Hi everyone. I need some advice. I have been playing bass for several years, learning songs mainly by reading tablature and play along via YouTube or in the old days PowerTabs. I can cover several songs but am unable to improvise, walk the fretboard with a groovy bass line, call out a blues in whatever key and start jamming, etc. I want to work on having the ability to do this and know what notes I am actually playing. How best to get there? Online lessons? Instructor one on one? Do I need to learn more music theory? I had music education and band for four years in middle and part of high school. I was good at reading music in treble clef but have since forgot all that stuff. Thanks in advance!
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Plateau in playing, need advice
- Thread starter sgiacomo
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I'm sure that there is a big answer to your question.
Back in the late 60s when I was about 15, I learned bass lines by brutally dropping the needle over and over song passages and matching the notes on my bass........by ear. I could take me 2 days to learn a 2 minute song.
But, after a year or so, I started noticing repeating patterns. The 1-5. Major triads, minor triads. The low and high octave. And other repeating patterns. Of course, I had no music theory idea what these patterns meant. But, I could use these patterns for jamming and improvising in bands.
Then at age 33, 18 years later, I took official bass lessons from a jazz teacher for about 6 months. WOW! Now I was able to understand what those patterns meant and why they worked.
Learn the major and minor triads. Learn the major and minor scales. Learn the blues scale. And from the notes in those scales a person can improvise.
My teacher told me that in actuality, there are only 12 notes. In a way, music is not some big mystery.
A lot of bass lines in all kinds of songs are repeated over and over again in other songs.
I made a long story short. And I hardly answered your question.
Learn songs. See the patterns and use them to improvise.
Back in the late 60s when I was about 15, I learned bass lines by brutally dropping the needle over and over song passages and matching the notes on my bass........by ear. I could take me 2 days to learn a 2 minute song.
But, after a year or so, I started noticing repeating patterns. The 1-5. Major triads, minor triads. The low and high octave. And other repeating patterns. Of course, I had no music theory idea what these patterns meant. But, I could use these patterns for jamming and improvising in bands.
Then at age 33, 18 years later, I took official bass lessons from a jazz teacher for about 6 months. WOW! Now I was able to understand what those patterns meant and why they worked.
Learn the major and minor triads. Learn the major and minor scales. Learn the blues scale. And from the notes in those scales a person can improvise.
My teacher told me that in actuality, there are only 12 notes. In a way, music is not some big mystery.
A lot of bass lines in all kinds of songs are repeated over and over again in other songs.
I made a long story short. And I hardly answered your question.
Learn songs. See the patterns and use them to improvise.
What kind, what genre of music do you like?
Listen to EVERYTHING but that. Inspiration never comes from habits. Before you know, you’ll find things you like in those other styles and that could influence and inspire. Works for me anyway.
Listen to EVERYTHING but that. Inspiration never comes from habits. Before you know, you’ll find things you like in those other styles and that could influence and inspire. Works for me anyway.
1st, do you know the names of the notes on the entire fretboard? If not, learn that.
2nd, as BassDude51 said, learn your triads and their inversions
3rd, extend the triads to learning other chords and inversions
These steps alone will take awhile but will give you a large basis of knowledge to work with
2nd, as BassDude51 said, learn your triads and their inversions
3rd, extend the triads to learning other chords and inversions
These steps alone will take awhile but will give you a large basis of knowledge to work with
Thanks for the suggestion but I cannot listen to everything but rock, that would be torture haha!
probably "all of the above," given your history as you describe it. but FWIW, there's no substitute for one-on-one tutoring with a competent teacher. i'd advise that you commit to some lessons: spelling out to the teacher exactly what you said in your OP!
whatever you do, good luck shooting for greater heights!
The best method to learn stuff depends heavily on how that person is wired. For me, I get motivation from having constant gigs - very real deadlines that won't move - I need to be good at this set of music by a certain date, or I'm gonna suck in front of an audience. For some folks that would be debilitating, and send them into hiding. For me, doing that constantly means I'm learning all the time, and my skills and ear evolve organically.
My knowledge of the fingerboard comes not from studying that as an end in itself, but from exploring different ways to play the stuff I need to for gigs - over time, the fretboard is naturally more and more familiar, 'cause I've been there before many times.
My knowledge of the fingerboard comes not from studying that as an end in itself, but from exploring different ways to play the stuff I need to for gigs - over time, the fretboard is naturally more and more familiar, 'cause I've been there before many times.
Learn the note names of the pitches on your fingerboard and the basics of reading rhythm and printed music. Ditch tab, it’s inferior in most ways to temporal notation on a five line staff. It will hopefully open you up to leaning things like chord types and scales that you can use to break out of your rut.
