

I won't give advice but I will say what I did that helped me.

1) Stayed interested. This means a mix of rudimentary practice and songs that I love to play when no one is listening and I have headphones plugged into a $40 pocket practice amp that's only meant for headphones. I didn't quit scales and such when they got to be a chore, I merely switched gears to something that reminded my why I picked the bass up in the first place and went back to rudimentary practice the next day. There just comes a point where I've had all the "work" that my brain can deal with and it's time to have fun... I just remember to go back to "work" the next day.

2) Practiced in SHORT spurts. I think of the brain as being like a warehouse that's taking in shipments. The shipment comes in and all this stuff is dumped on the receiving docks when you are right there working on it. It is NOT fully digested and put into memory yet, it's simply a jumble of stuff I just received that's all piled up on the truck dock, and it still needs to be put away later. In the beginning, ten to fifteen minutes was enough. Then I walked away for about an hour or set it down for the day.

In that time I'm away from it, the brain goes through the process of sorting the new information and putting it away, so that it's able to be used later. I can NOT use new information within the first hour or so of learning it, it hasn't sunk in yet.

A huge indication that it's time to set it down, for me, is that point where I start making mistakes on things I've already perfected before. There comes a point where my fingers just don't do what I intend for them to do and they start getting sloppy. This is the brain telling me that the docks are full and I need to go away from the bass for a little while to let the brain absorb things and put them away. If I keep trying, the mistakes start coming faster and faster, only adding to the frustration.

In the beginning, I played for 15 minutes or so and then set it down for a couple of hours, then did 15 minutes more and walked away again, doing about four or five 15 minutes spurts each day. Each time I returned to do 15 more minutes, my ability had leap frogged forward once my brain had cleaned itself up and was ready to go again. It was kind of freaky, in a cool way.

As time goes by you learn to recognize when to lay it down and you find that you go longer and longer before you hit that point.

3) I use a program that slows MP3 files while maintaining tone, and allows me to loop any part of a song. The one I personally use is "Best Practice" because the first 2 that were highly recommended didn't work on my computer for some reason that I have yet to figure out. I can use Best Practice to slow a song and even export it as a wav, then import it into Audacity and re-save as MP3 so that I can play the slower version on any MP3 player.

4) I take new songs one small section at a time. Most "phrases" last only 5-10 seconds and I loop the last section I know plus the first section I don't yet know. This ensures that my brain associates the two together and in this way I avoid knowing a bunch of sections that my brain thinks are separate pieces instead of thinking of the song as a whole.

5) Slowing a song down is priceless for me... I start a new section at 75% speed, slower than that is usually too slow but sometimes I need to go even slower. Once I have the feel of it, I bump the speed to 90% and play for a day or two, sometimes more, before trying 100%. If 100% is still too rough, 95% makes a good intermediate step for me.

I found that slowing things down this way prevents 95% of the frustration I used to have when first trying to work out the notes on the neck while looking at a tab or at music.

6) I use tabs and musical notation as a combined unit whenever I can get it. I learn the notes from the tab, I learn the rhythmic patterns by ear and then when I practice it I follow along in the musical notation, not the tab. In this way, my brain begins to associate note tones, positions and durations with the symbols in the notation WITHOUT MY ACTUALLY TRYING to learn any of it. It sounds odd, but when I look at the musical score as I play, the brain really does start to pick up on the fact that every time I see a G quarter note in the lower half of the staff, I always play the same note the same way.

After a few days of this there were things on the staff that I knew. I never actually "learned" them, I just knew it when I saw it.

The music theory comes a lot easier for me when I use 80% of my time to play songs and 20%, or even less, to study the theory. If I learn one or two concepts in theory and then go play while looking at the notation, suddenly I start recognizing those concepts in what I'm looking at, as I play it. This helps me not only recognize the concept by sight, but it also allows me to get a feel it in my fingers and ears.

7) I also read every forum and tip I could find on bad habits to try to catch myself early. Along the way I realized that the "one finger per fret rule" is actually a guideline that everyone deviates from at times or, for some, entirely. I have short fingers and bear palms. My fingers have to reach slightly to span three frets; if I try to push myself to four then this is an injury waiting to happen. Over time my finger span is increasing, somewhat, but I found that most everyone deviates from that guideline (some more often than others) unless they have fingers long enough to palm a basketball.

No matter what, I try to make sure I always stay interested. If I'm slacking off on scales and theory I can always get back on track as long as I haven't lost interest and walked away from the instrument.

Good luck!

[sanktf]

Don't worry about playing slowly. Rather play something slowly at the beginning, to improve accuracy, and speed up later. If you can play it well slowly, you will be able to play it faster.

To play faster, there are essentially two methods:

1. Practice in rhythms:
If notes in a passage are of the same length, play them alternating between slow and fast (dotted rhythm). When you have this, reverse the rhythm so that everything has been practiced in the fast tempo. You should now be able to play everything faster.

2. Practice very small sections at the target speed, then combine them.

[chadhargis]

I completely understand your situation.

Being a fairly new player myself, I often get discouraged that my hours of practice time hasn't progressed me as quickly as I'd like.

One of the things that's helpful for me is to find a few songs that are easy and fun to play. When I'm working on something difficult, and begin to get frustrated, I stop and play something familiar that I can just groove to. Before long, I'm smiling, bobbing my head, tapping my feet, and having a good time. Then I can go back to working on the harder stuff.

