I don't have a teacher really. There is a club that I belong to. It's a group of people that get together every week. Is this hindering my ability to learn? I feel like I need more 1 on 1 time to start. I am learning but there is so much happening with the drummer, guitar players and other odd instruments.
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Beginner jumping right into band
- Thread starter Broke
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Go with it as long as you can. It's rough i know your trying to watch what the guitarist is playing to follow yet listen and watch what the drummers doing at the same time. it gets complicated you get overwhelmed but keep trying then go home and play some more think about the set and how you can put in a cool fill. I too was thrown into a band a few months after i started playing. I got yelled at for being off tempo and not following the drummer but i kept at it began to learn the chord changes. i still wasn't keeping count with the group but it was progress. i learned the sacred 4 count and got lots of great exposure to playing with other people and how songs are constructed and made from scratch. Eventually we had to let go of our jam storage and the band split. However i walked away with a new perspective to music and practice alone. i say kick it with them for as long as you can continue practicing at home dude because theres always something different you can do with your bass.
What is your club playing? Is it set songs where you can learn the chord progressions and just play root notes, or are they doing a freestyle jam where it could go anywhere? I can't imagine why playing with a group would actually set you back or interfere with your learning, but if you really can't follow what's going on I don't see that it's helping you any.
The only bad things I can think of is picking up some bad technical playing habits, but plenty of great players I'm sure have some bad habits and they do fine. Pressure is a great motivator! You can learn really fast when the pressure is on like what you get in playing with others in a band. But you may want to try to balance that with some type of instruction, whether 1 on 1 instructor or some of the great online courses. If you try to grasp some chord theory as you go along it will propel your playing and make it more fun and not as big a technical issue like playing without the benefit of some kind of lessons.
It's set songs. So I'll be able to study it. But he has me doing different notes without as much movement since I'm a beginner. That's part of my confusion. If I look up those songs online it's totally different than what he's teaching me. I believe he is teaching me in steps
Most likely he is, and that's a good thing. I don't know how much you already know about music, so hopefully this isn't too simple for you, but to guide you a bit if it helps: if you're looking songs up online, I'm guessing you mean you're looking at TAB, which shows which fret to use on which string. I'm not anti-TAB, it's just a way that people communicate how they play a song, but they are not the only way to play a song and often they're not accurate anyway. So don't worry about that too much.
What you want to focus on is learning the chord progression of the song - that's what the guitarist is playing. A simple three-chord song might go G - C - D or something and back to repeat. To start with on bass, it's enough to play the "root notes" of those chords. So when the guitarists play the G chord, you play the G note (third fret on your E string), when they play the C chord, you play C (third fret on your A string), etc. I think you said you have a drummer, so listen to the kick drum and match the rhythm of your playing to that. If the guitarist is playing the G chord and the kick drum is going "bom, ba-dum-dum," then you play "bom, ba-dum-dum" on the G note.
Once you're comfortable doing that, you want to start learning scales and how chords get built out of scales. You can look up lots of scales online or in books, and drill them at home. The most important are major and minor. Each has a pretty simple pattern that you just repeat from different starting points on the fretboard.
For instance, the G major scale goes G - A - B - C - D - E - F# - G. Learn the notes on your fretboard and how to find each of those notes.
A chord is normally built from the first, third, and fifth notes of the scale. So the G major chord is G - B - D. That's what your guitarist is strumming. To get beyond just playing root notes, you built a bass line out of the notes of the chord. For instance, you might go GGGG - D - B - D - B GGGG or something. Now you have a bass line going. When the guitarist changes chords, your bass line moves to match. So if he goes to a C chord, the chord tones are C - E - G, so you might play CCCC - G - E - G - E - CCCC, or whatever. Play around with different ideas and find ones that sound good to you.
Hopefully that's helpful. If not, disregard. Keep playing, keep learning, and have fun!
Do you mean you're looking up tabulature for these songs? If so, keep in mind that the quality of online tabs covers the entire quality spectrum. Some are good, other not so good, and unfortunately a lot are WAY off. Also, remember that you can play the same pitch in multiple places on the neck, so even though you might be playing the same pitch as the person who wrote out the tab you're using, that person could be playing it in a different position. Maybe that different position works for you and you can adopt it. But maybe that tab actually makes the song HARDER to play and you're doing it a "better" way (at least for you)! Tabs can be a useful tool, but just make sure you're aware of their limitations.
