Going to start practicing bass alongside drums/piano. Want to use my time effectively.

[aarono2690]

Greetings,

I've putzed around on bass for quite some time, but rarely have I actually put effort into effective practice. My interest in learning music has grown and I really have the urge to start playing with people in a live setting. To get there I know I need to work on myself and I want some advice for how to overcome my weak points.

I'm currently learning drums and piano. I enjoy playing drums and I figured piano was a great instrument for learning theory. I'd like to get to a point where I can comfortably play drums or bass in a live setting with other musicians.

Areas of Weakness

• Ears. I've tried learning bass lines by ear in the past and I occasionally make a little progress, but I usually end up frustrated.
  • I've used Transcribe! to slow down songs I've downloaded.
• Theory. Pretty self-explanatory. I'd like to be able to break down a song and figure out different ways to approach it on bass.
• Creativity. This may be tied to theory, but I always struggled to be creative in music. I think the fact I rarely played around with backing tracks may have hurt me with bass and drums. I just don't know where to go/what to do and generally fall back on something I already know. I assume with time this opens up.

Materials/Resources

• Hal Leonard Complete Bass Method book
• StudyBass website
• Transcribe!

If you had an hour a day to practice bass and saw where I was struggling, what would you do to make an effective practice routine? Remember I'm usually also spending an hour or two on drums/piano so there may be some overlap in what I'm learning on those instruments.

 

[Geepers]

Get good at playing 12 bar blues, the foundation of all bass playing and the fastest route to being able to jam with others. I’m amazed at guys who can do all sorts of twiddly things but can’t lay down a solid blues line. No one is gonna want to play with that dude!

 

[meisi]

Get a stereo looper. Go to town.

Seriously. Whichever of the 3 inspires you run with it and use the other instruments as backing tracks.

There are loopers with built in drum machines. I have the old boss unit. Love it to death.

 

[mambo4]

You list of where you are at does not include any repertoire.
Theory is much more useful when applied to real world uses.
Learn songs on all 3 : bass and drums, chord progression on piano

 

[aarono2690]

You list of where you are at does not include any repertoire.
Theory is much more useful when applied to real world uses.
Learn songs on all 3 : bass and drums, chord progression on piano

Great idea.

Any ideas for songs that are reasonably approachable for someone trying to learn it on three instruments? I’m open to all genres or eras.

 

[Wasnex]

• Ears. I've tried learning bass lines by ear in the past and I occasionally make a little progress, but I usually end up frustrated.
  • I've used Transcribe! to slow down songs I've downloaded.
• Theory. Pretty self-explanatory. I'd like to be able to break down a song and figure out different ways to approach it on bass.
• Creativity. This may be tied to theory, but I always struggled to be creative in music. I think the fact I rarely played around with backing tracks may have hurt me with bass and drums. I just don't know where to go/what to do and generally fall back on something I already know. I assume with time this opens up.

My guess is your expectations are the problem. You're frustrated because you think you should be better. Most of us mere mortals take time to bloom. It may takes years, decades, or a lifetime. It depends on how much natural ability and drive you have. Take your time and enjoy the journey. Progress at whatever rate is natural for you. Most importantly, seek opportunities to learn and do the work...yes it's not all fun.

To me, the most important factor is fascination. This is a natural quality that you either have in sufficient supply or not. If you are not fascinated by music, I think it's pretty much an effort in futility to try and master an instrument.

Somehow I wound up being a successful pro musician. I had a pretty high level of fascination and could not let it go. I lucked into a path that was a good fit for me (military musician). I had fairly long career, but over the years my fascination for learning and performing music waned. I cross trained from bass to audio tech in 2008 and had a blast. To this day I regularly noodle around on bass, but I have no interest in joining a band.

Creativity is somewhat of an illusion. Most people do not create new musical art. What they do is study, practice, and build up a library of ideas that can play at will. Great solos often result from both study and practice. The study part involves experimenting to learn what and how different ideas fit together (you might call this composing the solo). It's sort of like building a musical puzzle. You develop a variety of interlocking shapes (musical ideas), that you can string together. Most likely a great solo will not have any ideas you have not practiced many times in advance, unless you make a fortuitous mistake.