I recently started taking a private lesson every 2-3 weeks with a lot of practice in between. BEST THING I EVER DID
Before that I got a lot out of Truefire. If you catch a sale it's $50 a year and has great Music Theory classes.
Or, one of the best online classes I took was Low End University for $10 a month. He's a very good teacher and has an excellent Music Theory class.
Online Bass Lessons With Low End University - Low End University
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I find that reading music for bass is overrated for anything but pit gigs or high end recording gigs. Not that there's anything wrong with knowing the skill. I cannot sight read on bass, but can use music to help pick out lines. But I've never been given any kind of music and been expected to be able to read it to do my cover band thing - most guys in this arena have no clue how to read music. But, you say you had music training in school and can (used to?) red treble clef. So you have the basic tools in your pocket and just need to learn how to read the bass clef. That's just putting in the work.
Having studied music in school and college, my foundations were firmly set and am essentially a self taught bassist. I did do a lot of surfing and have spent a great deal of time at Scott's Bass Lessons. That being said, I agree that spending some time with the right instructor can save you a ton of time figuring things out and might prevent you from building some bad habits. Assuming you are the type of person who will do the work you need at home, you could get by with minimal sessions with your instructor. Have him/her give you a primer in a specific topic and then go home and work it out. Go back when you're ready for another topic and again do the work. If you're the type of person who needs someone else to keep you accountable for your homework, then set up weekly or bi-weekly lessons.
Regarding learning to walk, it's really pretty simple to do. Take some simple blues songs and practice doing arpeggios over the chord structure. Then listen to someone else working that same song. Try to hear how they are making the arpeggio based lines sound more interesting by adding passing tones or inversions to their version. Go back and start trying some of the things you heard. It takes time, but walking should be pretty simple.
Regarding knowing all the notes, it's good to do so, but for me, I am more of a pattern guy. There are a handful of regularly used bass patterns that are employed in a lot of songs. Once you start seeing these patterns, it's easy to move it from one key to the next. For example, the I-V pattern is the most used pattern we have. There are essentially 2 ways to do it: Root note, down one string and 2 frets to the right (toward the pups). Or root note, up one string same fret. Once you learn this in A, it's easy to do in C (or any other key). I use 7 or 8 patterns (or "boxes" - mostly pentatonic in nature) and so long as I don't use open strings, I can transpose to any key pretty much on the spot.
Soloing is a tough skill for me. All my attempts sound very basic and I don't do much in the way full length solos. Give me a few fills and other short features and I'm fine. I can tell you, that learning the pentatonic scales will be invaluable when start trying to work out solos. I know I'll get flamed for this, but my advice is to not get sucked into "modes" to begin with. They are simple in concept, but can hurt your head for a long time if you get sucked into their depths. Save this for when you have nothing left to learn.
Most of this stuff is not complicated and just tales some time and effort to get it figured out. Good luck and don't sweat it when hit walls (feel like you're going nowhere). It happens to all of us. Sometimes the answer is to keep plugging; other times the trick is to put things down for a few days and let your brain do it's thing. I can't count how many things that were hard for me, just started working after letting it rest for a few days.
Having studied music in school and college, my foundations were firmly set and am essentially a self taught bassist. I did do a lot of surfing and have spent a great deal of time at Scott's Bass Lessons. That being said, I agree that spending some time with the right instructor can save you a ton of time figuring things out and might prevent you from building some bad habits. Assuming you are the type of person who will do the work you need at home, you could get by with minimal sessions with your instructor. Have him/her give you a primer in a specific topic and then go home and work it out. Go back when you're ready for another topic and again do the work. If you're the type of person who needs someone else to keep you accountable for your homework, then set up weekly or bi-weekly lessons.
Regarding learning to walk, it's really pretty simple to do. Take some simple blues songs and practice doing arpeggios over the chord structure. Then listen to someone else working that same song. Try to hear how they are making the arpeggio based lines sound more interesting by adding passing tones or inversions to their version. Go back and start trying some of the things you heard. It takes time, but walking should be pretty simple.
Regarding knowing all the notes, it's good to do so, but for me, I am more of a pattern guy. There are a handful of regularly used bass patterns that are employed in a lot of songs. Once you start seeing these patterns, it's easy to move it from one key to the next. For example, the I-V pattern is the most used pattern we have. There are essentially 2 ways to do it: Root note, down one string and 2 frets to the right (toward the pups). Or root note, up one string same fret. Once you learn this in A, it's easy to do in C (or any other key). I use 7 or 8 patterns (or "boxes" - mostly pentatonic in nature) and so long as I don't use open strings, I can transpose to any key pretty much on the spot.
