Making Your Own Groove

Icarus26 · #1 07-21-2008, 03:00 PM

can someone help me out here. how does a person make their own original groove? do they just pick notes at random. please leave some words of wisdom to help me get along. i can cover songs, but thats just reading tabs, how does a person make their own. what do i need to know?

Phe · #2 07-21-2008, 03:11 PM

It's not picking random notes. It's picking the right notes and phrasing them well. It's where you are on the beat and how long. It's about accents and interplay.

You can groove with just one note. (Or even better, you can groove with no notes at all, just use your bass as a percussion)

And by the way: Grooving is not composing.

Hope this gets you started.

Qvist · #3 07-21-2008, 03:13 PM

yeah man, a groove is all about the beat. A great rock groove is the intro for You Could Be Mine with Guns'N'Roses. The main groove is only 2 notes!

ErebusBass · #4 07-21-2008, 03:22 PM

Learn your scales.

Joel S. · #5 07-21-2008, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icarus26

can someone help me out here. how does a person make their own original groove? do they just pick notes at random. please leave some words of wisdom to help me get along. i can cover songs, but thats just reading tabs, how does a person make their own. what do i need to know?

1) Stop relying on tabs. Start working on learning by ear, it will take you more time, but you'll hear and pick up on things that 90% of tabs miss. (I'd be seriously rich if I had a penny for every note or nuance a tab got wrong or missed.)

2) Learn some basic theory, especially chord composition, and your scales and modes.

3) Apply #2 to things your hear in #1 and you should begin to pick up on things bassists do give a song a good groove.

4) Cherry pick these ideas as you jam along with a metronome or drum machine.

5) Practice.

It's not a matter of random notes, every note, even passing notes or dead notes, is there for a specific reason.

Icarus26 · #6 07-21-2008, 03:26 PM

thanks for the advice, anyone know where i can find modes, scales, or chord composition?

WyrdoBass · #7 07-21-2008, 03:31 PM

purty much any bass learning (forgot how to phrase that- I feel stupid) book... Bass guitar for dummies has 'em I know.

Joel S. · #8 07-21-2008, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icarus26

thanks for the advice, anyone know where i can find modes, scales, or chord composition?

Could get a teacher, any good one will be able to help you with that. Also, check the stuck thread in this forum, there's some good links and info there.

www.studybass.com is a good resource as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WyrdoBass

purty much any bass learning (forgot how to phrase that- I feel stupid) book... Bass guitar for dummies has 'em I know.

Bass for dummies is a good book for beginners and beginning theory from a bassist's perspective.

P.S. As your working on this, don't think of theory as a set of ridged rules, think of it as a set of guidelines that are made to be stretched and broken at times.

tZer · #9 07-21-2008, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icarus26

thanks for the advice, anyone know where i can find modes, scales, or chord composition?

All that is definitely useful, but "groove" is much more about feel than knowing scales, modes and composition.

You can groove on one note - or even NO note by palm-muting and laying down a groovy rhythm with ghost notes.

Before you bog your brain in too much theory, consider what every person does every day (well, most people)... They walk. Put one foot in front of the other at a very regular pace. There's your metronome.

OK, now that you're walking, snap your fingers on 1. Got it? Good. Not too groovy, but that's coming.

NOW, stop snapping on one and start snapping on 2 and 4. More groovy, right? Not super-groovy, but more than just ONE, 2, 3, 4, ONE, 2, 3, 4...

OK, Keep walking... Now experiment with patting your hip and chest - like a drummer keeping a beat. Your feet are doing the hi-hat, your chest is the kick drum, your hip is the snare... do the chest on 1, the hip on 3 and give yourself a beat as you're walking. Once you get that beat established, play with little syncopations - pickup beats on the & of 4 that lead you to the one. etc...

Groove is not so much what notes you play, but when you play them. Some of the grooviest grooves are very minimal. So you could use one note - an "A", - how you rhythmically use that "A" within the context of the beat is where the groove comes from. Start simple - nail the necessary parts of the beat that need to be nailed (ONE is a good place to start) and slowly, as the rhythm sinks in, add to it.