To appear creative you need to study, copy, and internalize what is done in the genre's you find most fascinating. You must develop and maintain a large library of musical ideas. Then over time you should develop the ability to combine different ideas you have internalized in order to synthesize your own ideas. Developing the required foundational knowledge involves studying theory and doing transcriptions and/or record lifts.

Here's an example: Back when I was in high-school I was asked to play in a university big band. Some of the music had written-out parts, but many of the bass parts had chord notation, which means the bass player is expected to improvise a part. At this time I could follow the measures and hear the root movement of the chords, but I did not know music theory; so I had no idea how to improvise my own walking bass line.

The director gave me lead sheets and recordings. I learned the bass parts by doing record lifts. It was a lot of work and too be honest, I no longer possess the fascination or drive to learn big band charts this way now. Of course now I can improvise my own lines from the chord notation.

 

[bass12]

Since you're open to different styles I would recommend you start working on some jazz standards. This will be a good, clear way to work on your theory/analysis as well as helping to build a repertoire not just of songs but also of common chord progressions.

Some possible future tools for you:

- iReal Pro app (provides lead sheets and mixable backing tracks, as well as scale and chord information)

- Edly's Music Theory For Practical People (a great introductory theory book)

- Mark Levine's Jazz Theory book (a more advanced theory book focused on Jazz - great for piano)

 

[meisi]

Great idea.

Any ideas for songs that are reasonably approachable for someone trying to learn it on three instruments? I’m open to all genres or eras.

12 bar blues. Walking line on bass, mirror left hand piano, chords on the right hand. minor pentatonic melodies from the guitar.

Then switch guitar chords with piano pentatonic melodies (if you pick the right key it’s all the black keys, lol).

You can do the same thing with nearly any rock song chord progression using either major or minor pentatonic depending on key as well.

If you can’t whistle the melody don’t improvise with it … yet.

 

[Geepers]

To me, the most important factor is fascination. .

Brilliant. Never thought of it like that but I reckon you’re right. I keep on learning and practicing and playing and sometimes have to ask what is this strange thing that compels me - and has compelled me for 60 years now. “Fascination” is indeed the best explanation!

 

[mambo4]

Any ideas for songs that are reasonably approachable for someone trying to learn it on three instruments? I’m open to all genres or eras.

This sort of contradicts my first post
But I believe a generic 12bar blues is one of the best possible starting points
The I-IV-V chord progression is everywhere, and blues is a good example of it
blues is ubiquitous in 20th century music, so knowing it well is quite useful

So I'd suggest you learn a simple blues shuffle pattern on the drums
then learn a simple blues shuffle pattern on the bass
learn a simple blues shuffle pattern on the piano

Knowledge and experience of each instrument will build your awareness on the others.

Then start looking for specific 12 bar blues examples such as

• Sweet Home Chicago
• I Feel Good: By James Brown
• Rock Around the Clock: By Bill Haley
• Rock and Roll: By Led Zeppelin
• Tush: By ZZ Top
• Hound Dog: By Elvis Presley
• Tutti Frutti: By Little Richard
• Folsom Prison Blues: By Johnny Cash

Each one will demonstrate very different approaches to the same chord pattern across all instruments

A close second would be Gershwin's I've Got Rythm, a I-iv-ii-V , also know as Rythm Changes , which is common in Jazz and "the American Songbook" as well as folk and pop

Keep in mind that these are both chord progressions and song forms
learn to play teh whole songs, not just certain unconnected riffs.

 

[Shenron]

Greetings,

I really have the urge to start playing with people in a live setting. To get there I know I need to work on myself and I want some advice for how to overcome my weak points.

I think, if you've got an "urge" to play with people, then you need to play with people.

Do not make the mistake of thinking you need to prepare until you're "ready", or you might never be... start NOW looking for people to play with, whatever level you are. Aim straight at the target. You'll learn what you need most by doing it.

Besides, all your claimed weeknesses aren't going to be much of a showstopper for playing with others. You didn't mention whether you wish more for composing, improvising or playing covers: theory is quite important for improvisation, but for instance it's only an extra aid for learning covers.

Once you're playing with others, what you will want to play together will then give you much clearer ideas on what to practice by yourself and you'll be much more motivated to do it than you can be now, with only a generic purpose of "getting good".

If you had an hour a day to practice bass and saw where I was struggling, what would you do to make an effective practice routine?

I would spend that daily hour on a single topic, exercise or task, or maximum two. Change task next day.

