Complete newbie on bass with great aspirations looking for guidance.

[Tiggar]

Hey there, I've been reading this forum for just under a week and the knowledge of it's members has really impressed me. I've been a jazz drummer for about 4 years now, but unfortunately I ran out of money so I had to quit the university I was attending and have no where to practice, so drums are over for me.

I spent the last month since my decision to quit drums incredibly bored, and very very unhappy. Music is what I love and being unable to play was killing me. Anyways, I played a little Bass in Highschool (Grade 8, before I ever knew of theory and thought playing bass lines was just reading notes off a paper with no improvisation), and decided it was time to pick it up again 8 years later. Bass is my first love and I feel I've made the best decision I could have made.

I've been playing now for about two days but I've already made up my mind with what I want to accomplish:

(1) Be able to walk any chord progression out of the real book without stopping

(2) Be able to go into a jam session, have the guitar player yell out a style and a key and me just go right into it

(3) Build speed and independence in order to solo over a variety of styles

I hope to achieve all this with One Year starting today. I plan to spend roughly 3-4 hours a day 6-7 days a week working on this. My real goal is to audition for a cruise ship and spend a few years working that route to get the music performance bug out of my system before I settle down to a "real" job making music a hobby and not my career.

I'm going to be self taught unfortunately, due to money concerns, so I'm looking for advice on perhaps how to structure my practice time and what I should be starting with. I'm really excited to get started but I'm having trouble on what I should be doing first.

So far I've just been building on my technique, doing scale runs up the neck of my bass, the spider, and various other things. I have a moderate grasp of theory, but when I get to chord changes I have a really hard time applying what I've read to the music.

Any tips or strategies you guys have employed with either yourselves or students that really got them going?

[Rudreax]

Once you get the basic technique down again to actually play, I suggest two things:

a) Learn all the notes on the fretboard

b) Learn to read sheet music.

-Once you get those down, start finding any kind of sheet music you can find and learn to sight-read NOW. Since you're just starting off, this would be the best time for you to learn how to do it.

-Go through some of the topics here and read the insane wealth of info there is to find. Once you go through enough topics, you'll find a number of people that clearly know what they're talking about (JTE, Richard Lindsey, Chris K, etc.); remember the posts they make and use that to learn.

-LISTEN to everything you want to know about. This means listening to all the music you could possible want to hear. You need to develop your ear for bass as well as theory; learn a bunch of songs, and transcribe anything you want to learn about. Walking basslines are very helpful here.

-There are tons of lessons on Youtube and the like that you can use and follow. Avoid expertvillage though, those guys usually don't what they're talking about.

-When you think you have a decent ear and a good amount of knowledge, go find some open jams and start playing with other people.

[Toronto Bassist]

Originally Posted by Tiggar

I hope to achieve all this with One Year starting today.

Originally Posted by Tiggar

I'm going to be self taught unfortunately

[MalcolmAmos]

Originally Posted by Tiggar

...... but when I get to chord changes I have a really hard time applying what I've read to the music.

Any tips or strategies you guys have employed with either yourselves or students that really got them going?

Let's jamm over some 12 bar blues progressions. The chord changes are very predictable - not exact, every time, but, predictable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUK5p...eature=related
Four root notes per measure and change root notes as the chord changes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmsyY...eature=related
At first just do the root. When that gets easy then do a repetitive R-5 over each chord change. When that get easy then try this:
It is 4/4 time or four beats (notes) fills one measure.
C6 = R-3-5-6 or C-E-G-A
F7 = R-3-5-b7 or F-A-C-Eb
C7 = R-3-5-b7 or C-E-G-Bb
Dm7 = R-b3-5-b7 D-F-A-C

That pentatonic pattern - place the blue dot on the 4th string -- on the 4th string 10th fret and play the pattern. That pattern shown is for a 6 string guitar forget about the top two strings.
D minor pentatonic = R-b3-4-5-b7 or D-F-G-A-C over the entire song to the beat of the music. I know it's like chewing gum and walking.

Here is a chord/scale generator http://www.looknohands.com/chordhous.../index_rb.html That's where all that R-3-5-6 stuff came from.

Ask specific questions.

Have fun.

[Tiggar]

Originally Posted by Rudreax

Once you get the basic technique down again to actually play, I suggest two things:

a) Learn all the notes on the fretboard

b) Learn to read sheet music.

-Once you get those down, start finding any kind of sheet music you can find and learn to sight-read NOW. Since you're just starting off, this would be the best time for you to learn how to do it.

-Go through some of the topics here and read the insane wealth of info there is to find. Once you go through enough topics, you'll find a number of people that clearly know what they're talking about (JTE, Richard Lindsey, Chris K, etc.); remember the posts they make and use that to learn.

