if you had to choose timing vs. the right note

[mambo4]

It's not the note you are playing that is important it's the next one. Timing is more important. If you play a "bad" note the next note you play should be supporting it. Don't loose the groove!

+1.
Poor players hit a wrong note and get derailed. Good players hit a wrong note and quickly get back to the groove. GREAT players hit a wrong note and then quickly follow it up with ideas that establish a musical context which makes sense for the groove.

 

[RustyAxe]

So you are saying you Never play a wrong note of miss a beat EVER?

*** are you reading? Did I say that? I was asked to choose. One without the other is suckage, plain and simple. Everyone occasionally misses a note, it's par for the course. And, whether they admit it or not, everyone occasionally gets a full stop wrong or has some other minor timing issue. But if either one is a habitual problem, yeah, a new bass player is needed.

 

[jordan2]

Timing for sure, lots of times when you play a wrong note it goes unnoticed by pretty much everyone except for you and the people you're playing with. But when you go off beat, everyone can tell.

 

[carlthegroover]

My vote: timing.

In my particular case, I've had a somewhat steady sense of rhythm and timing, even from the start of my musical journey. The "right" notes? Not so much unless it is somewhat simplistic. I still have a long way to go in discovering which notes go best with which notes (not only from theory but from experience).

So maybe it depends somewhat on the level of the bassist. Novice bassists like myself should probably stick to simple note progressions while strongly focusing on the groove. More advanced bassists should prolly be able to stick strongly to the groove while flying all over the fretboard and hitting most right notes (if not all).

Anyways, the point is: keep the groove steady even with a handful of notes, IMHO. If you can fly, by all means do so with groove.

 

[Spectrum]

I think what's being discussed by Wooten here is the tendency for beginners to get upset at themselves when they flub a line and immediately try to "fix" it. I think everyone sitting at home alone practicing does that, especially when trying to learn a complex line note for note (as opposed to improvising). Even now I do this when I'm trying to read something complex or practice a complicated part until my fingers move the way I want.

The problem is that when you find yourself in a situation with a band or with other musicians for the first time, you quickly realize that you can't expect everyone else to stop or slow down and wait for you to "fix" your mistake, you just need to let it go and pick it back up again as smooth as possible, even if you have to skip to the next "one" beat.

Once you learn to stay in the groove, then you can practice a hard piece over and over, staying in time, and after a while the accuracy will come naturally.

 

[soulman969]

Another vote for timing. You're a drummer with pitch control and when in doubt slide or bend. As another poster said quoting one of my hero's Victor Wooten, you only a half step away from the right note unless your asleep, unconscious or flat don't know the piece.

You and that drummer are the pocket that everyone else has to play in so that becomes paramount in the scheme of things in any band I've ever played in. I've fired drummer for not being able to hold the pocket and if I couldn't do it as a bassist I would expect the same.

 

[fractiouslowend]

+1. Didn't Victor himself say something like, "You're never more than a half-step away from the right note?"

when i was learning guitar my teacher told me to watch how eric clapton would slide up or down a fret if he ever his a wrong note.
We called it 'claptonning'