How Do You Learn Stuff?

[Tituscrow]

A reply to an earlier thread got me thinking. As a forty two year old, when I started learning bass by covering songs, it was a question of playing along and pressing pause on a cassette player or lifting a stylus whilst I furiously tried to replicate what I heard. As a learning method, for someone with no formal training, it seemed to work a treat and I have fond memories of galloping along to Piece of Mind in my bedroom!

Many years later it always makes me smile when I click on a tab or watch a YouTube tutorial to see that I actually got it right all them years ago.

I suspect most of us on here are mainly cover players and I was wondering across the age range, what methods people use to learn new stuff?

Do you insist on nailing it note for note? Do you adapt it in any way by simplifying or jazzing up a bassline? Do you ever come up with something better than the original and incorporate it into a live set?

Really interested to hear your thoughts...

[gus1894]

I still sit with the song (these days, it's a youtube vid, or w/iTunes or a CD) and the play/pause button. I hash it out part by part and write my tab down.

I tend not to go online for tabs done by someone else for two reasons:

1. If I sit down and figure it out on my own, that process of figuring out the song and writing it down (later I typically type it into a Word doc w/the rest) tends to help embed it in my head more than just reading someone else's tab.

2. I've found far too many published song tabs on the web that are wrong (either in part or entirely)

I try to learn it note for note, but sooner or later I've embellished it (for better or worse - LOL) as my own.

[thesilence]

Unless a bassline is integral to a song I come up with my own, but I usually play originals and only cover worship songs

[Bassdirty]

Originally Posted by gus1894

I still sit with the song (these days, it's a youtube vid, or w/iTunes or a CD) and the play/pause button. I hash it out part by part and write my tab down.



2. I've found far too many published song tabs on the web that are wrong (either in part or entirely)

+100000

Waaaay too many wrong versions of stuff out there.

I think they should be reviewed before they can be posted.


.

[BigOldHarry]

Here's my method (Which I've been using a great deal lately):

1) Get a copy of the song (if I don't already have it). Search YouTube if I don't have it, download using any one of the many Youtube-to-MP3 web sites out there

2) Put the song on my Ipod, hook up the Ipod to my little Korg Headphone amp or my Mackie mixer I have a home

3) Get a notepad & pen

4) Get to work.

5) Once I've charted out the basic changes (using my crappy shorthand), I put these into a Word doc that I print out. I keep it simple - just chord changes and riff reminders.

I usually find that the songs that strike me as easy to learn are harder than I think, and the harder sounding songs are really easy since those sounds are often "Riff driven" - once you nail the riff, you know the song.

[tangentmusic]

I learned lots of entire albums when I was a teenager by playing along to records as you did. I would always try for the note for note replication, but didnt always nail it. I didnt care if it was spot on or not.
In recent years I have been concentrating on original stuff, but all that woodshedding years ago has payed dividends in that now I actually play & understand bass and song structures as opposed to a "paint by numbers" just playin' along with a tune approach.

[evilt70]

Boss Micro-BR 4 tracker. besides being a solid state 4 tracker, you can download MP3's to it, plug in your bass and headphones, and play along with the song to learn it. It will also slow down the song without changing the pitch of it. Heck, with this thing I often learn songs or practice over my lunch break at work. Great tool, and pretty reasonable too.

[BigOldHarry]

Originally Posted by tangentmusic

I learned lots of entire albums when I was a teenager by playing along to records as you did. I would always try for the note for note replication, but didnt always nail it. I didnt care if it was spot on or not...

When I first picked up Bass, my all-in-one stereo in my bedroom had an 8-track tape deck that would record - so I'd steal tunes off the air and learn them off of that - - but the stilly tapedeck did not have a "rewind" function - just a FF! So I'd learn the tune, FF around to the beginning and do it again... !

And lord did I wear out some vinyl records learning tunes - I destroyed "Machine Head" and the first 4 Aerosmith albums learning the tunes... Back then, It never occurred to me "chart" a song - I just memorized. Silly kid.

this is another example of how "The good old days" were really not so good - the tools young folks have now to learn are *so* much better!

[Tituscrow]

Originally Posted by tangentmusic

I learned lots of entire albums when I was a teenager by playing along to records as you did. I would always try for the note for note replication, but didnt always nail it. I didnt care if it was spot on or not.
In recent years I have been concentrating on original stuff, but all that woodshedding years ago has payed dividends in that now I actually play & understand bass and song structures as opposed to a "paint by numbers" just playin' along with a tune approach.

Indeed. Very good point. I also found that, for example, playing along primarily to the first few Maiden albums, it got to the point where I could pretty much predict what sort of left hand fretting patterns Steve Harris used which helped work out the bassline proper. I later realised that once you could sort of get into the mindset of the original player, you start to notice that all decent players have their own little idiosyncratic aspects to their playing. Once you can nail Steve Harris' index/middle finger triplets, you can pretty much nail most Maiden songs.

