Greetings all!
My name is Ian and I am a 44-year-old Dublin native who has been based in Cologne, Germany, for the last 22 years. My main musical project is an acoustic pop duo called John Loves Julie, an outlet for my songs and regular gigging (see link below).
I have been playing acoustic guitar since the age of nine and decided to learn bass about ten years ago, after which I played in a cover band. After deciding to swap my four-string Yamaha for a five-string version of the same model, I hardly touched it at all once the cover band split up.
About six or seven years ago, I started studying lead guitar in great detail, immersing myself in music theory and building a solid foundation for improvisation and, it must be said, learning an awful lot from the guys and girls at the JamSession guitar forum.
Anyway ... it occurred to me about six months ago that the main reason I barely touched my bass was that I never really felt at home with the five-string set-up, so I went on a local musician's forum and asked if anyone would be interested in swapping it for a four-string model of roughly equal value. And so I now have a very decent vomit-yellow Ibanez that takes pride of place on a stand next to five guitar cases, a keyboard and a dusty ukulele.
It had never occurred to me that pretty much all the scales, modes, arps, ear training and particularly chord structure knowledge could be transferred to bass, meaning that my guitar studies had made me a far better bassist without having touched the instrument for years. In the early days, I thought like a guitarist and learned bass tab for the songs I wanted to play, whereas now I’m thinking in terms of chord tones and subdivisions. And I love it: playing bass allows me to improvise within a clear melodic structure while locking in with the drums and grooving!
When I bought the excellent Serious Electric Bass instruction by Joel di Bartolo, I decided that, in order to make the most of the exercises there, I would need to finally learn to read music, or at least bass clef. The EarMaster program that I used for ear training has a good feature for learning to read rhythm, so I’ve been working with that on one front while learning the notes using the Music Tutor app. Putting them together has been rather slow, but the aim was never for me to be able to play sheet music on sight, but rather just as an aid to the learning process.
Anyway, I’m very happy to be here and look forward to meeting new people and learning new stuff. Thanks for having me.
All the best,
Ian
Link to album teaser:
.
My name is Ian and I am a 44-year-old Dublin native who has been based in Cologne, Germany, for the last 22 years. My main musical project is an acoustic pop duo called John Loves Julie, an outlet for my songs and regular gigging (see link below).
I have been playing acoustic guitar since the age of nine and decided to learn bass about ten years ago, after which I played in a cover band. After deciding to swap my four-string Yamaha for a five-string version of the same model, I hardly touched it at all once the cover band split up.
About six or seven years ago, I started studying lead guitar in great detail, immersing myself in music theory and building a solid foundation for improvisation and, it must be said, learning an awful lot from the guys and girls at the JamSession guitar forum.
Anyway ... it occurred to me about six months ago that the main reason I barely touched my bass was that I never really felt at home with the five-string set-up, so I went on a local musician's forum and asked if anyone would be interested in swapping it for a four-string model of roughly equal value. And so I now have a very decent vomit-yellow Ibanez that takes pride of place on a stand next to five guitar cases, a keyboard and a dusty ukulele.
It had never occurred to me that pretty much all the scales, modes, arps, ear training and particularly chord structure knowledge could be transferred to bass, meaning that my guitar studies had made me a far better bassist without having touched the instrument for years. In the early days, I thought like a guitarist and learned bass tab for the songs I wanted to play, whereas now I’m thinking in terms of chord tones and subdivisions. And I love it: playing bass allows me to improvise within a clear melodic structure while locking in with the drums and grooving!
When I bought the excellent Serious Electric Bass instruction by Joel di Bartolo, I decided that, in order to make the most of the exercises there, I would need to finally learn to read music, or at least bass clef. The EarMaster program that I used for ear training has a good feature for learning to read rhythm, so I’ve been working with that on one front while learning the notes using the Music Tutor app. Putting them together has been rather slow, but the aim was never for me to be able to play sheet music on sight, but rather just as an aid to the learning process.
Anyway, I’m very happy to be here and look forward to meeting new people and learning new stuff. Thanks for having me.
All the best,
Ian
Link to album teaser:
.
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