Recommendations for good bass pieces?

[wdinc01]

I'm pretty sure this is the best place to put this. Please move if needed.

I've made a commitment to myself to play my bass everyday this year. So far I've been really sticking to that (except for about a month or so when I didn't have a bass). I think I've really improved in tapping, enough so that my friends invited me to form their band (which really worked out well for me). However, I feel like I've learned nearly everything I wanted to learn, and there's not much else to do except get faster.

I want to improve all around, and I figure one way I can do this is by finding a piece of music to work on every night so that I've actually got a goal and am not just screwing around.

I can read sheet music, although not as fluently as I could on a euphonium (which I've played for five years). So I was hoping for some guidance to a place I could find a bass solo piece.

If it matters, I really like marches and western style of music (think cowboy sounding stuff). But I'm open to anything that'll sound good.

Thanks for any help.

[brassed]

Hello,

I can not really tell you of a piece to use to increase speed, just a technique I use when I practice euphonium (9 years, odd that we both posted a thread mentioning euphonium at the same time)

Change the Rhythm
Get your metronome out , how else will you know you are getting any faster set the metronome to as fast as you can play the exercise without messing up.

First Time Through: Play through an exercise at the normal rhythm and tempo.

Second Time Through: Swing it. Play the line as a dotted-eighth sixteenth (is there a way to show rhythms on this board?) COMPRESS THE RHYTHM!!!

Third Time Through: Do the exact opposite. Play the whole exercise as a sixteenth dotted-eighth. COMPRESS THE RHYTHM!!!

Fourth Time Through: Play the original Exercise making sure not to compress the rhythm at all ... its sooooo much easier now.

Increase the metronome marking and continue.
~


This exercise tricks you brain into thinking you can play the line faster. After all, you played every combination of notes twice as fast as you ever have before (yeah, you didn't do it all at the same time, but your brain doesn't need to know that, haha)

I have used this with scales on bass. I havent tried it with tapping.

~Divide and Conquer~
Brassed

[wdinc01]

Oh hey, that's actually a really great idea. I do that sometimes playing through a scale, but usually end up slowing down a LOT. I'll give that a try.

And I dunno if I can do that with tapping, but it would help me with finger plucking, which isn't as good as my tapping I think.

[soong]

Uh im not sure abut Western but try Country Music (A Night in Hell) - Stu Hamm.

cool solo bass piece.

[Bass_Machine]

Originally Posted by brassed

Hello,

I can not really tell you of a piece to use to increase speed, just a technique I use when I practice euphonium (9 years, odd that we both posted a thread mentioning euphonium at the same time)

Change the Rhythm
Get your metronome out , how else will you know you are getting any faster set the metronome to as fast as you can play the exercise without messing up.

First Time Through: Play through an exercise at the normal rhythm and tempo.

Second Time Through: Swing it. Play the line as a dotted-eighth sixteenth (is there a way to show rhythms on this board?) COMPRESS THE RHYTHM!!!

Third Time Through: Do the exact opposite. Play the whole exercise as a sixteenth dotted-eighth. COMPRESS THE RHYTHM!!!

Fourth Time Through: Play the original Exercise making sure not to compress the rhythm at all ... its sooooo much easier now.

Increase the metronome marking and continue.
~


This exercise tricks you brain into thinking you can play the line faster. After all, you played every combination of notes twice as fast as you ever have before (yeah, you didn't do it all at the same time, but your brain doesn't need to know that, haha)

I have used this with scales on bass. I havent tried it with tapping.

~Divide and Conquer~
Brassed

Absolute stand out post - I've been using this technique for a while on DB with huge success!

[E2daGGurl]

You guys are teh bomb.