If I was mistaken and you weren't referring to tabulature, can you give a little more info?
That's exactly what I meant. And hrodbert's post was very helpful. Thanks a bunch. I'm often confused when he tells me to play A. Because there are multiple A's. I'll have to narrow a style in which he can communicate with me and I'll understand.
That would be true. It is common to teach beginners simplified parts on all instruments. Reminds me of when my wife decided to take up fiddle. She had never played instruments before and had no knowledge of music theory. She asked my to play along with her to some songs on albums she liked. I was to determine the key the song was in and let her know so she could go to the scale charts her teacher had given her. On one song I told her it was in Bb. She announced there was no key of Bb. I wasn't sure how to handle this and no matter what I said, she insisted it didn't exist and that I had to be wrong.
Well, after her next lesson she apologized and told me the teacher had only given her the key charts for the songs she was teaching my wife.
So, don't worry about it. Learn what you are being taught. As you progress, you will build on that.
I memorized all of my notes as sharps and my teacher was telling me the flat versions. I was so confused. I should have memorized both I guess to alleviate the issue that came up.
Of COURSE you were wrong ... you're the husband!
This is some of the most helpful advice I've seen anyone give a new player on here - bravo, hrodbert696!
I applaud your willingness to jump in dude! Like someone else said...hang as long as you can. I played by myself with CD's, recordings etc. for > 20 years...finally hooked up with some dudes here in Nashville who love blues/funk/rock as much as I do...kind of a weekend warrior thing. I have improved more in the time I have played with them than all the years of being a "closet player". However, during that time I took lessons from a lot of great players around town and developed a good foundation of playing. Bottom line (Hmmm....that's what we play isn't it! LOL!) have fun man and don't over think it! Too much analysis brings paralysis!
I applaud your willingness to jump in dude! Like someone else said...hang as long as you can. I played by myself with CD's, recordings etc. for > 20 years...finally hooked up with some dudes here in Nashville who love blues/funk/rock as much as I do...kind of a weekend warrior thing. I have improved more in the time I have played with them than all the years of being a "closet player". However, during that time I took lessons from a lot of great players around town and developed a good foundation of playing. Bottom line (Hmmm....that's what we play isn't it! LOL!) have fun man and don't over think it! Too much analysis brings paralysis!
Playing with others in band situation is probably the quickest way to get up to speed and there really is no substitute.
Of course, you still put in ton of time shedding on your own, but playing with others is where it all comes together, so don't delay.
Of course, you still put in ton of time shedding on your own, but playing with others is where it all comes together, so don't delay.
Back when I started I took lessons AND joined a band at the same time... In my opinion it helped me learn much faster. The very nature of bass as an instrument sort of requires learning to play with others.... Particularly drums. Learning to work with the backbeat is pretty critical . I had a teacher who understood that, and encouraged me in that regard. Find some guys who aren't so advanced that they'll lose patients while your figuring it out. Besides, it's more fun to make music in a band. Isn't that why you picked up the bass?... It's why I did!
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
As long as you don't limit your playing to this, nothing wrong with it. Learning to play with a drummer is one of the most important skills you can have.
You're welcome, glad it helped. Yeah, you do have choices about where to play certain notes. You can play an open A string, or the 5th fret on your E string, or you can go an octave higher and play the 7th fret on the D string or the 2nd on the G string. NONE OF THEM ARE WRONG. They are just options. The best place to play each will generally depend on what ELSE you are doing, so that your hand can get to the other notes without too much unnecessary movement.
Also, a lot of players prefer to use a fretted note rather than an open string, because it keeps the tone more consistent and it's easier to mute the note (just lifting your finger), while muting an open string requires an additional movement to do. But that's finesse you don't need to worry about right now.
Huh, funny, every guitarist I've worked with seemed to think exclusively in sharps, as though they had never heard of a flat. They would always say A# for a note I thought of as Bb. I assumed they were all taught that way or something. Live and learn. Just remember that a note sharped is the same as the higher note flatted. It gets to be second nature pretty quick.
Aw shucks, I'm blushing. I think it's just that I'm a pretty basic player myself so I only focus on the simple stuff.