Transcribing the bass part from one song counts as one task nicely, since it has a finite goal so you can finish it. Don't know what frustrates you, if it's difficult to hear bass off a record, try first transcribing from an isolated bass track. If you struggle even with that, try singing each fragment of notes before/while finding them on the instrument.

Similarly, choosing one song, backing track or chords loop, and improvise over it, would be a task for another half-hour or hour.

What really matters is that (1) you get your mind into "focus mode" and (2) you spend long enough to learn something. This is why as a rule of thumb I would not allocate less than half an hour to each task. And if on a given day a specific task seems to give great benefits, I would rather continue and forget about the other instruments.

 

[meisi]

This sort of contradicts my first post
But I believe a generic 12bar blues is one of the best possible starting points
The I-IV-V chord progression is everywhere, and blues is a good example of it
blues is ubiquitous in 20th century music, so knowing it well is quite useful

So I'd suggest you learn a simple blues shuffle pattern on the drums
then learn a simple blues shuffle pattern on the bass
learn a simple blues shuffle pattern on the piano

Knowledge and experience of each instrument will build your awareness on the others.

Then start looking for specific 12 bar blues examples such as

• Sweet Home Chicago
• I Feel Good: By James Brown
• Rock Around the Clock: By Bill Haley
• Rock and Roll: By Led Zeppelin
• Tush: By ZZ Top
• Hound Dog: By Elvis Presley
• Tutti Frutti: By Little Richard
• Folsom Prison Blues: By Johnny Cash

Each one will demonstrate very different approaches to the same chord pattern across all instruments

A close second would be Gershwin's I've Got Rythm, a I-iv-ii-V , also know as Rythm Changes , which is common in Jazz and "the American Songbook" as well as folk and pop

Keep in mind that these are both chord progressions and song forms
learn to play teh whole songs, not just certain unconnected riffs.

This with a looper was the most humbling and next level thing I could do to my playing.

I thought I could hammer out tunes just fine because I could play a song in a band setting on guitar, bass or piano with folks but the looper pushed my ear into a whole new level of understanding arrangements with the 3, timing, and how to improvise voicing or melodies in the instruments space

I was never one for reading theory and going, oh of course! I instead saw a scale, played it as quarter notes and went, huh?

 

[Michedelic]

Greetings,

I've putzed around on bass for quite some time, but rarely have I actually put effort into effective practice. My interest in learning music has grown and I really have the urge to start playing with people in a live setting. To get there I know I need to work on myself and I want some advice for how to overcome my weak points.

I'm currently learning drums and piano. I enjoy playing drums and I figured piano was a great instrument for learning theory. I'd like to get to a point where I can comfortably play drums or bass in a live setting with other musicians.

Areas of Weakness

• Ears. I've tried learning bass lines by ear in the past and I occasionally make a little progress, but I usually end up frustrated.
  • I've used Transcribe! to slow down songs I've downloaded.
• Theory. Pretty self-explanatory. I'd like to be able to break down a song and figure out different ways to approach it on bass.
• Creativity. This may be tied to theory, but I always struggled to be creative in music. I think the fact I rarely played around with backing tracks may have hurt me with bass and drums. I just don't know where to go/what to do and generally fall back on something I already know. I assume with time this opens up.

Materials/Resources

• Hal Leonard Complete Bass Method book
• StudyBass website
• Transcribe!

If you had an hour a day to practice bass and saw where I was struggling, what would you do to make an effective practice routine? Remember I'm usually also spending an hour or two on drums/piano so there may be some overlap in what I'm learning on those instruments.

Don’t devalue or dismiss ear training, because when you play with other people, you don’t get to use most of those other little helpers, you have to think on your feet. That’s when, as was mentioned, repertoire comes in. Know, by way of recognizing, intervals, stock riffs/lines, and chord changes, because more often than not you won’t have sheet music or chord charts to go by, let alone electronic aids. Go to jams to throw yourself in the deep end. Analyze any failures. There’s always something to be learned from even the dumbest three-chord songs. When you’re shopping, and some sort of muzak system is playing, try to figure out what’s going on with what you’re hearing, as a mental exercise.

 

[KenSmithFan]

Trying to learn three instruments at once? I’d pick one and concentrate on it. Get a good teacher. When you’re comfortable playing that one, move on to the next.