Learning Elton John songs is harder than I thought :-\

TimBosby · #1 07-11-2010, 02:21 PM

I'm trying to learn some Elton John songs for a newly-formed tribute band and they are hard. Not that the bass parts themselves are really that difficult...but picking out the notes is quite difficult. I'm listening to them on my Ipod through studio-quality headphones and I'm still rewinding constantly and driving myself crazy. It's really hard to find bass tabs online - which wouldn't help me that much even if they DID exist because I've never been a fan of tab. I mostly play by ear but man is it tough. I'm going basically by chord changes and trying to emulate the groove even if I don't hit every note/bass lick (that would be nearly impossible for me).

Right now I'm trying Your Song, Take Me To The Pilot, Tiny Dancer, Madman Across the Water, and Border Song. I've got a couple others to learn before the first official practice and then probably a half dozen more. Trying to learn about 5 songs a week (doesn't sound hard but it is when you're picky like me.)

This is why I've always avoided playing covers - I'm way too finicky about learning parts, I'd rather write my own songs than "fake" someone else's. Still, these songs are amazing and I wish I could do them justice. I wish there were a way to just lift the bass parts out of the mix to hear exactly what is going on!

Any advice?

**ExaltBass** · #2 07-11-2010, 02:25 PM

The more you do, the easier it becomes. Plus, you'll start getting into Dee Murray's head, so the parts will feel more natural.

16notes · #3 07-11-2010, 02:34 PM

First study the songs away from your bass so you are really listening and not tempted to play over the tracks as they roll by.

Listen deeply until you can sing the parts and THEN pick up your bass.

Work in short periods to avoid ear/mind fatigue.

Take one song at a time rather than flipping back and forth b/w tunes and getting scattered.

Sketching out a simple chord chart can sometimes help make note and pattern changes more obvious. They can help to stay organized with the song structure too.

Once you learn the song make notes or better yet write the bass lines out so your not relearning it down the road.

Take it slow and have FUN!

73jbass · #4 07-11-2010, 02:41 PM

Elton and Bernie were in my opinion,some of the best songwirters that ever existed. Not your typical 1,4,5 pattern stuff. Add Dee Murray on bass,and its a combination that cant go wrong. Learn as much stuff from that era that you can. You will really appreciate the songwriting skills of the musicians back then. You will be a better player for it.

mjl422 · #5 07-11-2010, 02:43 PM

http://seventhstring.com/

This is what I use. You can slow down songs without changing pitch, loop specific parts to get them down, isolate the bass to hear bass part clearer....etc.

You can download a 30 day demo to see if it works for you.

TimBosby · #6 07-11-2010, 03:59 PM

Cool I downloaded that program and will have to play with it a bit. It's a little difficult to isolate the bass without it sounding garbled and muddy but maybe if I pick the right frequencies...

JimmyM · #7 07-11-2010, 04:02 PM

dee murray was a bass genius. i think it's no coincidence that elton started to suck when he fired dee and nigel.

Already In Use · #8 07-11-2010, 04:04 PM

Find chord charts..maybe ultimate guitar. That may help ya a bit.

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/searc...rch_type=title

TimBosby · #9 07-11-2010, 04:18 PM

I've used chord charts-they help, but sheet music would be more helpful. I don't even really know how to read music anymore, at least not rhythms very well but I still know notes and sheet music would help me pick out notes/tones that I'm struggling to hear.

Any Elton bass books out there? I couldn't find any..

Already In Use · #10 07-11-2010, 04:25 PM

I just went thru and plucked along with Your Song. Got me motivated to learn some EJ! Maybe order sheet music online? I gather you dont have a good music store close by.

Quick search tuned up some Hal Leonard EJ song books.

**lowendfriend** · #11 07-11-2010, 04:26 PM

Don't forget about BestPractice software....it's free and works fine lasts a long time.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bestpractice/

TimBosby · #12 07-11-2010, 06:07 PM

I love "Your Song." That was my wife and my first dance at our wedding. That one's pretty easy since you can hear the bass pretty well - not much else in the mix other than piano and vocals, at least at first.

I guess I've never really checked local music stores for books - I haven't had song books since high school. I did a quick search online and there are lots of Elton books but none exclusive to bass. Sometimes the guitar or piano books may have some bass parts in there too though. I'll have to check at a music store. Thanks for the software links. Talkbass is so awesome!

ThudThudThud · #13 07-12-2010, 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JimmyM

dee murray was a bass genius. i think it's no coincidence that elton started to suck when he fired dee and nigel.

+1 (at least on the Dee Murray comment, possibly not on Nigel Olssen)

I think the beauty of the 70s era EJ Band was that Dee Murray's exquisite bass playing was so 'in the song' (i.e. not up front and overplayed) that you really only notice the bass when it's not there. Add Gus Dudgeon's mixing/production and it just became the real backbone of the song. Very difficult to pull it out of the mix. Good luck with learning the songs.

deaf pea · #14 07-12-2010, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JimmyM

...i think it's no coincidence that elton started to suck when he fired dee and nigel.

As usual, ya' got that right . . .

. . .

Zooberwerx · #15 07-12-2010, 01:44 PM

...and once you learn the bass parts, go back and listen to the backing vocals. I think they're incredible.

Riis

varunkapahi · #16 07-12-2010, 01:56 PM

if you really get stuck and have a gig then hunt for guitar pro tabs, they give you tabs + sheet music along with the midi sound for the all the instruments

rmkesler · #17 07-12-2010, 02:09 PM

We do Rocket Man and it's turned out to be one of the crowd favorites. It's neat stuff.

TimBosby · #18 07-12-2010, 05:53 PM

Oooh midi! I didn't even think of that. That'd be a great way to learn these.

**peledog** · #19 07-12-2010, 06:48 PM

I've played Tiny Dancer and Saturday Nights - seemed easy enough - NOT.

To get the feel and spacing of someone like Dee Murray is not an easy task.

Listen, feel, rewind, listen again.

Then pick up the bass - feel your way through it.

Then, once you get a sense the song structure - pick up the individual notes and phrases.

I've always said the hardest genre for me to play is Blues. So simple right? To me it's the hardest. You have to put so much feel into each note.

TimBosby · #20 07-12-2010, 09:53 PM

OK so I downloaded the MIDI for "Madman" and I was like "holy crap I don't remember the bass part being this awesome-complicated-difficult." Then I realized that the MIDI was a transcription of the 9 minute Dee Murray/Mick Ronson original version of Madman. Whereas I had previously been playing the shorter, album version featuring Herbie Flowers on bass. The Murray/Ronson version completely rocks my face but there's no way I'm going to be able to learn all that crazy bass nastiness. I'm gonna keep it simple and stick to the album version and throw in my own little things where I can.

Honestly though, the beauty of these songs is you can vary the bass licks up and still keep the feel/groove. There's a lot of room to play around without stepping on the melody. That's the beauty of a well structured song (aka just about every Elton song from this era...)