I need help finding a starting place

[DrThumpenstein]

A tight sense of rhythm is among a bassist's most important skills, so investing some time as suggested above is a very important use of practice time. It is among the most important basic fundamentals that you want to get right from the beginning, just like good left and right hand technique and learning your way around the neck. You can do everything else well, but if you have inconsistent timing, you'll never really succeed with other musicians. And just like everything else in life, some things come very naturally to some people, and other things come naturally to others. It is a skill that most anyone should be able to improve with practice. If it is something that you need to improve, you will never regret the time you spend working on it.

I prefer playing with drum tracks over a metronome when working on timing. To me, it just feels a little bit more like playing with another musician. I've been playing long enough and it's ingrained enough that I don't have to do a lot of work with the drum machine now, although it is useful at times when learning a new riff, in that you can slow the drum track down to learn the tricky parts, then get it up to speed.

Enjoy your journey deep into the land of Groove!

 

[Dirk Diggler]

The easiest ways to approach the issue would be start working with a metronome, drum machine or drum and percussion loops.
The quickest best way for me was to actually start playing drums and percussion, it has helped all the other instruments I play by a quantum leap.

Slow music seems the toughest to subdivide, so in your time keeping device try using 8th note pulses.
So instead of 4/4 time you actually set things to 4/8 boom now you'll hear and feel the 8ths better.
You can do the same with 16ths once you get 8ths down.

I don't believe good time is natural, it just requires practice.

Good luck,
Dirk

 

[LuckyScott]

Instead I would recommend a cheap drum machine. You can get used for almost nothing, and its better because you focus on the kick drum and the snare. The Kick and the snare is your foundation, learn to play with and around them. But always lock into the Kick.

 

[LuckyScott]

I learned my rhythm by playing in a classical orchestra for four years. So don't rush it, just put in the time.

 

[pedroims]

I'll try that with the metronome Joe linked! So am I trying to hit the space between clicks or hit the every other notes? Or am I playing as if it was ticking every beat and playing 4 beats when I only hear 2?

Thanks again guys, this helps so much!

Edited for clarification

Think the click is the snare and you are the bass drum, you provide the 1 and 3, the click is the 2 and 4... boom,click, boom, click. And as Bootsy says you can improvising from there, you will notice if you start missing the rhythm.

 

[Honkey tonk]

I suggest adding triggers under the strings , gives you the ability to play bass and drums at the same time

 

[lucas303]

As a beginner I did the bassbuzz.com course and one of the cool things they have is a track you can download where the drum beat randomly drops out, so you not only practice playing to the rhythm but also keeping the rhythm going on your own. When the drums come back in you find out if you showed slowed down or sped up. There's got to be something out there that could serve the same purpose for you.

 

[MustangWally]

While not up to the level of many here, I would nonetheless suggest that you find a song form that you like - for me the good old 12-bar sequence always works - and just tap your foot as you play it a few times through. Then find a few songs in the same form and play along with them. I'm sure that the metronome thing would work great too, it's just that I have never had one so I don't know. And yeah - screw counting, what is this, a math class?

And as many have said: FEEL the music, let it soak into your bones. Feel that groove. Less is more.

 

[LBS-bass]

While not up to the level of many here, I would nonetheless suggest that you find a song form that you like - for me the good old 12-bar sequence always works - and just tap your foot as you play it a few times through. Then find a few songs in the same form and play along with them. I'm sure that the metronome thing would work great too, it's just that I have never had one so I don't know. And yeah - screw counting, what is this, a math class?

And as many have said: FEEL the music, let it soak into your bones. Feel that groove. Less is more.

I think that feeling the music is something that some people need to learn.

You should rarely have to count. You do have to know where 1 is, and you should be able to feel the beat from the 1. If you can't find 1 easily, try working repetitively with a metronome that gives you an anchoring tone at the 1. Get that feel into your body somehow. Lean into that "one" every time it comes around.

I know that someone just above said no metronomes, and in general at a hobbyist level you won't be using them playing with others. What I'm suggesting is just an exercise to acquire body-feel. If you don't have that, it doesn't matter what you play with other people, you won't know where 1 is, and that's where it all falls apart.

There's another thread here about toe-tapping. This is why many of us were taught to toe-tap; it develops body-feel. Anything you can do physically to reinforce the 1 and the subsequent beats will help in that way.

 

[Real Soon]

The thing that kickstarted me from being able to plunk a little bit on bass to playing it with rhythmic force was studying the first Rage Against the Machine album. Tim Commerford laid everything with such no-nonsense placement that it's an instruction manual on central groove.

Btw I'd been playing for a lot longer than 3 months when I sat down and started working thru those lines. They're not easy by any means. But they're accessible (and a fantastic intro to drop D tuning), and put every part of the 16th-note subdivision to work in different ways throughout the album. And when you can play along, you feel like a frikkin rock star. That matters lol

The metronome is a tool classical musicians have been using for centuries, and jazz musicians for as long as jazz has existed. For good reason. Learning to play ON the metronome beat is a valuable tool, and learning to play OFF the metronome beat (usu swinging, or behind the beat a la dub & reggae & hip-hop styles, etc) is a valuable tool.