Soloing is a tough skill for me. All my attempts sound very basic and I don't do much in the way full length solos. Give me a few fills and other short features and I'm fine. I can tell you, that learning the pentatonic scales will be invaluable when start trying to work out solos. I know I'll get flamed for this, but my advice is to not get sucked into "modes" to begin with. They are simple in concept, but can hurt your head for a long time if you get sucked into their depths. Save this for when you have nothing left to learn.
Most of this stuff is not complicated and just tales some time and effort to get it figured out. Good luck and don't sweat it when hit walls (feel like you're going nowhere). It happens to all of us. Sometimes the answer is to keep plugging; other times the trick is to put things down for a few days and let your brain do it's thing. I can't count how many things that were hard for me, just started working after letting it rest for a few days.
Simplify. Probably 95% of the material you’re covering can be accessed just on the E & A strings. Of that, likely 80% of those notes are in first and second position.
I'd consider the approach of studying music as a whole with bass as your primary instrument. Theory, performance, ear training, notation, sight reading, composition, styles, improvisation, all of it. There's plenty to learn for the rest of your life.
In all seriousness, you’ll be well and truly stuck for the rest of your life if you don’t branch out and learn some other genres.
The best way to learn to jam is to jam. Plug in, put on the radio and start jamming w what you hear. Don’t try to play the parts the bass player is playing…make up your own parts that work. Over time you’ll be able to add your own flavor to things much easier but you have to develop the skill. You won’t learn how to make it up in the fly by studying what someone is doing you have to try it
Stop using tabs. Learning to read music isn't that hard; the other stuff can be, but reading simple bass lines isn't.
Good luck.
Good luck.
Outside of formal lessons, getting together with other musicians to jam is a big help. I normally don't do well under pressure. Beginning with following the root changes, then adding fills at each turn around, then adding walking parts or harmonies in between will begin to come.
I could once just baely read simple music in treble clef. My Covid project over the past three years was to learn to read better in treble and bass clef. I would strongly suggest learning to read bass clef. There are so many learning resourcs out there in print it is a shame they are not being used.
I love "The lost art of country bass" by Keith Rosier with it's simple but important lessons on how to play basic 1-5 patterns through chords and even more significantly, simple but effective walking bass patterns.
I love "The lost art of country bass" by Keith Rosier with it's simple but important lessons on how to play basic 1-5 patterns through chords and even more significantly, simple but effective walking bass patterns.
I second this (I learned a LOT that way), with one minor question: Radio? - does that still exist?
One of the great things about music, is that different people approach learning how to play differently. You’ve got to find your own path that leads you to your own goals. Rock & Roll is pretty simple stuff for the most part, and I don’t mean to denigrate it by saying that. There’s a simplistic, emotional, improvisational basis to it going back to it’s roots in blues, rockabilly…essentially folk music electrified. Arguably, the bass guitar has a very big part in defining what I’d call Rock. It’s pretty simple music and the electric bass is a pretty simple instrument to learn to fulfill its roll. It depends of course on what kind of Rock you’re talking about as the genre covers everything from the Kingsmen to Mahavishnu. So where are you trying to get to? You still have work to do to play any kind of music well. All of that simplistic, emotional improvisation has to gel together to make good music and that takes work and experience. The way to get the experience is to play music with other humans and listen to the result over and over again.
My two cents for you is to leave tabs and sheet music alone for awhile. Play along with some simple stuff (Creedence Clearwater Revival comes to mind). Don’t even worry about playing the bass lines at first. Try to just play the root notes and figure out what the chords (changes) are with your ears. Try to make it musical even with that one note per chord. Bass is as much a rhythm instrument as it is a melodic one. The magic is that the bass (especially an electric rock bass) in its traditional function is to bind those two things together. The bass part becomes the essence of the song. Simple perhaps, but immensely important.
Anyway, figure out the root notes of the chords to various songs and then you can start adding notes of the chord scales later. What scale you play defines the chord (the chord defines the scale.) You’ll start to see and hear patterns eventually and you’ll see how similar many rock songs are.
My two cents for you is to leave tabs and sheet music alone for awhile. Play along with some simple stuff (Creedence Clearwater Revival comes to mind). Don’t even worry about playing the bass lines at first. Try to just play the root notes and figure out what the chords (changes) are with your ears. Try to make it musical even with that one note per chord. Bass is as much a rhythm instrument as it is a melodic one. The magic is that the bass (especially an electric rock bass) in its traditional function is to bind those two things together. The bass part becomes the essence of the song. Simple perhaps, but immensely important.
Anyway, figure out the root notes of the chords to various songs and then you can start adding notes of the chord scales later. What scale you play defines the chord (the chord defines the scale.) You’ll start to see and hear patterns eventually and you’ll see how similar many rock songs are.
