I understand totally regarding theory. Like I said, a little will go a long way but the right teacher will definitely help. If you'd be open to online lessons then I would hit up @BrotherMister (who's just over the water in Scotland).
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Keeping time while soloing
- Thread starter BernardBass
- Start date
Practice the whole piece including the solo along a metronome. Can be a phone app, doesn’t matter. Repeat often.
And can you count along the drums leading up to the solo? Then continue to count through it or tap your foot?
Or can you ask the drummer to click track through the part in rehearsal?
I know I’m counting to the end of bass solos.
And can you count along the drums leading up to the solo? Then continue to count through it or tap your foot?
Or can you ask the drummer to click track through the part in rehearsal?
I know I’m counting to the end of bass solos.
Been listening to Kila all morning. Thank you for the recommendation!
BobDeRosa
Commercial User
- May 16, 2012
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- Owner, Tritone Jazz Fantasy Camps
You obviously know the number of quarter notes in each bar. Do you know the form of the tune? How many bars of verse (jazzers call it the "head") and how many of chorus (or "bridge")? Or is it a blues form of however many bars? Without your bass, listen to recordings of the songs you're playing and count along, making sure that you always know where you are. Once you understand that, it's a question of picking up the beat when the tune is counted off and then feeling that pulse internally throughout.
This is a great idea, get together with just the drummer and run through a few solos, starting before the solo section. Have him keep the beat goIng, then move to just keeping time on the hi hat. Then have him drop out and come back in with you (when he expects you to end). Good luck to ya[/QUOTE]
And if you're losing the 'one' maybe have him count out loud. And maybe a simple fill or crash when he wants you to come back in. I used to play with a guitarist that was really good at giving me a look when he he was ready to change.
Just one other thing to mention: with all of the suggestions you're getting regarding different aspects of your playing to work on, don't try to practice more than one thing at a time. It sounds as if your main stumbling block at this point is a lack of a developed intrinsic sense of form. This may, in some way, be linked to your sense of time/"internal clock" but the two are not the same. If you are practising form then don't (at least for now) worry about your timing - and vice versa. Let your brain absorb one thing at a time.
I've caught myself before thinking I'm on top of the form and doing something rhythmically clever--only to realize when I come out of it that I've turned the beat around.
My solution is usually to try to reproduce the problem at home against something that can tell me when I've screwed up. (E.g. a backing track (maybe irealpro), or just a metronome set to accent the 1.) And then keep trying till I can figure out what exactly happened and how fix it. If I can then identify a really specific difficulty, I can try to turn that into an exercise that I can do variations on in practice.
Theory in itself isn't necessarily the solution, but understanding how to count beats and bars makes it a lot easier to talk about the details of what went wrong.
My solution is usually to try to reproduce the problem at home against something that can tell me when I've screwed up. (E.g. a backing track (maybe irealpro), or just a metronome set to accent the 1.) And then keep trying till I can figure out what exactly happened and how fix it. If I can then identify a really specific difficulty, I can try to turn that into an exercise that I can do variations on in practice.
Theory in itself isn't necessarily the solution, but understanding how to count beats and bars makes it a lot easier to talk about the details of what went wrong.
Thanks, added to my spotify!
This. What you described in post #32 I woudl call a breakdown rather than a solo.
The singer says "bring the band on down behind me , boys" and everybody lays back or drops out,
and then some audience banter while the rhythm section provides a backdrop
then some magic cue happens, and the band kicks off again
the problem is you have not establish the magic cue with the drummer
you need to write out special bass "exit riff" that leads nicely back into the song
something the drummer can hear and pick up on
long enough to give everybody time to notice and follow
the real trick is : get the drummer and everyone to agree that this "exit riff" establishes the one.
if you wander off track and don't know where one is anymore you can start the riff and and redefine where the down beat is, everybody can hear it coming, and the song resets giving everyone a solid grasp of the downbeat.
Without a sense of time we are nowhere. I lived with a guitarist who taught out of the house. I remember coming home during a lesson and the student had absolutely no sense of time you could tell he had no chance of ever playing. I would work with a metronome and work on playing some melodies. I have had friends with music degrees tell me to learn melodies as a key to soloing Gary Willis himself said the same thing. I warm up by playing the Theme songs to the Munsters the Simpsons and King of the Hill and the Nut Cracker it all helps when soloing you will hear something in your head and be able to play it.
Not sure of these have been mentioned yet, but there are two books by louis bellson;
'Modern reading text, in 4/4 and 'Odd time reading text'.
Lock yourself in your room with these and a metronome, not forgetting your bass(not s important, but certainly useful).
I found these super help/useful nd still do.
During solos , I find not trying to play many notes but maybe simple variations of the melody whilst breathing , quite useful.
'Modern reading text, in 4/4 and 'Odd time reading text'.
Lock yourself in your room with these and a metronome, not forgetting your bass(not s important, but certainly useful).
I found these super help/useful nd still do.
During solos , I find not trying to play many notes but maybe simple variations of the melody whilst breathing , quite useful.
Great advice here. Another advantage of this approach is that by observing the melody, you learn to structure phrases chordally versus in scale tones which comes more naturally to string players. As the melodies are usually chordally based - in other words, two consecutive notes are usually not adjacent notes in the scale but rather a distance apart.
If you have the ability, I'd also recommend transcribing solos. That's a significant part of formal jazz education and many people find that identifying and writing down the notes in solos leads to a broader understanding of how to put solos together.
iRealPro and eight bars. Four where you are playing the bass line and four where you solo.
When the music stops, you're done.
When the music stops, you're done.
Cave Puppy
"Humph Bo, he's wond!" - John Lennon
TL DR - Get thee some kind of looper with a metronome/drum machine and practice, practice, practice. Plug/play the chord progression into the looper then solo over that over and over. I have a BOSS RC3 that has canned beats in it (you can also put ANY audio in one of the loop slots via a usb and computer and play over it) and I also have a BEAT BUDDY MINI that is strictly a ROM drum pedal. Both are great practice tools.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Another thing. Unless you are REALLY good, bass solos can be REALLY boring. I prefer to work with a drummer, and break down the beat - call and answer, etc
I was going to recommend those but OP needs to get his head around actually reading rhythms firat. But good call nonetheless.
Long before could read rhythms (still a work in progress) I got in the habit of using "real" song charts - chord symbols on staff paper with bar lines , repeats, and d.s. al coda's etc (like you find at https://www.jazzstudies.us/) and got used to following the music structurally.
I made charts even for really simple songs. Other musicians would tell me "You shouldn't need to chart this out, it's simple , just memorize it." But they didn't understand my reasons:
I made charts even for really simple songs. Other musicians would tell me "You shouldn't need to chart this out, it's simple , just memorize it." But they didn't understand my reasons:
- I was practicing writing and reading, not any particular song
- Seeing the structure laid out across bar lines eliminates ambiguity and clarifies my understanding
- When the band changes things up, I have just the place to note it.
- I can return chart I wrote years later, for a song long forgotten, and play it like it was yesterday
- for the OP: it makes it very clear where the one is!
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Yousah - looks like it took 42 replies before someone threw in "tap your foot". That would have been my first suggestion.
