New Here :)

[ClockworkTyrant]

Hey there!

I was looking around online at some bass stuff and came across this site a few times so I figured I'd join? :')

I'm a bit new to bass? I've had mine since my last birthday, in January, and so far I've kind of just been attempting to juggle school and teaching myself. I really don't know much other than how to play, I have six years experience on flute and in choir so I know how to read music on both staffs but I'm still reading tabs for my bass.

The start of this school year brought on a random idea to start a band, and now that it's actually happening I figure I should really try my best to improve my playing!

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[Tom Lane]

3 octave scales and a teacher, to start. That's year one.

 

[two fingers]

Welcome to TalkBass!!!!

You are starting your journey at a great time in tech history. There are online lessons everywhere.

Check out Scott's bass lessons. There are plenty more.

Glad you're here. Good lick!

 

[Tom Lane]

Welcome to TalkBass!!!!

You are starting your journey at a great time in tech history. There are online lessons everywhere.

Check out Scott's bass lessons. There are plenty more.

Glad you're here. Good lick!

BUT, get a teacher... someone who's playing you admire... there are thousands of people who know more than you but only a few are local to you and can focus on you... but, none of them are on-line. Not to say that on-line vids are worthless, definitely not, but they don't come remotely close to an educated professional DB teacher. Ultimately, it depends on you... are you playing DB to get gigs and "just" getting by or do you want to master the instrument?

Two fingers steered you to the get by, I steered you to the mastery. Your call. Gotta say, DBers don't really need another hack, but you should definitely, IMO, pick the educated goal you have.

 

[MalcolmAmos]

Ditch tab. In a band situation no one is going to tab out your bass lines for you. OK, fine what should I do?

Play from standard notation, however, most hobby bands play from fake chord sheet music. So call up some fake chord sheet music on the songs you would like to be playing and ---- follow the chords with roots to the beat. Use these search words; chords, name of the song.

Here is what fake chord looks like. Invalid Link Removed
Find those root notes in first position - first 5 frets of your fretboard. One beat per lyric syllable normally works. Notice all those root notes are open strings, i.e. easy to find. See what you can do.

After awhile add the 5. Fives are always up a string and over two frets toward the bridge from your root. Find a D in first position; it's 5 is the A which is up a string and over two frets - or just below the root D. Fives live in two places. So start pounding out roots, then when you can keep the beat with just roots start bringing in the 5 on the 3rd beat. Root on the 1st beat and the 5 on the 3rd beat.

But first we gotta do our scales. The book Bass Guitar for Dummies will help.

Welcome and have fun.

 

[DuranFanWI]

Kind of a late response, but I'd also like to add that while some tabs are helpful, I find that in some instances I wind up changing them up. The reason for that is because my fingers are average-sized compared to some other bassists, so on certain basslines, I might play more in the middle of the fretboard where the fret width is smaller. For me, it's less fretboard acrobatics to have to deal with. I'm still hitting the same actual notes in the same octave ... it's just on a different (lower) string on a different fret position.

Now even though my hands/fingers are smaller, my favorite bass guitar in my collection is my SX Ursa 2 6-string with the swamp ash body. That might sound kind of weird, because one might think "well wouldn't a 4 string be easier with having smaller hands and such?" In a way, yes ... but also no. The neck on the SX 6-string isn't uncomfortably wide and the string spacing works really well for me ... so it allows me to make good use of the low B and high C strings using the technique I was mentioning earlier with staying a lot in the middle of the fretboard, if necessary.

The forums here on TB as well as online lessons on YouTube and other sites will be invaluable. If you can work with a local teacher nearby, that's a very good thing as well and highly recommended. You're still in school so time management can be a kinda tricky thing to deal with. But if you can commit an hour or so, at least once every few days, on things like technique, scales, even playing along to other bands' songs ... where it's just you (or you with a teacher) ... this will be of great benefit.

Congratulations on starting up a new band and I wish you great success on your bass journey!