Also as has been noted, counting has its uses, but they're for when you're sitting & studying the music, not really when you're actually playing. Sometimes in some complicated progressive type stuff you have to, but if you're looking to hit a groove, once you get the notes & rhythms down, then your inner pulse does the rest.

 

[brianrost]

I'm against the suggestion for starting with drum machines, loops, etc. because they mask whether you are actually playing in time or not. You may think you're grooving, but what's really happening is the drum pattern is grooving and you're not With a metronome it's obvious...you have to provide the groove yourself. You can use a drum machine as a metronome, though, by programming patterns playing only rimshots. Just avoid those "Santana in a box" patterns

A metronome is just a metering device. What's the tempo of this recording? How fast is 120 BPM? Turn on the metronome and listen to the clicks, that's how fast it is. I want to play in a jazz band, can I actually play a walking line at 240 BPM? Turn on the metronome set to 240, wow that's really fast , etc.

Playing along with recordings is how you work on feel if you are not lucky enough to already be playing with more experienced musicians. Another way to learn different feels is to go dancing, then apply how it feels to dance to your playing. I never knew how to play a waltz properly until I learned how to waltz.

It's when you start playing with other musicians that the application of what you've worked on starts paying off. They speed up, they slow down, they don't play the parts 100% like the recordings you've practiced to all year, they totally rearrange the songs so they sounds nothing like the recording, they'll play with feels you've never experienced before, etc., etc.

 

[Mushroo]

Pencil, paper, transcribe your favorite songs. Then check your transcriptions for accuracy against the published sheet music.

For purposes of this exercise, if you wanted, you could just do a rhythmic transcription: Ignore the pitches and just transcribe the rhythms, writing x's for the noteheads, like drum notation.

Transcription is the best rhythm training I know. It forces your ear to hear the subdivisions and your brain to make a decision whether you are hearing (for example) two eighth notes, or a dotted eighth note and a sixteenth note.

Transcription is like weightlifting for your rhythm muscles.

 

[consectaneus]

Just adding to the above. I don't know if you have any interest at all in reading music, but if you don't, you might just try learning to read rhythms a fun and helpful study. You can even use a drummer book for that. Drills that start with whole notes, then half notes, then quarter notes, then 8th, etc. Then the fun comes from syncopating by skipping the down beats and playing on the "and" etc.

If "exercises" is a turn off, then never mind. I think it's fun which is why I do it, and to understand rhythms better. When learning to get better at something, it can be beneficial to attack it from different angles which reinforce the concept.

As someone who is only recently playing in groups, what I find is that unless the drummer and rhythm guitar player are like a metronome or close to it (they are not), then time can become a more fluid concept.

I hope you can develop a sense of internal rhythm, because I think that is where it's at. Do I believe it can be learned? I'm skeptical...but I do believe people can improve.

 

[mambo4]

I'm against the suggestion for starting with drum machines, loops, etc. because they mask whether you are actually playing in time or not. You may think you're grooving, but what's really happening is the drum pattern is grooving and you're not

This is exactly why i prefer a naked metronome to loops or backing tracks. I want my innacurracies exposed so I know what needs work. If I can nail my part with jusr the metronome, I know I can nail it at the gig.

 

[skycruiser]

I'm against the suggestion for starting with drum machines, loops, etc. because they mask whether you are actually playing in time or not. You may think you're grooving, but what's really happening is the drum pattern is grooving and you're not With a metronome it's obvious...you have to provide the groove yourself. You can use a drum machine as a metronome, though, by programming patterns playing only rimshots. Just avoid those "Santana in a box" patterns

A metronome is just a metering device. What's the tempo of this recording? How fast is 120 BPM? Turn on the metronome and listen to the clicks, that's how fast it is. I want to play in a jazz band, can I actually play a walking line at 240 BPM? Turn on the metronome set to 240, wow that's really fast , etc.

Playing along with recordings is how you work on feel if you are not lucky enough to already be playing with more experienced musicians. Another way to learn different feels is to go dancing, then apply how it feels to dance to your playing. I never knew how to play a waltz properly until I learned how to waltz.

It's when you start playing with other musicians that the application of what you've worked on starts paying off. They speed up, they slow down, they don't play the parts 100% like the recordings you've practiced to all year, they totally rearrange the songs so they sounds nothing like the recording, they'll play with feels you've never experienced before, etc., etc.

Good point about the drum machine masking your own groove. I would recommend both. The drum machine is great for inspiring a variety of rhythms and styles. Use it to develop base line ideas then tune it up with the metronome. Also learn to play "in the box" as you can carry on a very long rhythmic development session with nothing more than those few notes.

 

[Malcolm35]

You have received good input. I'll just add be aware of the time signature - 4/4, 3/4, 5/8, etc. Look over at the drummer's kick drum pedal and let that guide you.

 

[Flashback Bass]

I'll try that with the metronome Joe linked! So am I trying to hit the space between clicks or hit the every other notes? Or am I playing as if it was ticking every beat and playing 4 beats when I only hear 2?

Thanks again guys, this helps so much!

Edited for clarification

Play it like there should be four clicks with only the two. It will built your time subdivision.