I am a very competitive person and I push myself very hard. I tend to get very frustrated when I feel I should have something mastered and I don't. When I get to that point, I stop and take a break. I also practice at different times. I find at night to be the WORST time to practice. I'm tired from the day and mentally exhaused from work. Lately I've been setting aside about 15 minutes in the morning to practice. It's not a lot of time, but my mind is fresh and rested and I absorb more in that 15 minutes than I do in an hour of playing tired.

I also find it easier to pick up the bass multiple times during the day and play rather than sitting down for two hours to play.

Best piece of advice I can give you is HAVE FUN. If you don't enjoy playing and practicing then something is wrong. I can't get enough learning about, practicing, and playing bass. It's an obsession for me. My wife will tell you the same thing. She is always nagging me about ignoring her and doing nothing by "playing that stupid bass".

[dave64o]

Originally Posted by OnlyJerry

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My biggest desire would be to get to know my guitar and be able to sit down and produce beautiful tones straight out of my heart

That's a worthwhile goal and I'm glad to see you're actually interested in learning. You'll see a lot of guys downplay lessons and downplay learning theory, saying things like "I don't want anyone's rules being shoved down their throat and crippling my creativity. I just want to make music that sounds good and rocks!!!". If anyone gives you advice like that, ignore it. The only thing you will learn from that person is what NOT to do! Music that sounds good and rocks more often then not simply means the composer followed some rules, whether it was intentional or not. Once you've learned the rules, then you can work on learning how to break them. Though the funny thing is that breaking the rules often means you're just following some more advanced rules (again, whether or not you knew that's what you were doing ).

Definitely put time in learning some theory, learning the fretboard, learning how to apply the theory to the fretboard, and developing your ear. Those basics will definitely help you to reach your goal!

I've also had great experience working with an instructor. If you can find a good one like I did, then definitely stick with them for a while. You'll get a lot farther a lot faster working with someone who has experience, has knowledge, and most importantly uses that knowledge and experience to make you a better MUSICIAN (not just a bassist).

Sounds like you're starting out with a lot of enthusiasm. Don't lose that!

[neurotictim]

Ditch the tab - it becomes a hindrance later, trust me on that one. Start from scratch with sight reading, learning the notes on the bass AND on the staff at the same time. When doing that gets boring...

Download a program called "Amazing Slow Downer" for help in breaking things down while still keeping them in pitch - that can help keep you motivated.

Be aware of your limitations, and set goals. Don't start out working on "Classical Thump" or some other virtuoso. Find some basic lines and work them till they're perfect. There's a lot of music out there from all genres and time periods that aren't terribly difficult but can teach you a lot about feel and time and nuance.

As you grow as a musician, you'll find that you're going to make some great progress, then plateau for a while. This is actually not just my experience, but true for many (dare I say MOST?) musicians. When this happens, you just gotta play through it, and let me suggest early that most progress occurs outside of your comfort zone. Remember that later, but don't sweat it right now.

[carlthegroover]

Originally Posted by Tmw2011

Play with other people if you can. If you can't (or even if you can, when you're not playing with others,) work with a metronome, drum machine, or drum machine computer program.

I definitely second that. I'm trying to get a band together now, and I'm so psyched about the whole notion of playing live with other people. Besides, when practicing alone gets a bit boring, this can spice things up, plus give new challenges that one alone can't.

Originally Posted by Tmw2011

You can also track down software like Guitar Pro, which you can find music/tabs for songs you like, and drop the speed on it to a manageable tempo to play along and build up the speed, increasing the tempo as you get better. GP is a great piece of software, but the full version can be expensive, especially with the instrument packs, but man those things sound so much better (and more realistic) than the base midi sounds.

There is a free version called Tux Guitar. It doesn't sound great (especially the guitars, sound like babies crying), but it does have the basics to learn rhythm properly, to read guitar pro tabs, to reduce tempo, etc. It's very useful and fun to use and I been practicing along about a month or two now. I'm playing songs way better with it than without it.

[OnlyJerry]

You guys are great, thanks alot, sincerely! I've read all posts and have taken several good advices into account. I've downloaded TuxGuitar as adviced, I also ordered the Fretboard Roadmaps and Hal Leonard bass lesson books from Amazon.

At the moment I'm focusing on learning the chord patterns(major, minor, diminished 7th, dominant 7th etc). I've come to understand that these will serve as a good foundation for my future skills in playing. Learning the chords and being able to play them flawless and fast should improve my coordination and speed.

As far as tabs go, I don't really care much about them. Still, if I come to play a few, I have a hard time finding the rhytm in the song so I can play along. It's easy to read the tabs and pluck the strings, the hard part is being able to play the notes in the rhytm and tempo of the song. I just find it really difficult to hear the bass in most songs - guessing I need more ear practice.

[dmrogers]

It's great to hear that you have read the posts. Those are some great suggestions. I will not add to the above since basically everything was covered (and covered well).

I will offer these words of encouragement:

Don't quit! It takes time. You can practice something for a month and then one day, it will click.

Work slowly.

Don't get burned out. When the theory starts making smoke come out of your ears, find a song that you can play and have some fun.

Find some simple songs that you like, get a chord chart for it and practice, but have fun with it. Start out with just roots, then add to it slowly as you become more familiar with the tune.

Enjoy it!!!!! If it gets to be a chore or something you dread, you will not learn as quickly.

Well, I guess I did have a few suggestions (I repeated some stuff too). But I really hope you stick with it. It will all come together!

I will add, when you get into the theory and site reading, check out http://www.musictheory.net/

Good Luck!