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What are you thinking when playing a riff?

#21
It's the same as others have been saying. You just have to feel the song. As more than notes and beats, but a moving entity.

I have friends who get too caught up in theory and technique, and lose the ability to feel the song and move with it. At the same time I have other friends who know no theory and have the worst technique and are equally inhibited. You just have to find the way to balance between knowledge and feel.

I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but that's my view on the whole thing.
 
#22
GroovinOnFunk said:
When playing a riff/fill, do you rely on muscle memory for the fill and actively THINK about your "landing spot" and the note you need to land on for the next chord or the next measure?
Click to expand...

I liken it to driving a car - I subconsciously know my way home easily but can't tell you all the street names. If I use a map I can work it out logically (conscious mind) but I interrupt my 'autopilot'/ subconscious. I believe you CAN use both at the same time though.


I learned to hear the bass line my subconscious was singing (being centred), which interestingly is 1-2 bars ahead of the music.
The next and hardest bit - learning how to get that out thru the bass using both conscious and unconscious together (takes a lot of practice).
The last bit - just stick to playing that and not adding any more notes consciously, coz you can get lost really badly since you're not sure where you're going or where you've been. (execution, experience).


Sometimes I do need to know which note to end up on, but for me it's more a visual landmark (fret and string). I tell myself 'here' and that's where I end up.
Again, it's like driving a car towards a landmark (shopping centre, etc) - I see where I want to end up and 99% of the time it happens almost by itself.
 
#25
totallyfrozen said:
DON'T THINK!....FEEEEEEL!

It's like a finger point the way to the moon. If you look at the finger, you'll miss all that heavenly glory.

bruce_lee_finger.jpg
Click to expand...

Hilarious. I also say to myself, land on the 1 you son-of-a-she-dog.
 
#26
I always throw out the theory. When I play it's quite an emotional event for me as I really get into it. Theory is nothing but an explanation after the fact of what someone did that sounds good and it has been documented. Theory is like a roadmap. When something else becomes fact it has to be updated. When I play a riff I think but not too hard about execution. Before I play out I play and practice different fingerings to see what sounds the best and feels the best to execute. Everything is in the preparation, Muscle memory and hand eye coordination are key until you know it so well that you don't have to look at it any more. It just comes out. I have been ACCUSED as being a player with chops. Sometimes people around you discount all those hours you put in to practice where your hands just do what's in your mind. I still serve the song, the singer, the music and when people refer to me that way I sometimes take it as a negative and kind of ignore it.
 
#27
IMO there's way too much thinking going on here. I try to listen and feel more, and let the rest evolve. If you're consicously trying to fit in written fills, and it's not working I'd say abandon them. And practice more till it becomes second nature, and you can play those fills without thinking.

If you know a lot of covers a good exercise is to just jam along to them. When I was playing a lot more covers I used to review everything before a gig, and often times I was so sick of the tunes that I'd just jam like crazy over them... playing lead bass, just making up all kinds of crazy crap, but making it fit. It's a fun creative exercise, and nothing I'd ever do with a band, but I think it's helpful in several ways. Helps to REALLY know the tune inside out, and helps with the feel and timing thing.

If you're looking to impress, I'd suggest working on listening and locking in and forget the fills for now. Nothing looks less impressive or professional IMO than someone attempting something flashy, landing on the wrong beat or note, and then inevitably showing that in their face. :) Much better to play simply and in the pocket using fifths, octaves and little fills - and waiting till the more complicated fills just come naturally. Without thinking about them at all.

I try to learn every song I perform to the point where I'm feeling them and don't have to think at all. That's when I feel I can really make them sing. With my bass of course.
 
#29
GroovinOnFunk said:
I've recently become really happy with my note choices when I decide to do a bass riff/fill in a song....However, as I've been getting more ambitious and playing more complicated riffs, I've noticed that I sometimes miss the next chord or miss the downbeat (the 1).
Click to expand...

GroovinOnFunk said:
To be clearer, the fills aren't the issue. I'm content with them. It's coming out of a complex fill and landing solidly on the downbeat of the 1 of the next chord
Click to expand...


If you're missing the downbeat here's what's helped me:
- messing around on a drum kit, and working on seamless transitions between groove and fill. Fun rhythm exercise!
- Hal Galper did a thing about Forward Motion.... basically, every phrase you play should be moving the listener forward to the next chord/bar/etc. Learn to make the downbeat the rhythmic target, and part of the phrase leading to it. ie.....
2 3 4 1 | 2 3 4 1 | 2 3 4 1 | 2 3 etc.

Some great YouTube snippets and this-
Link Removed

(Not affiliated, just found it helped me).
 
#31
I'm not really an amazing bassist by any means yet, I've only been playing for 8 and a half months, but when I play (with my lil theory) I basically just use my ear to follow the groove and when I try to put in a fill I just have to gain up the confidence to know when to play it.
 
#36
Some awesome points. Played a sweet gig last night for a packed house of a few hundred people at the local hot spot for live music here. Got tons of compliments and attention despite focusing so much more on the groove than fills. I was trying to make the groove top priority. I always thought I did this, but recently realized that I might sometimes get too caught up in "thinking".
Now I'm taking a sort of "learn music theory so you can know how to manipulate it" kind of approach. Less diatonic playing, more playing by feel and relying on my knowledge of theory to keep me from sounding bad. But not using it as a crutch.
 
#40
I like the tip about being able to hold a conversation whilst playing. People sometimes criticise me for only having an hour and a halfs worth of songs for my acoustic guitar and vocals set. Some of these people claim to know endless songs. Unfortunately they don't really play any of them well.
I often get people wanting to talk to me when I'm out busking and it can cost me money because I like to talk. It's taken a couple of years of playing in public for 3 hours a day 3 or 4 times a week to get to the point where I can carry on playing the music whilst talking. The music keeps flowing just the same. Obviously talking and singing is not going to happen lol.
Funny thing is that I can't sing and play bass at the same time very well at all. I put this down to the fact that I have been playing bass way before I started singing yet took up guitar and singing at the same time. It could also be some mental block thing whereupon I feel a huge divide in that I can play bass way more naturally even with a new line yet I have to work much harder on my singing as it takes much longer for it to sink in. That process gets in the way of the bass and makes it feel that I have gone back several years in my skill level.
I would rather just play bass without singing though It would be good to be able to at least offer decent backing vocals as a bassist.
Maybe I just havn't played any particular b lines for long enough to to match the hours on the guitar songs or maybe it's back to the fact that the groove is everything and for me at least, singing is just another distraction and puts me in thinking rather than doing mode. The groove always come first.
 

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