Tips?!?

[T.O.G]

Hey! So I got my first bass 3 and a half weeks ago. I've tried playing guitar, but never caught on. It seemed almost impossible. 2 years later here I am. In the 3ish weeks I've had my bass, I've played at least 6-8 hours everyday and theres been 3 days where I played 12 hours straight with a piss break as my only rest. I cant read music (trying to teach myself). I can play paranoid, Californication, seven nation army, for whom the bell tolls, anesthesia(besides the last transition), orion, back in black, highway to hell, iron man, sweet child o mine, I've made a couple of my own songs just using power chords and what not. Anyways, give me tips on what to do? Input: am I on a good track? Am I taking my learning the wrong way? Any constructive criticism would be amazing. Thanks!

 

[pacojas]

get a flesh & bone teacher and go from there.

 

[hrodbert696]

Sounds like you've got dedication and making progress, so congratulations!

Suggestions:

1) If you're going to practice 6-8 hours a day (or even if you're not going to keep up that pace), look up information on stretching and hand positioning. You're young and resilient, but carpal tunnel syndrome and tendinitis are real dangers from excessive practice without taking care of your hands. chriskeuken.nl has a lot of good information.

2) I suspect that you may have learned a lot of those songs by TAB from the internet. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with that when you're starting out, but TAB can become a crutch that hinders you - some people become "tab monkeys" who can play what they read off a TAB but can't actually figure a song out for themselves. Do work on learning to read music (Ed Friedland's books are good for that), and also work on learning by ear.

3) Work on learning theory - scales, chord tones, things like that. You'll find yourself able to figure out songs much faster when you can figure out what key it's in and therefore what set of notes it will be using.

4) Flesh and blood teachers are definitely the best way to go if you can. They'll know to teach you things it wouldn't occur to you to learn on your own, and they can spot errors you're making and bad habits, which no book or website can do. Having said that, a lot of people do self-teach successfully, it just takes more care and dedication.

5) Play with other people as much as you can. There are great solo bassists out there, but for the most part the secret to great bass playing is learning how to find your role in a group, lock in with a drummer, etc.

Welcome to the low end!

 

[T.O.G]

Thanks!