is this a problem

yarg682 · #1 12-20-2008, 04:15 PM

I've been playing for a year and a half and I always have trouble learning songs from tabs I've never gotten an entire song learned and I always struggle to emulate someone's rhythym

IanEllis · #2 12-20-2008, 04:21 PM

rhythm is absolutely essential to you being a good bassist. You could have the most jaw dropping techniques but if your rhythm sucks you are useless. Just remember to slow everything down when learning it then speed it up. If you are having and problems with a certain part isolate that part of the song, put on a metronome and loop that part.

fretlessman71 · #3 12-20-2008, 04:26 PM

Tabs are EVIL. Get a good teacher, and learning to read standard notation wouldn't hurt either (learning standard notation helps you to understand rhythm in a tangible way).

IMHO the popularity of tablature amongst guitarists is one of the worst things to happen to musicianship in the last 40 years. They're nothing but a shortcut, and a very poor one at that.

Jake of Bass · #4 12-20-2008, 05:04 PM

Rule #1 of Bass Club is:

DON'T GET TABS, LEARN THE SONGS BY EAR.

You should get the tabs only as a last resort if you simply can't work a part out, merely to get someone else's take on it.

Why? Because quite often tabs are wrong. Sure, there are some people who are fantastic at tabbing, but if you don't attempt to work out the song yourself, you'll never really know if what you're playing is correct or not because you're not using your ear.

The more you work stuff out yourself, you'll improve in so many ways. Your ear will improve, sense of timing and groove, knowledge of your instrument, phrasing, understanding of the song you're learning...

Seriously, use tabs as a last resort instead of your first port of call to learning a song, otherwise you'll never really be learning the bass, just copying from often incorrect text.

onlyclave · #5 12-20-2008, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jake of Bass

Rule #1 of Bass Club is:

DON'T GET TABS, LEARN THE SONGS BY EAR.

You should get the tabs only as a last resort if you simply can't work a part out, merely to get someone else's take on it.

Why? Because quite often tabs are wrong. Sure, there are some people who are fantastic at tabbing, but if you don't attempt to work out the song yourself, you'll never really know if what you're playing is correct or not because you're not using your ear.

The more you work stuff out yourself, you'll improve in so many ways. Your ear will improve, sense of timing and groove, knowledge of your instrument, phrasing, understanding of the song you're learning...

Seriously, use tabs as a last resort instead of your first port of call to learning a song, otherwise you'll never really be learning the bass, just copying from often incorrect text.

What's the difference? You'll need the recording either way.

DocBop · #6 12-20-2008, 05:58 PM

Remember a bad note you're probably just adding to the harmony, bad rhythm you stick out like a sore thumb.

TAB is the heroin of music stay away. Listen more, feel the time, feel the groove, feel the bass part in your gut, learn to sing/hum the bass line that will make getting the rhythm easier. Also help remembering the song if you can sing it and later will help develop your ear.

Without good rhythm even your grandma will slap you.

Deacon_Blues · #7 12-20-2008, 06:28 PM

Time to buy a metronome or drum machine and play along. A metronome is better for internalizing the concept of good time, but the drum machine is more fun to use.

If you don't want or can afford buying anything right now, you can use this metronome: http://www.metronomeonline.com/ There's a few great articles on that page that I recommend you to read as well.

Martin Bormann · #8 12-20-2008, 06:37 PM

A metronome will be helpful, however it won't make you any better unless you learn to count and subdivide. In fact you should be spending an hour a day minimum working on rhythmic etudes.

DocBop · #9 12-20-2008, 08:00 PM

First lesson on using a metronome....

If you hear the click your out of time. Practice clapping quarter notes with a metronome until you don't hear the click then you are keeping good time.

Jake of Bass · #10 12-20-2008, 10:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by onlyclave

What's the difference? You'll need the recording either way.

Because you're not attempting to really listen and learn the song, you're just matching the numbers to what seems right.

It's a bit like looking at something and really attempting to draw it, honing your perspective, than getting someone to do the dots and you connect them up, hoping they've got the dots right in the first place.

onlyclave · #11 12-20-2008, 11:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jake of Bass

Because you're not attempting to really listen and learn the song, you're just matching the numbers to what seems right.

It's a bit like looking at something and really attempting to draw it, honing your perspective, than getting someone to do the dots and you connect them up, hoping they've got the dots right in the first place.

Just like most tabs are wrong, most people have bad ears and "learn" many songs as incorrectly as the tabs. Standard notation is the only way to go.

Jake of Bass · #12 12-20-2008, 11:22 PM

For sure, but it's not necessarily going to achieve better time, which is part of the OP's question, the other being learning the song. By working out by ear he'll be forced to play in time as 99% of the recorded music available is done to a click (and often quantised from there) so he'll be playing to perfect time whilst learning a song, so it essentially kills two birds with the same stone. I'm certainly not suggesting that's the only way to improve time and learn songs, but for the OP's stated level of experience I see this as being a good way to work on improving these factors right away.

mambo4 · #13 12-21-2008, 12:04 PM

Play the songs you want to learn more slowly.

i recall many times encountering the beginner's "i just can't play this" attitude, and when it's suggested that you can play anything provided you slow it down enough, the beginner always balks...there is the idea among many that if you just keep up the tempo, eventually the notes will correct themselves, but what you are doing is simply training yourself to play fast and poorly.

learn accuracy first, speed is the byproduct.

And yes, ditch the tab. Ears and Notation are vastly superior. Notation is a steep learning curve with tremendous benefits. Following a chord chart -just reading chord symbols, ignoring the lil dots, is fairly simple.