Biggest Bass Breakthroughs (or Eureka Moments)

[Zegie]

On my bass learning journey I have found that it is good to be discriminative in your studies. Many, what I call over educated people, strive to impress by making simple things difficult. The same applies to all walks of life, but I have found it is particularly true in music.

Breaking down things down into the simplest possible way works for me.

Q. How do you eat an Elephant?
A. In very small mouthfuls.

A good example is what I call my biggest bass breakthrough.

After learning the notes on the fret board, I found that it was only half of the story (in fact it was probably around a quarter). The remaining important three quarters were still out of reach and beyond my understanding.

That was until I realised that it wasn’t box shapes and patterns that were the secret – it was where they came from that was. The total view of all intervals on the fret board and where they lay in relation to the root (and each other), coupled with a smattering of chord theory was the key. Box shapes and patterns then became child’s play… because you know what you are doing and how it works.

My appreciation and understanding of this relatively simple and, I believe, fundamental aspect of learning bass was for me a pivotal breakthrough.

It is curious that fret board intervals are not seen by the academics as very important as evidenced by their absence. There are plenty of books, charts and teachers showing and advocating the learning of all the notes on the fret board but very few (if any) showing all the intervals.

I am wondering why this is. Surely they are of at least equal importance?

I am also wondering what else is hiding out there. So what have you discovered that is conspicuous by its absence in mainstream teaching?

What is your personal Biggest Bass Breakthrough?

Z.

[MalcolmAmos]

You touched on the big WOW for me which was how to utilize scale degree numbers aka R-3-5-8 and take those to the fretboard.

Little wow - place your root on the 3rd string and I IV V is a piece of cake.

Next wow - Root on 1. If you need more add the 5. Need more try an 8. Still need more look to the correct 3 and or 7.

Did I mention Rhythm and groove?

[Zegie]

Seems we have had similar eureka moments.

This is what I discovered and learnt from - but have yet to see one for bass! And it SO fundamental.

http://www.jazzguitar.be/image/chord/guitar_notes.gif

As for rhythm and groove.

See the late great Emily Remier

http://www.jazzguitar.be/images/chords/guitar_notes.gif

(the bit on rythm/groove/swing comes about haf way through).

Anymore undocumented gems?

Z.

[sammyp]

Originally Posted by Zegie

On my bass learning journey I have found that it is good to be discriminative in your studies. Many, what I call over educated people, strive to impress by making simple things difficult. The same applies to all walks of life, but I have found it is particularly true in music.

Breaking down things down into the simplest possible way works for me.

Q. How do you eat an Elephant?
A. In very small mouthfuls.

A good example is what I call my biggest bass breakthrough.

After learning the notes on the fret board, I found that it was only half of the story (in fact it was probably around a quarter). The remaining important three quarters were still out of reach and beyond my understanding.

That was until I realised that it wasn’t box shapes and patterns that were the secret – it was where they came from that was. The total view of all intervals on the fret board and where they lay in relation to the root (and each other), coupled with a smattering of chord theory was the key. Box shapes and patterns then became child’s play… because you know what you are doing and how it works.

My appreciation and understanding of this relatively simple and, I believe, fundamental aspect of learning bass was for me a pivotal breakthrough.

It is curious that fret board intervals are not seen by the academics as very important as evidenced by their absence. There are plenty of books, charts and teachers showing and advocating the learning of all the notes on the fret board but very few (if any) showing all the intervals.

I am wondering why this is. Surely they are of at least equal importance?

I am also wondering what else is hiding out there. So what have you discovered that is conspicuous by its absence in mainstream teaching?

What is your personal Biggest Bass Breakthrough?

Z.

you are so correct .....when i'm asked "can you teach me some theory" i really feel i have to start with intervals .....unfortunately many students get bored fast and ask how does this help me or why do i need to know this?

the fundamental of theory is knowing by site and sound the relationship of 1 note to another.

And this is theory for a lifetime of playing and listening ....not just instrument specific!

i played guitar for a long time before getting into actively practicing bass....so my breakthroughs are different .....i stay constantly aware that for all the technique and flash we strive to gather .....my worth is based on how i make the drummer and my band "feel" when i play.....this boils down to working on my tone and being solid with the perfect amount of embellsihment to a basic chord structure.

[theretheyare]

You onto something very important

The reason why that is, is because teaching scales and modes for teaching purposes is relatively easy to do, to organize, and to grade.

