Mental process while playing

[Rib 13]

I cant say I think about it too much. Knowing theory is the biggest aid and I am able to look at the fretboard and can see the diatonic road maps (and variants) as I play along

The problem with me is that I have been doing this for so long that I tended (I say past tense tended because I have given up cover music for the time being) to play a lot of songs on autopilot without thinking of anything. I think thats part of the reason why I stopped playing covers: I wanted to care more but I didnt...this is a very dangerous trap to fall into and its easy to become a negative deprecating person when this level of apathy is reached (and this is what happened to me) and that isnt fair to me, my bandmates,the audience, and the music itself

 

[Dirk Diggler]

I'll throw out my generic walking bass Jazz advice, root on the 1, your call on the rest.
Good luck,
Dirk

 

[brianrost]

I always think about what girls I might have a chance with if I were still single

I hope you're not thinking that when you play at the Villages

 

[LowActionHero]

Makes complete sense, especially for pop/rock where there are such well known versions. In jazz I feel like it's harder to decide what version to learn.

I feel that learning the bass parts note for note or at least close will expand my vocabulary and give me ideas for my own lines that I might not come up with on my own. Especially styles I wish were more natural to me, like JPJ or SRV, Lynard Skynard. Learning some of those, and working on scales, chords etc, then replaying some of those songs, I start to see pieces coming together.

 

[slobake]

Lots of great suggestions here. I agree that I practice, practice, practice before I play a song with the band. I pratice with a metronome and I with a recording of the song. When I play with a band I clothes my eyes a listen a lot. When we get into a nice groove I might be humming to song like others have mentioned and I am listening to the drummer. I like to try to find that spot in the rhythm section that really works. If I open my eyes and people are shaking it in time with my playing I know i have done my job.
That said, I am probably a pretty basic player compared to some here but the people I have played with seem to like it.
Sometimes I am also thinking of burritos when I am playing.

 

[Benjamin Earl]

I believe that practice and study can create a subconscious thought process for playing bass. For me, it revolves around muscle memory and music theory. I use what I have practiced to visualize the fretboard and play the whole neck.

I use several of your options to determine what to play. I compare chord tones to possible scale tones. I use surrounding chords and melody to determine if I can play modally.

I suggest learning how to play the whole fretboard. Using the “box” scales is a good starting point, but you can expand those scales and play in multiple positions. This will make you a more fluid player. Use patterns to memorize and gain muscle memory, then practice with chords to hear how scales/modes fit.

 

[BobDeRosa]

Sounds like you're moving in the right direction. Your next step might be to practice the inversions of those chords to better understand the sound of those same notes in different combinations. In every key, major and minor, play triads: 1-3-5, then 3-5-1, then 5-1-3. When you've got those down, add the sevenths to each chord. It's a great exercise not only for learning the fingerboard, but being able to always land on a chord tone and know where to go from there to find another. Doing the same thing with major and minor Pentatonic scales will advance you even further, even faster. Congrats on your retirement.

 

[mjnyc]

Thanks!

 

[mambo4]

root on the 1, your call on the rest.

On the surface my thinking feels a lot like "Root on one, then use my ears"

But if I'm honest "my ears" implicitly include neurons formed by years of practicing theory, a variety of styles, plus every tune I've learned consciously or unconsciously.

Learn / practice everything you can, then forget everything but the song, I guess.

 

[micguy]

I guess this is a long-winded way of asking: what goes through your head when you play?

"If you're thinkin' you're stinkin'" - I attribute that to Billy Sheehan, and it's good advice.

My practice routine for a weekend (mostly church gigs in my case) starts 9 days before a gig (there is often overlap, as I'm playing most weekends). It involves working from chord charts on tunes I don't know for 2 to 3 days, then playing from memory the last 6 or 7 days. The whole point is to get things ingrained to where you DON'T think when you're playing - it's literally automatic, aka "flow state".

