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Bass mastery
- Thread starter kewp
- Start date
I wore out plenty of vinyl and needles as a teen picking apart entire albums.
By ear, find the notes, work on riffs, emulate scales and even play the vocal melody while playing along to the stuff you want to learn.
Repeat until until it falls into place for you.
Repetition is the Mother of Retention
If you've been playing for two years now, this might be a good time to consider some formal instruction. Ideally a live instructor although you might want to try some of the better online classes such as those offered here at TB, or over at Scott's Bass Academy if a live instructor isn't doable.
While self education/practicing is essential, you can easily develop some very bad habits that can severely hold you back and will eventually need to be unlearned in order to make serious progress in your bass studies.
As far as the mind map (or outline or whatever it is) above, I think it makes for an interesting laundry list of the various elements that makes up a bass payer's art & craft. But it seems more a catalog of miscellaneous items rather than a lesson plan. (Actually, it seems more a bag of beads looking for a string from where I sit. But that's me.)
When you think about the role of bass playing, and the essential skills required , you can boil it down to two essentials - the ability to play in tune and play in time. Everything follows from those two skills. But those skills involve a number of sub-skills and core knowledge, such as:
And that's just a few - and it's just for openers. The number of things you need to know just goes on and on...
The tricky thing about music is that there's virtually nothing you can say by way of music instruction that doesn't need to be almost immediately qualified. And, depending upon the context, many times the exact opposite is equally true.
So you really want an instructor sooner or later to navigate help that minefield sufficiently until you're ready to go exploring on your own.
tl:dr - get an instructor to help you with this.
While self education/practicing is essential, you can easily develop some very bad habits that can severely hold you back and will eventually need to be unlearned in order to make serious progress in your bass studies.
As far as the mind map (or outline or whatever it is) above, I think it makes for an interesting laundry list of the various elements that makes up a bass payer's art & craft. But it seems more a catalog of miscellaneous items rather than a lesson plan. (Actually, it seems more a bag of beads looking for a string from where I sit. But that's me.)
When you think about the role of bass playing, and the essential skills required , you can boil it down to two essentials - the ability to play in tune and play in time. Everything follows from those two skills. But those skills involve a number of sub-skills and core knowledge, such as:
- the notes and notation
- the time signatures
- musical terms and vocabulary
- basic chord theory and chord construction
- basic music and harmony theory
- an intimate knowledge of the fretboard
And that's just a few - and it's just for openers. The number of things you need to know just goes on and on...
The tricky thing about music is that there's virtually nothing you can say by way of music instruction that doesn't need to be almost immediately qualified. And, depending upon the context, many times the exact opposite is equally true.
So you really want an instructor sooner or later to navigate help that minefield sufficiently until you're ready to go exploring on your own.
tl:dr - get an instructor to help you with this.
study the sounds of intervals by doing scales slowly like 1-3-2-4-3-5-4-6-5-7-6-octave or c-e-d-f-e-g-f-a-g-b-a-c (thirds). do this for all keys and all intervals - ascending and descending up and down the neck. this worked for me - the key is slowly and without a metronome so you can focus on how pitches relate to each other.
same here. walking is all about the groove as displayed by eddie gomez. it was sam jones in the somethin' else album that got me to study how to swing PROPERLY. we used to play their arrangement of autumn leaves and after hearing a recording of our rehearsal side-by-side with the album it just blew my mind how my swing sucked so bad. hopefully i've gotten better after all these years. the old masters really knew how to swing a groove so bouncy you still feel it hours after hearing them. paul chambers slower stuff still swung like hell eg: blue in green and naima. or mingus in the original porkpie hat. all of ron carter just grooves so darn hard i wonder if he has a different cardiovascular system from all of us.
I agree with this. Just playing takes the guesswork out of the whole thing. But if you've had some instruction and have learned to break down the concepts on your own, then you just use it like a grocery list to stay on track, sort of...
I think this is an awesome collection of skills, all relevant. Sure there's some overlap, actually, lots of overlap, but if this helps contextualize and give a direction to make you a better all around player, then great!!
it was also the great joe farrell on sax... to think i always thought it was michael brecker and lost a bet about this. i always think great sax solos are brecker... i thought it was him on doctor wu (phil woods) and aja (wayne shorter). with mike gone, it's kenny garret who's my 'usual suspect' now. every once in a while it'd be john surman
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i think stuff like this is helpful. I make my own lists of stuff i want to work on just to keep track. You tend to improve more doing each of those things for a little each day, then one by one. Not to say you cant focus on certain things for a few days or weeks, but it does help to do each thing every day
I really liked what you said "you can play absolutely anything on the 2 and the 4". I never thought about that, but it is so true!
"Mastery" in any field takes approximately 10000 hours of dedicated practice. With 3 hours per day you're still looking at roughly 10 years.
I personally have a plan/routine that I follow, my teacher and I worked it out together and we adjust it based on what seems to be the most important at any given time. But it really depends on the kind of person you are, I like it when a system is in place and when there is a clear set of objectives I can simply follow. My teacher is the complete opposite, he likes to jump from one thing into the next and hates strict rules.
I think figuring out if a strict routine is even for you is the first step, after that you could try following guides/charts like these to see if they're any good, but in the end everyone needs to put in those hours to achieve mastery it's just a matter of using your time the most efficiently.
I personally have a plan/routine that I follow, my teacher and I worked it out together and we adjust it based on what seems to be the most important at any given time. But it really depends on the kind of person you are, I like it when a system is in place and when there is a clear set of objectives I can simply follow. My teacher is the complete opposite, he likes to jump from one thing into the next and hates strict rules.
I think figuring out if a strict routine is even for you is the first step, after that you could try following guides/charts like these to see if they're any good, but in the end everyone needs to put in those hours to achieve mastery it's just a matter of using your time the most efficiently.
I wonder if we will ever look back on smartphones like we look back on calculator watches. Don't see how, but maybe. I can't imagine being in high school with Google in my pocket.
Doner Designs
Steve Doner
- Jun 2, 2012
- 5,784
- 6,819
- Disclosures
- Doner Designs is an alias for Steve Doner
surely, you jest. (!?)
has an 'OCD' kind of appeal --- if you're into that sort of thing. but different cats like different bags. whatever works.
it was also the great joe farrell on sax... to think i always thought it was michael brecker and lost a bet about this. i always think great sax solos are brecker... i thought it was him on doctor wu (phil woods) and aja (wayne shorter). with mike gone, it's kenny garret who's my 'usual suspect' now. every once in a while it'd be john surman
Like you, I always think of Brecker when it comes to great tenor solos. Bob Berg, who is also in the video was in the hunt and was one of my favorites. I have a few of his recordings on vinyl from back in the day. It really shocked me to hear when he died in a freak car crash when he was just out running errands...