In today's world we are inundated with conservatories, academies, books and dvds etc. Does that mean that nowadays people make better music that they did 50 or 250 years ago? Of course not. Music is music. While they have that in the teaching manuals, in the real world blues was and is not 12 bars, jazz is not II-V-I, a Sonata is not 2 themes with one in the tonic and the other in the dominant.

All it means that there is now a thriving music education industry.

If and how [i]playing[i] scales and modes relates to making valid music is a good question. I don't believe it, because I do not hear scales and modes in Lester Young, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, J.S. Bach

Nowadays I study on a note-to-note basis. And it took me a long time to get there.

[Zegie]

Originally Posted by theretheyare

The reason why that is, is because teaching scales and modes for teaching purposes is relatively easy to do, to organize, and to grade.

All it means that there is now a thriving music education industry.

Well said. Also, as I think you are suggesting, it is easy to learn (and teach) songs without the student understanding quite what he/she is doing - and more importantly why it sounds that way.

Not that there is anything wrong with that - everybody is different, however, sadly there are some 'less conventional' ways of study that have been overlooked for the very reasons you cite.

That is why I am always on the lookout for sucessful different approaches that have been stumbled upon 'by accident' or in the rush to be 'conventional' have become overlooked.

Z.

[russtolium]

Originally Posted by theretheyare

Nowadays I study on a note-to-note basis. And it took me a long time to get there.

This reminds me of something similarly related that I read last night in the (very recommended) book Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy. In the part of the book I'm reading, it discusses the virtuoso and what they've been able to discover about what makes them different from the 'average' player. One of the things the book states is that virtuosos tended to view notes as clusters of musical ideas, whereas the amateurs tended to view music as just a string of notes.

The book says that it was shown that the virtuosos were able to divide a tune into much finer 'chunks' than the amateur, who only had a few limited 'entry points' to a piece of music, meaning that learning a piece was more linear and slow for the amateur and that a virtuoso's 'chunks' were more capable of realigning themselves in mid-song if they lost track or made a mistake. They were also able to memorize more quickly because their brains assembled music from a set of building blocks rather than trying to internalize large linear sequences of notes.

This is kind of an 'aha' moment for me as I know that I fit the amateur's thought process perfectly, and it explains why it takes me as long as it does to learn a tune. Cultivating my knowledge of theory will hopefully start to steer me in the other direction, and like a lot of you are saying, memorizing the relationships of what you are playing is a critical tool toward better playing too. Trying to memorize the fretboard isn't a bad idea as a supplement, but in my view interval training is far more versatile and important and is a tool that can apply to any tuning, not just standard.

[Zegie]

Thank you - I'll definately put that book on my Christmas list!

Then does it boil down to sentences and paragraphs (and pages?) rather than letters and words?

I firmly believe music is magic, which interestingly appears to correspond with what Jourdain might be saying.

I'll read, learn and inwardly digest.

Z.

[queevil]

I can really only touch on what others have said. The biggest "Oh Wow"! moment for me is when I began to grasp a rudimentary knowledge of music theory. When I was 11 I began playing coronet in middle school band and although I learned to read single note lines on the treble clef there really was no curriculum directly related to the theory of music and I really didn't learn anything about chords because you don't play chords on a coronet.

After about three years of coronet I decided it wasn't cool anymore(stupid mistake and I actually played very well) so I started playing guitar. I learned a lot of chords and all kinds of cool licks, scales and modes but I never learned why a Gmaj is in fact a Gmaj chord and that there is a corresponding scale to that chord. All those cool scales and licks I learned, well I never learned to play leads over complex chord changes.

After about seven years of guitar I began playing bass. I didn't want to be a run of the mill bass player. You see, I grew up on heavy metal and hardcore punk. Although both genres have their share of truly talented bassists the basslines were not all that inspiring most of time. Well, after about 6 months of playing bass I started playing with this guitar player who knew loads of theory and he began to teach me. It all began to come together. I began to understand why a G chord is a G chord and when I learned what makes a chord a major, minor, 7th, +9, aug4th,ect. I began to understand that I have a choice of notes to play over any given chord rather than just the root. I began to understand WHY certain notes, lines and phrases sound good at certain times. I also began to be able to communicate with other musicians because I was learning the language of music.

So that was my AHA! moment. When I grasped enough about the rudiments of music to be able to make the things that I already knew about music useful in a creative way.

[mambo4]

Originally Posted by Zegie

It is curious that fret board intervals are not seen by the academics as very important as evidenced by their absence. .

