Although I joined years ago, I haven't taken the time to settle in. Hello fellow bassists!
I learned to play years ago by listening to songs on the radio and the odd piece of tabliture. I now feel inadequate as a musician and ask where I should begin my journey to mastering the bass. Lessons? Theory? Any other suggestions? Thanks, Rob
Knee to knee lessons are always best, however, this is not rocket science
and most all "how to books" will get you going in no time.
If you know the chord progression, we play notes of the active chord. So we have to know what chord is active. That is step one. You can do this by ear - good luck, or Google will find fake chord sheet music for you if you use these search words; chords, name of the song. For example:
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Right at first use just roots till you get the song going. Start with the D chord - normally the beat follows the lyric word syllable, i.e. two syllable words get two beats and one syllable words get one beat.
pound D's till you get to the first chord change, which will be the A chord. pound A's to the beat until the next chord change comes up. Yep you are back with the D. Keep going.
When that flows bring in a 5th of the chord, for a R-5 bass line, i.e. the 5th of any chord is found up a string and over two frets, or right below the root if there is a string below the root.
Find the root in the first 5 frets then look for the 5th to be as I said above.
That G is the 4th of D so it is up a string same fret as the D.
Major scale box showing scale degree numbers and the root note on the 4th string will help with all this.
Code:
...Index....Middle....Ring...Little
G~|---2---|-------|---3---|---4---| 1st string
D~|---6---|-------|---7---|---8---|
A~|---3---|---4---|-------|---5---|
E~|-------|---R---|-------|---2---|4th string
Good luck and have fun.