-LISTEN to everything you want to know about. This means listening to all the music you could possible want to hear. You need to develop your ear for bass as well as theory; learn a bunch of songs, and transcribe anything you want to learn about. Walking basslines are very helpful here.

-There are tons of lessons on Youtube and the like that you can use and follow. Avoid expertvillage though, those guys usually don't what they're talking about.

-When you think you have a decent ear and a good amount of knowledge, go find some open jams and start playing with other people.

Thanks for the quick response!

I agree with your advice about sight reading. I can sight read pretty decently at the moment, the only thing I have trouble with is playing things on other strings (IE playing low Bb on the 6th fret of the E string instead of the 1st fret of the A string). So I'll get to working on that first.

I've noticed the same thing about ExpertVillage too, haha. Anyways thanks for the advice, I think I'll hold off on transcriptions until I get a little better with my theory (Being a drummer, I still can't reliably listen to a song and jot down changes, but that comes with time)

[camiloochoa]

basic things to improvise walking lines and solos

- study harmony (you can get the Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine)
- learn all the scales on the bass with different fingerings, at least 2 octaves, but much better if you do them on all the fretboard.
- learn the arpegios of all the chords (R-3-5-7) in different fingerings.
- learn the arpegios with their extentions (9´s, 11´s, 13´s) with different fingrings also.
- learn the Chord/Scales relationship

you can also buy a couple of jamey aebersold book´s, i recommend the vol. 1 (how to play jazz and improvise) and vol.3 (II-V7-I progression).

and last but not least important, don´t rush yourself, enjoy the ride!

[ryco]

+1 on the Aebersold book suggestion.
He also has this FREE Jazz Handbook that has GREAT info about developing walking lines, blues and music tips in general.

Also poke around in these free sites for info, ideas and insights
http://www.studybass.com/
http://www.activebass.com/

play a lot with other people 'cause that's what bass is all about - being the foundation.
Being a drummer I'm sure you're aware of this already!

[DudeistMonk]

I assume you've already read the stuff at http://studybass.com because this site is great for getting a through understanding of the role of bass up front.

If you don't know the basics of chord theory, diatonic progressions, how to form chords, scales, ect. Grab a music theory 101 book and zip through it.

Start playing arpeggios methodically to warm up and you can get two things done at once if you start playing the arpeggios while shifting in various intervals, you can later expand this to modes too.

Find sheet for as many of those cruise songs as you can, start playing them and as you do write down the chord above each bar and start thinking of the bass lines in terms of the chords. You'll be learning material you will use and seeing/hearing how other guys treat the chords.

Apply this knowledge to blues changes and then jazz changes in the real book + your gonna wanna probably do some reading on walking and your golden...Mr.Havic can probably help you with soloing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEs3yJQXM8s. Pretty lofty goals man, more power to ya!

[Tiggar]

Originally Posted by DudeistMonk

I assume you've already read the stuff at http://studybass.com because this site is great for getting a through understanding of the role of bass up front.

If you don't know the basics of chord theory, diatonic progressions, how to form chords, scales, ect. Grab a music theory 101 book and zip through it.

Start playing arpeggios methodically to warm up and you can get two things done at once if you start playing the arpeggios while shifting in various intervals, you can later expand this to modes too.

Find sheet for as many of those cruise songs as you can, start playing them and as you do write down the chord above each bar and start thinking of the bass lines in terms of the chords. You'll be learning material you will use and seeing/hearing how other guys treat the chords.

Apply this knowledge to blues changes and then jazz changes in the real book + your gonna wanna probably do some reading on walking and your golden...Mr.Havic can probably help you with soloing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEs3yJQXM8s. Pretty lofty goals man, more power to ya!

Thanks so much everyone for the advice! Yeah, I went through that site and they have some awesome ideas for learning how to walk a blues. Right now I'min the process of righting in chord progressions in roman numerals over some of my favorite real book songs and trying to apply some scale degrees to them (ie starting basic with 1,3,5,chromatic passing tone to the next chord).

And yeah, I set some really hard goals but I feel that if I don't set goals that I really have to strive for, I'll get lazy and unmotivated.

[Rudreax]

Definitely go for it, and if you ever get the chance to get a teacher go for it. It is possible to do some of the things you did in a year; I was more or less forced to learn to read standard notation for bass and jazz chord charts in two months to avoid losing my first bass, so I know others can do it if they apply themselves.

[Soverntear]

i know money is an issue but Id really suggest you get a copy of hal leonards bass method and slap it. both books will help your playing and ive you tonnes of stuff to learn