One way I know I'm ready is, while practicing the set list for an upcoming weekend, if I can read stuff on Talkbass while practicing and not mess up, then the music is in there. On the gig, of course, I don't do that - I'm paying attention to the other musicians , the singers, the audience, etc.

 

[Killing Floor]

I

I mean.. without that pesky B you'd have to have 6 fingers for a minor barred chord. 0.o

have 10 fingers, how do you think I got through calculus?

 

[Malcolm1935]

What I do now is not what I did when I started out. At first I played from the same fake chord sheet music the rest of the band used.

Follow the chords playing roots found in the first five fret area - then using the major scale box pattern I probably would play a root on the first beat and a 5 on the third beat. Staying in the first 5 frets, I.e. Not moving from the box area I started with.

I knew that a 2 is same string as the root just over two frets. The 3 is up a string and back a fret from the root... The 4 is up a string same fret as the root.... Call up the major scale box pattern and using that the R-5-8-5 played a lot of bass for me.

Hope that helped.

 

[Spectre Gunner]

Both choices are viable options, as well as a couple more. It would really depend on where you would be going from there. And remember, there are a multitude of patterns to play the same line. For example, there are five basic patterns to play a Maj7 arpeggio - all one one string, over two strings and 3 different ways covering 3 strings (starting from your 1st finger, starting from you 2nd/3rd finger & starting from your4th finger). And we haven't even addressed playing the 3rd, 5th & 7th below the root yet or inversions. I know this is a lot of information and it probably seems overwhelming. But you've got to start somewhere. So, shifting up to play the V with a pattern you already know is an option and you should add it to your vocabulary, as well as working down to the V, in which case you will already be in position. As time goes on you'll pick up on these other patterns and add them to your vocabulary.

Once I’ve learned a song well, I’ll sometimes practice playing that song different ways but still playing the same notes. Doing this helped me become more familiar with the neck and some alternate patterns can be easier to play than the original pattern that I started with. This exercise also helped me to expand my playing beyond just the first 5 frets.

It’s a good exercise to do especially when exploring all the fingering options a 5/6 string has to offer.

 

[NoiseNinja]

Honestly I just listen and play.

A pretty intuitive process.

This goes for composing music as well.

Almost as if like as if I am just taking dictate of something that is channeled to me from a "higher?" place.

Of course I also analyze and make conscious choices, but the essential main part of the whole process seems to mainly come from somewhere else that has more to do with intuition and feeling than conscious thinking in the traditional sense of the word (even if I'd claim it actual has more to do with truly being conscious), something beyond rational thinking, which I believe pretty much sums up the essence of music as such, as a phenomena, it self.

As an example I like to use I once was programming a flute solo section for a piece of music I was composing with someone else, and in a matter of a few minutes I plotted in a pattern in the midi grid, that on a conscious level seemed pretty random to me, but somehow I must have known exactly what I did, cause as it turned out it was spot on perfect for the song without editing as much as a single note, and without having listened to it first and during the process of plotting in the notes, and it wasn't like it was even an all that simple melody.

I am sure it would still make sense if I did analyse it, but that would very much be an after thought.

The moral being trust your intuition, neuroscience has proven that by the time you are consciously thinking about the process that you are in you are already half a second behind the game, learn to be present in the actual present, it's the only thing that is truly real, everything else is a mere after thought, an illusion.

 

[mjnyc]

This seems like the holy grail to me.
Applied to coming up with bass lines, I imagine the process as something like this:

1. Take a song you know relatively well, could be just the melody.
2. Play it back, if possible without the bass component.
3. Come up with, and sing along with the music, a sponteous bass line improvised on the spot. Might have to be up an octave or two to be able to sing it.
4. Then be able to play, on the instrument, the notes that are in your head.

I assume part 4 can be developed with ear training, specifically using the bass to be able to play what you hear in your head. Not sure about part 3 which is very intuitive but I imagine the more music you listen to, the more likely you are to come up with something interesting.

Thanks.

Michael