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Request Ramones - Teenage Labotomy
- Thread starter Bc2112
- Start date
You might be able to do screen shots on your PC and save the images. Or you can simply re-write it on a notepad - that might be quicker. By doing that, you will realize the patterns a bit faster.
Keep this in mind - you can play the same note ANYWHERE on the fretboard. The key is to find where it sounds like the recording and/or what makes the band sound better. Sometimes going too high on the bass in a live situation does not result in a great sound. Better to go lower in those situations. You will figure it out, trust me. Have fun.
wow...im reminded of the good old days with moving needles back and forth and hitting rewind on a tape deck....ear training deluxe!!
The odds of you finding the right note by ear are 11:1.... Those are pretty good odds. Roll the dice. Enjoy.
Not to beat up on you OP, but if you can't follow a Ramones song, you should look into lessons with a qualified teacher. It just really doesn't get much easier than that.
If you have a smartphone, there’s an app called Songsterr it’s usually pretty good with tab
C’mon, that isn’t cool. We all start off needing help with things that will seem easy later, it’s a big part of the process. If you actually listen to the isolated bass track above, you may find that your assumptions about the ease of a Ramones bass line actually pinpoint a weakness on your part. It’s good to actually listen to something before passing judgement. Peace and love, no disrespect but just saying.
I disagree. OP could be trying to learn Lobotomy or Teen Town at the moment. They are at the base of a fairly steep learning curve, which ever way you cut it. They can't currently follow tab, and some other options have been put on the table. There isn't a quick fix or cheat-code solution to OP's problem, regardless of the complexity (or otherwise) of what they want to learn. OP has turned up to the job without the necessary tools, and there are ways and means by which they can get those tools together. This isn't a personal attack on OP, just an observation.
And, in a weird way, a Ramones tune is probably difficult to work out from TAB if you have limited skills in this department. It would be like trying to piece together one of those jigsaws of a plate of beans or an empty blue sky. Lots of root notes, very little embellishment. You need to play 16 E notes... if your ear isn't yet trained into this way of thinking then you count out each of those 16 notes.
OP needs to work out where the bars start and stop, how many of them there are, the fundamental structure of Teenage Lobotomy, and the notes to be played therein. These skills will serve them well for when they want to decode the next Ramones song.
@lfmn16 makes a valid point: if OP can't get there alone then a teacher is the way to go. You pay for a teacher to devise some sort of structure to your learning. I skipped this bit, and it has probably taken me much longer to get up to speed on bass. I'm reliant on listening to recordings, watching Youtube videos, sheer trial and error and occasional 'lightbulb' moments. There are probably deadzones in my technique that a teacher would spot and start correcting at my first lesson.
Ultimate-Guitar.com is usually my go-to for tabs, sheets, etc.. Great collection, though they keep pushing the app on you if you try to search on your phone. I'll usually use a combination of that, plus YouTube to work out new covers.
OP, welcome to TB. You’re starting down a path that unfortunately there aren’t a lot of shortcuts on. Even an “easy” song like this is going to require some work and dedication. You don’t need a teacher, but it will make the process much more effective. For those of us who have been doing it for some time this song appears super-easy, but that is only because we’ve simply forgotten how hard it actually was when we first started out.
This song is in 4/4, which means 4 beats to each measure, the length of each beat is equivalent to a quarter note.
In this song (and nearly every Ramones song), the bass is playing 16th notes, which, instead of counting to 16, you would count “one-ee-and-a, two-ee-and-a”, the “one”, “two”, etc. landing on the beat.
Some folks write it like this: 1-E-N-A 2-E-N-A 3-E-N-A 4-E-N-A. That would be sixteen 16th notes played across a single measure of 4 beats.
I can’t overemphasize how much of this is acquired by “feel”. Listen to the song over and over, play along with it over and over, try to write your own tab (or better yet, standard notation) for this song. Eventually, the feel, the counting, etc. gets into your DNA.
Make no mistake, when you start learning music, you’re really learning another language, and you can’t expect to be fluent, or even construct basic sentences in a short period of time.
Good luck!
This song is in 4/4, which means 4 beats to each measure, the length of each beat is equivalent to a quarter note.
In this song (and nearly every Ramones song), the bass is playing 16th notes, which, instead of counting to 16, you would count “one-ee-and-a, two-ee-and-a”, the “one”, “two”, etc. landing on the beat.
Some folks write it like this: 1-E-N-A 2-E-N-A 3-E-N-A 4-E-N-A. That would be sixteen 16th notes played across a single measure of 4 beats.
I can’t overemphasize how much of this is acquired by “feel”. Listen to the song over and over, play along with it over and over, try to write your own tab (or better yet, standard notation) for this song. Eventually, the feel, the counting, etc. gets into your DNA.
Make no mistake, when you start learning music, you’re really learning another language, and you can’t expect to be fluent, or even construct basic sentences in a short period of time.
Good luck!
Thanks this will help me greatly.
I know everyone gets a trophy just for showing up these days, but let's not try to raise Ramones bass lines to some kind of art form with nuances that only years of study can reproduce. I'm not beating up on the OP for not being able to play them, I'm actually making a helpful suggestion that if he can't play even very simple bass lines, he should look into getting a teacher. How is suggesting that a beginner find a teacher disrespectful???
Don't use the "W" word. It's hurtful to tell someone they are wrong. Maybe we should say, "You're a different kind of right."
Don't use the "W" word. It's hurtful to tell someone they are wrong. Maybe we should say, "You're a different kind of right."
Lol... you're wright... crap! I did it, again.
Or we could say, "You're the other right."Lol... you're wright... crap! I did it, again.
At some point in your career (even if the height of your career is having a beer with some friends and jamming a bit) you will need to be able to play by ear - listen to a tune and play something that fits. A Ramones tune (pretty much any Ramones tune) would be ideal for starting that process. 40 years after I started this, that skill is still the most important skill in my arsenal.
Process: Play along. You suck? Of course, you do, we all do when we start. Try again. One less mistake? Good, you're making progress. Keep going, you'll get there.
