Copying peoples styles

[mike roman]

My main goal as a 65 Yr. Old novice is copying peoples styles, techniques and songs like Geddy.Lee, Chris.Squire and John.Entwistle i have no intention of playing with a band or writing songs what should be my daily practice routine be? Are learning scales ,chords,modes necessary? Im just reading tablature from various books and other sources.Thanks.

 

[Lagado]

My main goal as a 65 Yr. Old novice is copying peoples styles, techniques and songs like Geddy.Lee, Chris.Squire and John.Entwistle i have no intention of playing with a band or writing songs what should be my daily practice routine be? Are learning scales ,chords,modes necessary? Im just reading tablature from various books and other sources.Thanks.

Get very familiar with the major scale, in one position and shifting over two octaves. Do the same with the natural minor scale, then start to look at blues scales and pentatonic scales. Pay attention to positioning, but don't treat it as an absolute. Learn some tunes, keep it fun, it's not all about scales but knowing where those lines come from, is enlightening.

 

[mambo4]

If your goal is to play exactly what they play you can just copy from the recordings. If you intensely copy everything someone did, you cannot help but incorporate some of their habits as muscle memory and you may end up accidentally coping their style, occasionally.

If your goal is to deliberately play "in the style of" then understanding some of the theory that shows up in their style will be helpful. All three of them more than likely understood the harmony of the tunes they were supporting. They knew the keys, chords, arpeggios, and scales and involved. You don't become Lee, Squire, or Entwistle without knowing your stuff.

 

[Papageno]

Learning about music theory will enable you to understand what the people you want emulate are playing and how to play it yourself.

 

[consectaneus]

Sorry if this is obvious, but IMO, we live in a golden age for that sort of thing. It's easy to find a video or an isolated bass track or cover for just about any song you are likely to be interested in from the players you mention. Use the tools to slow them down and repeat bit by bit, string them together until you can play a phrase and so on.

I think you should do what you want. If it excites you, you are more likely to stick with it. If eventually this leads you to wanting to learn more about why things sound so good to you, then you will let your interests take you into the theory of why what they are doing works. I'm sure you will have many thrilling musical discoveries awaiting you.

 

[AGCurry]

I've always subscribed to the theory that, in order to play like someone else, I had to a) listen to what that someone listened to, and b) learn and practice as that someone did. And that's just a starting point.