Learning "Subdivisions"

[mstillman]

Tapping those who have experienced this. I appreciate the talent in Rush but never did any, now I have to quickly learn SUBDIVISIONS. Any tips?

I'm an intermediate classic rock bassist. Decent fingers. Great ears. I often know many proposed new songs or at least have heard them. Here I have nothing at the start...and the rhythms are funky!

I plan to follow my usual process of:

• listening several times, at variable speeds when necessary
• charting out the various parts, especially paying attention to the rhythm changes (color coding these in a sheet?)
• building off of high rated tabs, YouTube lessons, etc.

Not expecting any magic shortcuts but figured I'd ask. I often put chords and key lyrics into a Word doc, but this may warrant commandeering one of the kids' old poster boards to chart things out.

Most of my learning a song is listening and analyzing, probably 75% before I pick up my bass.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Febs]

Coincidentally, I came across this the other day: Bilbos Bass Bites - Bass Transcriptions

 

[SLO Surfer]

Just count “1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a” under whatever you’re playing. Takes a little practice, but it will help you line up with the drummer.

 

[mstillman]

Just count “1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a”

In other words, subdivisions!

Man, it was hard not using that in my OP.

Appreciate it, and will implement.

 

[mstillman]

Coincidentally, I came across this the other day: Bilbos Bass Bites - Bass Transcriptions

Looks really helpful, thanks!

 

[Febs]

Looks really helpful, thanks!

Thank @Rob Palmer for making such a wealth of transcriptions available.

 

[Spidey2112]

We cover it in Late Night Alibi... pretty well, if I say so myself.

How tight are you and your drummer?

PM me, if you have any questions.

 

[Rob Palmer]

I think you'll find......

Signals (full album) – Rush – Bilbo's Bass Bites (bilbosbassbites.co.uk)

 

[Ed Fuqua]

• listening several times, at variable speeds when necessary
• charting out the various parts, especially paying attention to the rhythm changes (color coding these in a sheet?)
• building off of high rated tabs, YouTube lessons, etc.

This seems to be a lot of trouble to go to just to avoid learning how to read music. Because in learning to read, you are learning to hear the rhythmic subdivisions. So you can either look at the notation on a page and hear how that sounds in your head OR hear it and understand how it lays out in notation.
No guesswork.

 

[perfektspace6]

My best tip is to learn it in the basement bars but not in the backs of cars.

 

[Kevorargh]

The song form in Subdivisions is pretty easy actually, it's the bass fills that are difficult, so the transcriptions you find should help you with that. Half of the song's baselines are done on the synth on the recording anyway.

I tend to listen a lot to the song to get the form, write it out of necessary, and play along to get the basic form down, then concentrate on specific lines that need two be played, like his little solos between the verse and the chorus (which I still can't do all that well).

Good Luck!

 

[2112]

There's at least one reasonably solid cover with tabs on YouTube:



Also, check out the Rush Tablature Project. Solid tabs there for many songs, they're not always 100%, but in most cases they're quite good.

 

[Spidey2112]

My best tip is to learn it in the basement bars but not in the backs of cars.

Oh no you didn't.

 

[Koshchei]

My process is to listen a bunch and notate a piece out for myself in Muse (notation and TAB in case there are any tricky fingerings that need to be documented - Rush has lots of these). This way, you're both learning it and building a reference guide for later, if you need to re-learn it down the road.

For Subdivisions, most of the piece is synth. Are you going to arrange it for bass, or twiddle your thumbs?

 

[dbsfgyd1]

Tapping those who have experienced this. I appreciate the talent in Rush but never did any, now I have to quickly learn SUBDIVISIONS. Any tips?

I'm an intermediate classic rock bassist. Decent fingers. Great ears. I often know many proposed new songs or at least have heard them. Here I have nothing at the start...and the rhythms are funky!

I plan to follow my usual process of:

• listening several times, at variable speeds when necessary
• charting out the various parts, especially paying attention to the rhythm changes (color coding these in a sheet?)
• building off of high rated tabs, YouTube lessons, etc.

Not expecting any magic shortcuts but figured I'd ask. I often put chords and key lyrics into a Word doc, but this may warrant commandeering one of the kids' old poster boards to chart things out.

Most of my learning a song is listening and analyzing, probably 75% before I pick up my bass.

Thanks in advance!

Try the Chordfy app. You can slow songs down in key. You can cue those passages so you don’t have to listen to the whole song. It’s a tremendous way to learn difficult passages.

Two further bits of advice. One, initially, don’t work on the song from top to bottom. Learn the easy groove parts first, then work out the details.

Second thing, Patience!! I’m pretty sure Geddy didn’t learn to play that well overnight. I’m also of a bent that he spends a great deal of time and practice to develop these parts. So give yourself a break is it’s tough sledding. Just keep working at it. best wishes.

 

[FretFree]

Am I the only one? It looks like Bilbo's transcription is in G, but I'm 99% sure the tune is in F#.

I played this with a band I was in WAY (like WAY WAY) back in the day. I played the bass line under the synth bass. For the fills I tended to use the recorded fill as inspiration/modeling rather than looking to nail them all note for note. We were definitely playing to folks who wouldn't have known.

 

[lizardking837]

My best tip is to learn it in the basement bars but not in the backs of cars.

Be cool or be cast out

 

[Smooth_bass88]

Tapping those who have experienced this. I appreciate the talent in Rush but never did any, now I have to quickly learn SUBDIVISIONS. Any tips?

I'm an intermediate classic rock bassist. Decent fingers. Great ears. I often know many proposed new songs or at least have heard them. Here I have nothing at the start...and the rhythms are funky!

I plan to follow my usual process of:

• listening several times, at variable speeds when necessary
• charting out the various parts, especially paying attention to the rhythm changes (color coding these in a sheet?)
• building off of high rated tabs, YouTube lessons, etc.

Not expecting any magic shortcuts but figured I'd ask. I often put chords and key lyrics into a Word doc, but this may warrant commandeering one of the kids' old poster boards to chart things out.

Most of my learning a song is listening and analyzing, probably 75% before I pick up my bass.

Thanks in advance!

Avoid tabs! I think the “isolated bass track” is on YouTube. You can slow it down via the YouTube player to really pick apart the notes. Definitely practice at a slow tempo before building it up to speed. Just lots of time in the woodshed. My experience playing rush tunes is that they play very very straight. Virtually no speeding up or slowing down. Keep that in mind.

 

[Smooth_bass88]

26475271[/URL], member: 147268"]Just count “1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a” under whatever you’re playing. Takes a little practice, but it will help you line up with the drummer.

The song is in 7/8, counting 16ths in four absolutely WILL NOT work. Then it switches to 6/4 and 4/4.

 

[arbiterusa]

This seems to be a lot of trouble to go to just to avoid learning how to read music.

It looks like Bilbo's transcription is in G, but I'm 99% sure the tune is in F#.

And here's the problem with just reading the music without doing any other prep; the score (as it is for almost every "rock" tune) is wrong. It IS in G, and the song is in F#.