That's a significant point. My guess is it's not that it's unimportant, but so fundamental and basic as to fall beneath the radar of instructional materials/talkbass posts.

because it doesn't get mentioned much, noobs are less likely to have their curiosity piqued and start asking. As opposed to modes, which generate so much controversy that beginners wonder what the fuss is about and start investigating.

as for eureka moments, my 20+ years of playign is peppered with many such moments. among them:
-realizing that the major scale is not many patterns/postions but one big pattern across the fret board (and beyond)
-realizing that you can consider any note as an option at any time, if you use your ears and serve the music.
-realizing that I learning to read notation significantly improves your rhythm
-realizing that playing less helps you listen more
-realizing that sticking to root notes helps you explore the other stuff -dynamics, articulation, note duration, feel ect.
-realizing that making the song /group sound better is more important than playing awesome bass lines...

[hec86]

Everything can be traced back to octaves.

Knowing the octave was the sound of the penny dropping for me - a simple thing but I think, like the poster above said '...one big pattern across the fret board...', it showed the interconnectedness of the fret board so everything else was made possible by the eureka moment of the octave.

[tjh]

+1 on the realization of the importance of at least minimal theory ... I had not touched a bass for almost 35 years, and when I was asked to play, I realized I needed a quick refresher .. I picked up a book called "Bass Guitar for Dummies", and I think it was written for me, because it made sense ... it pointed out that I needed to know why I was playing what I was, and that has led me on my quest to try make sense of it all ... there are things in that book that I use as a foundation to this day ... maybe not your typical "eureka" moment, but without a doubt the best $10-15 I have spent musically, and because it was exactly what I needed at that time ...

[ShredderMaximus]

Yeah, for me it was when I stopped seeing the fretboard in pieces. I don't know what triggered it, but all those modes and everything I had been practicing finally came together to where I could run all the way up to the open E all the way up to the 21st fret G-string high E without putting any thought into it. From there I've been progressing faster than ever.

[Zegie]

Some fascinating points. I have always likened music studies as looking though a series of fences - sometimes you see it - sometimes you don't!

Until, all of a sudden the fence is gone - then you are on to the next one.

It seems that much of the 'realisation' discussed here has been discovered rather than taught - which I guess is one good way to achive total bass enlightenment....


Z.

[GypsyMan]

Reading Notation came on me like a bolt of lightning!

That's my biggest break through.

I've just had another minor break through.

All the other bassist that I admire, the way they play, the hand position, the notes they play, That's thier thing. That's thier sound. I can try to get as close as possible to thier tempo and chords; but it's better to try and find my own thing; my own groove, instead of trying to play just like so-and-so.

Finding my own groove.

[u84six]

- learning to hum a bass line and then finding the notes makes me play to the song and not to the song's chord theory. This definitely makes me sound better.
- learning why certain non-chord tones sound good over a chord.
- learning how to make more out of less.

[fourfinger]

More than one moment, but this one was a complete accident:

Practicing scales across strings on a six-string bass.

On a four-string, it's hard to notice that major and minor scales are really just the same repeated pattern. On a six, it's hard NOT to notice.

Didn't have the six-string very long, but it made scale study a whole lot less intimidating.

[pbass888]

In jazz soloing ... learning how to take a rythymic piece of a line and play it through the various chords.... sounds great.. IT was a breakthough in what was up to that point.. a bunch of licks and notes.
Also, learning a lot of melodies to make your solos sound melodic... another 'slower' breakthough. Best breakthough... got a great teacher...fellow tb'er and jazz great Todd Johnson

[Matthew_84]

One of my big "Aha" moments was when I was learning modes and their colours. I remember playing all of the modes of C major and realized that the next mode was just the C major scale with the next note as the root. And if I played double-octave scales the different modes sounded *somewhat* similar (when I played the modes of C Major, ie. D Dorian, E Phrygian, etc.)

When I finally went, "okay well what does this mode's IV chord sounds like?"; played it; "And how about that mode's IV chord?"; played it and compared the two; that I realized why learning the different modes was so special, and how they drastically change the colour of the song.

All of my basslines before this were based on very scalar methods, I never really played any chords. That changed after this realization. Chords became the utmost of importance to me. Don't get me wrong, I'll still add in the odd scale tone, or even chormatic passing notes, if it works well within that chord, but I pretty much stick to the chord tones.

And I do want to be clear here... If you do play all of the modes then you certainly hear a difference between them (especially when played in the same key). But I didn't notice it right away, my ears had to develop enough to tell the difference... But the chords are completely different and I heard the difference right away.