DocBop · #10 07-21-2008, 05:20 PM

Sing you probably hear lines in your head that is your starting point. If on a bandstand or a jam then muck around with root and 5th till you hear an idea in your head and then start trying to play whats in your head.

To practice this listen to some music that moves you and sing a new bass line or variations on the one in the tune. Then figure out what was in your head. The more you do this your fast your get at it, its call ear training. Also think of a groove or use a drum machine and start singing bass parts. Get something you like then figure it out and play. The problem for most is with their bass in their hand they limit themselves to familiar patterns or things they know. If you sing or make stuff up in your head you don't limit yourself. The key is learning to get what's in your head onto the instrument faster. You do that by hearing stuff in your head and figuring it out.

Sing Brother sing.

ninefingerbass · #11 07-21-2008, 05:50 PM

Groove is about the feel, the rhythym, the mood...notes do not hold the groove but they make the groove a little more musical.

Take drums, to the normal ear it sounds like random sounds but to the trained ear you can actually hear certain notes. Those are frequencies that are either much lower or higher. Have you ever noticed playing a certain note to the bass drum fits much better than others. Try to find the tuning note of the bass drum next time if you can; it's pretty cool. And although they are tuned to certain notes, you can still groove to something that has no notes and make it groovy kind of like tapping your fingers on the desk.

There is a little thing you can do to figure this out. The idea being that rhythym is more important than notes. With you fingers tap out the rhythym only to "Mary had a little lamb" and then sing it, you can cleary hear how it is well composed and written being such a simple melody. Then just tap it out on your finger and listen to how the notes do not determine if it is that melody. Try another one, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or maybe for you jazz guys that are into complex things. Do the same with Giant Steps or maybe Spain. It's not the notes that create the groove, it's the rhythym. Just thought I'd add in my two cents and if I lost anyone let me know cause I tend to lose myself.

basspower · #12 07-22-2008, 12:55 PM

Check out the Book "Improve Your Groove" by Patrick Pfeiffer (published by Hal Leonard) and especially Chapter 7 in "Bass Guitar for Dummies" (published by Wiley's). Especially the Dummies book gives you a template on how to construct your own groove. Good luck!

Sandman1278 · #13 07-22-2008, 12:58 PM

pick random notes in the same scales, then go up and down the scale really fast

DudeistMonk · #14 07-22-2008, 01:20 PM

Learning to groove is all about feel. Some thing that helped me...

Pick a scale or arpeggio or even just a note or two to use, use them to put at ease the whole "Am I playing the right notes thing." Remember any notes can sound right with the right rhythm, unless of course your playing with another melodic instrument and then you have to be a lot me choosy about what you play.

Turn off the lights forget about playing "the right notes"

Put on a drum loop, feel the drums and fit the bass in between them and on top of them

Tap your left foot to the drums (1,2,3,4) trust me on this, it helps you keep focused and helps your body feel the groove. Groove is something you feel not think.

Listen to some really groovy music (Ie: Funk and Reggae) and try to play along, even if the notes are wrong absorb the rhythms.

jugoziithouu · #15 07-22-2008, 10:35 PM

Exploit ur mistakes

Play riffs backwardsly

Use rythm not only notes (hard to explain)

Audiophage · #16 07-24-2008, 08:47 AM

I don't see why you couldn't pick notes at random. You know, if you don't have a chord progression already defined in some way.

von buck · #17 07-24-2008, 08:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sandman1278

pick random notes in the same scales, then go up and down the scale really fast

A good groove doesn't involve speed

Andy

COOL AND DEADLY · #18 07-24-2008, 09:02 AM

grooves are as much about the rests as they are the notes. Tied notes,spaces, rythmic repeats of the same note at times. The best way to not groove is to play up and down scales as fast as you can.

Sandman1278 · #19 07-30-2008, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by von buck

A good groove doesn't involve speed

Andy

i was joking

tomvelsor · #20 07-30-2008, 01:45 PM

unfourtunately i can tell by the question you need a few more years of playing before youll be writing your own songs. at this point, jamming with whoever you can, whenever you can, and most importantly, LISTENING.

how do you learn to speak as a baby? listening to others speak..

but seriously, it just takes more time of learning and knowing scales and playing whatever you can. eventually you will be able to groove on anything