[Phalex]

I've always learned by ear, much as the OP describes. I myself am a "lowest common denominator" type player. I focus on the meat and potatoes part of a song, but don't really worry too much about the salad and appetizers. I tend to stay below the 7th fret most of the time. My band has bass, guitar, and drums for instrumentation, so I have to cover the bottom end of things completely.

[tangentmusic]

Originally Posted by BigOldHarry

When I first picked up Bass, my all-in-one stereo in my bedroom had an 8-track tape deck that would record - so I'd steal tunes off the air and learn them off of that - - but the stilly tapedeck did not have a "rewind" function - just a FF! So I'd learn the tune, FF around to the beginning and do it again... !

And lord did I wear out some vinyl records learning tunes - I destroyed "Machine Head" and the first 4 Aerosmith albums learning the tunes... Back then, It never occurred to me "chart" a song - I just memorized. Silly kid.

this is another example of how "The good old days" were really not so good - the tools young folks have now to learn are *so* much better!

Yeah Harry, Between you and I wearing out and re-purchasing records years ago, we must have helped make quite a few Ferrari payments for Blackmore & co..

[BigOldHarry]

Originally Posted by tangentmusic

Yeah Harry, Between you and I wearing out and re-purchasing records years ago, we must have helped make quite a few Ferrari payments for Blackmore & co..

LOL

We sure could have used interwebs & ipods back then...

[Mayers]

I'm impress by that skill. I'm 28 years old and I did a college degree in music without that skill and even after 12 years of playing bass I still can't listen to a song and replicate de bass part.

I find it very frustrating and long to learn very simple stuff. Since I'm listening to music with complicated bass part or not very identifiable bass part. It is hard.

Since I don't have that skill, my reading ability his very high.

I may one day be able to do it.

[gus1894]

It's kinda funny, I spent years doing originals almost exclusively. It's only in the last 6 (approx.) years I've been doing covers. It was an interesting learning curve for me.

[tangentmusic]

Originally Posted by Mayers

I'm impress by that skill. I'm 28 years old and I did a college degree in music without that skill and even after 12 years of playing bass I still can't listen to a song and replicate de bass part.

I find it very frustrating and long to learn very simple stuff. Since I'm listening to music with complicated bass part or not very identifiable bass part. It is hard.

Since I don't have that skill, my reading ability his very high.

I may one day be able to do it.

Well, back in the '70's that was how we did it. Lots of bedroom practice time after school, and not much social life!

[funkinbottom]

Originally Posted by Tituscrow

lifting a stylus whilst I furiously tried to replicate what I heard.

Being 56 that's how I started. Then cassette was a little easier.
These days I like to download tune to computer and use Windows media player because it has a nice Play Speed Settings tool that lets you slow down without changing the key. If not familiar, open WMP click view highlight enhancements.
Usually before I even sit down to learn, I will listen to a song 10-15 times a day throughout the day for 2-3 days and kinda visualize whats going on. From 38 years of playing most times I'm pretty close just from listening. At least on the less complex stuff.

[Gaius46]

As someone else said unless there's a specific bass hook that's a integral part of the tune I don't bother learning it note for note. I will respect the original bassists work and keep the same feel. For example if the original line uses arpeggiated 8th notes that's what I'll do, but I don't worry about playing the exact sequence of notes that the recording used. Heck the original bassist probably won't ever play that same sequence ever again either.

The only time I don't do that is if we're completely reworking the original, then all bets are off.

[BigOldHarry]

Originally Posted by tangentmusic

Well, back in the '70's that was how we did it. Lots of bedroom practice time after school, and not much social life!

Oh, and grades. Very bad grades.

I remember a buddy of mine back then who played Cello. He was simply *amazed* that I had been playing bass for what - 2 years - and I could hear a song on the radio and pick it up with in a few minutes of noodling... This guy, who you could drop any correctly written sheet music in front of and he'd play it, couldn't learn a single note by ear. That, I don't get. We actually talked about it at some length back then... I always figured that I had the inferior talent....

[Mayers]

Originally Posted by BigOldHarry

Oh, and grades. Very bad grades.

I remember a buddy of mine back then who played Cello. He was simply *amazed* that I had been playing bass for what - 2 years - and I could hear a song on the radio and pick it up with in a few minutes of noodling... This guy, who you could drop any correctly written sheet music in front of and he'd play it, couldn't learn a single note by ear. That, I don't get. We actually talked about it at some length back then... I always figured that I had the inferior talent....

That's what learning a classical instrument first do. I never had to learn something by ear, I just had to know if I'm flat or sharp.

[jasper383]

Do you have a suggestion for a You Tube to mp3 converter?