Sorry it's long...
What bass lesson or tip changed your life?
Not any lessons per se, more like experiences...
1st, what has affected my playing the most.
I grew up in the 70s, started playing in the late 70s, so everything I learned, I learned by ear. And I was still using that method up until the early 2000s when I quit playing bass. A couple of years back, I started playing again and someone looked at me and said this song is basically G, D, and C... Well I looked at him and said that's fine, play it first cause I got to hear it, G, D, and C doesn't mean squat to me. They told me to start learning the fretboard. So I printed out, and laminated a chart of the fret board and carried it with me to a few gigs. When we played a song I didn't know, they would tell me the notes and I would take a quick glance over at my chart sitting on top of my amp. I only needed it for about month.
The funny thing about it, is now I can pick something up by ear even quicker than I did before, which I was pretty good at, but now I also know what the notes actually are. And a lot of times with new material I can even anticipate what the next few notes are going to be before I actually have to play them even though it's something I have never played before.
Why I didn't do this sooner in life is beyond me. You would have thought I would have, especially considering that at one time early in life I was reading sheet music and playing clarinet and contrabass bassoon in school. But I never found I really needed it with bass. Anytime I needed to learn new material on bass I just sat down and learned it, by ear. And back in the day, no Internet, so it wasn't like I could just go out and get sheet music for bass for Aerosmith, Zeppelin, Rush, AC/DC, whatever, at the drop of a hat. A lot of learning was done sitting beside a record player, 8 track player, or cassette deck. I wore out a lot of tapes with the rewind button back in the day.
Where I have really begun to shine is when I'm out at someone else's live gig and I sit in on something I have never played before. Throw me some notes and I'll figure the rest of it out on the fly as we play. And I get asked to sit in a lot when I go out. And that's a whole other subject. Playing with different folks all the time keeps one on their toes, and it definitely makes me a better player. I'm always learning something new even when I do a song with someone one week, and then do the same song with someone else another week. There's always something to pick up on or explore. I can't stress enough how important it is to continually play with others you don't normally play with even when it's not the same type of music you would play.
2nd, what has affected my thinking about playing the most?
There is a two hour video on Neil Peart reinventing himself after he had played drums for 30 years. A lot of what he talks about, and does in the video, can easily be applied to playing bass, especially if you're playing bass with two guitarists because the rhythm has more coverage allowing more room for the bass to explore.
See Neil is filling in not only with normal drum stuff, but he does things with his drums that fill in for a lack of a normal bass player holding the bottom end down due to the lack of guitarists. Rush's music requires it because of Geddy's style and the lack of a rhythm guitar all the time. When Alex goes to playing lead, Geddy tends to fill in the missing rhythm with a lot of notes, leaving Neil to expand his drum playing to cover all of the low end of things.
Now Neil doesn't come right out and say that. But his job is definitely different than the average drummer out there playing in a 4 or 5 piece band. And that's what I took away from his explaining how he does somethings to fill "spaces", alter the timing, or bring the guitar and bass to a crescendo. So take some of his methods and apply it to playing bass in a band that has more rhythm coverage opening up more areas for the bass to go. What if you used the bass to bring the guitars and drums to a crescendo?
It's long, but worth watching. He actually explains what he does, then shows how he does it and why he does it. Some of what he does can definitely be applied to notes on a bass fretboard. Just don't try using drumsticks to do it. Maybe I just relate to the video more than most because the last year to year and half I have been reinventing myself as well, not only in music, but in my career path, and living style as well.
Only you can watch the video and decide for yourself if you can learn anything to apply to playing bass from it. But you have to remember, when he plays a triplett, whether it be on a crash, a tom, a high hat, a cowbell, whatever, he's still playing notes and it's what he does with those notes that I can see in my mind's eye applying to playing bass.
