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What is your most difficult challenge in playing bass.

#181
Acoop said:
Time is the most important part of playing bass. ... If you don't have good time, forget about it, you'll never get anywhere on the instrument. ... And if you can't tell the difference in what good time is you're wasting yours. ... Where to place the note, how long or short to play that note is the most important and hardest to achieve. ... Remember music is a conversation if you struggle to converse with other instruments it's not because you're playing the wrong note or wrong style or wrong amp or have the wrong gear, it's because your time isn't together. ... If or when you get it together you'll know what I mean, till then keep working on it
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I always thought everyone inherently had good time because I was lucky enough to grow up around musicians. Playing with some people has showed me that is not the case. Definitely agree with this statement. If your timing isn't together then everything is a mess.
 
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#182
Curtbass said:
I always thought everyone inherently had good time because I was lucky enough to grow up around musicians. Playing with some people has showed me that is not the case. Definitely agree with this statement. If your timing isn't together then everything is a mess.
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Exactly. ... All the talk of playing faster isn't about speed it's about executing precision, when to start, to you push the first notes then lay back? ... And you can't do that without total control of your time. ... Your time is your confidence.
 
#186
devnulljp said:
Remembering stuff. I sub a lot, and play with a lot of different people and for the life of me I can't figure out how people just remember songs. I use notes and charts hidden away on my ipad. I'm trying, but jeez it's hard going.
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I think whatever you use to jump start your long term memory is great. I've studied theory for years, but over time I've developed my own short hand for a lot of my rock/funk/blues. I'm faster that way. Nobody else can read it but m. If someone is using chord charts, I'm good too. Have a tablet with a bunch of Fakebook charts.
 
#187
roccobass said:
I think whatever you use to jump start your long term memory is great. I've studied theory for years, but over time I've developed my own short hand for a lot of my rock/funk/blues. I'm faster that way. Nobody else can read it but m. If someone is using chord charts, I'm good too. Have a tablet with a bunch of Fakebook charts.
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I have igigbook on an ipad with a ton of fakebooks and chord charts and outlines of songs as well as full notation for the theatre gigs I've done. Everything I do gets put on there, but I'm kinda lost without it. Have the hardest time remembering even the simplest 1-5-1-5-1-5 country tunes (at least partly because I can't really tell most of those songs apart). After 3 years of playing the same stuff, I *should* be able to do it from memory. Some of my notes are so rudimentary, it's really just a jumpstart like you said and I really shouldn't need it. Got a 1/2 hr opening slot coming up in a week and I'm trying to see if I can cram that into my head at least and go off charts for it.
 
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#189
Neil Folkard said:
Just wondering what everyone struggles with the most in bass world. Speed, theory, fills, gear?

Don't get me wrong, I'm always working on improving my technique, but for me, a relatively new player, the biggest challenge by far, has been understanding gear, effects pedals and order in the chain, especially in live situations. It almost seems like you have to be a scientist to get all your amp settings and effects pedals and levels and being heard but not being too loud all integrated well, especially in live situations.

How about y'all?
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My biggest hurdle at this time is developing the muscle memory that will allow me to keep my eyes on the music and not the fretboard. Wondering if anyone has specific practice routines
 
#191
Moonskunk said:
Keeping my pride and ego as a bass player realizing many people don't even recognize what bass is nor can they pick it out in a song. I once spent a few months painstakingly learning a few very difficult Kansas songs note for note including the original long version of Song for America, The Pinnacle, Hopeless Human, Lamplight Symphony and Incomudro Hymn to the Atman. I've always been a huge David Hope fan and having a good ear I've never had a problem picking out bass lines. Learning these difficult very complex songs note for note has probably been my biggest accomplishment as a bass player. Once I was trying to impress my girl friend so played "The Pinnacle", a 9 minute 34 sec Kansas song followed by "Incomudro-Hymn to the Atman" even longer at 12 mins and 12 secs. After playing them both flawlessly for her along with the CD, she to my disappointment did not seem so impressed. She just gave a look like "What the hell was that"? Knowing she was a big Bob Seger fan I then proceded to play "Old Time Rock & Roll" a song I really really hate! I've never played the song before in my life but it's so disgustingly boring and easy I just played it as likely any average bass player could. After I was finished she looked at me in amazement as if I were some kind of rock star. Go figure! I learned after that incident that the only person you really need to impress is yourself.
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Generally speaking people don't like complicated music. It rattled the brain and you can't dance to it.
 
#192
The most difficult challenge I face in playing bass is having my legs last through three sets at a gig. At the end of a gig my legs are so sore that sometimes I have trouble getting off the stage. I've used compression socks, which help, but when the band gets back together after this coronavirus crisis I plan on using a stool and sitting down for certain songs that don't require my harmony singing. At least my legs are getting a lot of rest these days!
 
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#193
stratovani said:
The most difficult challenge I face in playing bass is having my legs last through three sets at a gig. At the end of a gig my legs are so sore that sometimes I have trouble getting off the stage. I've used compression socks, which help, but when the band gets back together after this coronavirus crisis I plan on using a stool and sitting down for certain songs that don't require my harmony singing. At least my legs are getting a lot of rest these days!
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I used to get the same thing. It was simply caused by not moving around enough. I really had to force myself to be more active on stage but could never keep it up due to bad habits even though I could feel the difference. Moving around was like a break for my legs.
Down the line as my body declined, I wound up sitting for too many years. Now, I only do session work and a couple of jams.
 
#194
Though I'm a bass player, I'm not a musician. I can appreciate music and I can even imitate some good musicians on my bass, but I have no musical talent of my own. I've only ever composed one tune of my own in my entire life and that was like getting a root canal to get it done and sounding right.

Otherwise, there is literally no music of my own in my head at all, ever. Only the music someone else has made and that I've learned to play; otherwise upstairs, it's dead silence.

I call it the "Salieri syndrome".

In fact that's what finally made me decide to end my career as a gigging, active bassist. There's just no point to it because I just don't have that creativity that you need to really be musical on the bass. I can play if it's someone else's part, but I've never been able to create music myself.

The other, but more minor, problem is my hearing, which is now too damaged even to play other people's music in a live setting. Ironically, above a certain volume, low frequencies all sound the same as a hard distorted "bzzzzzzzz" lol. It's very strange and only at high volumes. At low volumes it's fine, but I could never gig unless it's just a really quiet setting with electronic drums, etc.

L
 
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#196
luciens said:
Though I'm a bass player, I'm not a musician. I can appreciate music and I can even imitate some good musicians on my bass, but I have no musical talent of my own. I've only ever composed one tune of my own in my entire life and that was like getting a root canal to get it done and sounding right.

Otherwise, there is literally no music of my own in my head at all, ever. Only the music someone else has made and that I've learned to play; otherwise upstairs, it's dead silence.

I call it the "Salieri syndrome".

In fact that's what finally made me decide to end my career as a gigging, active bassist. There's just no point to it because I just don't have that creativity that you need to really be musical on the bass. I can play if it's someone else's part, but I've never been able to create music myself.

The other, but more minor, problem is my hearing, which is now too damaged even to play other people's music in a live setting. Ironically, above a certain volume, low frequencies all sound the same as a hard distorted "bzzzzzzzz" lol. It's very strange and only at high volumes. At low volumes it's fine, but I could never gig unless it's just a really quiet setting with electronic drums, etc.

L
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And here starts the debate between musician and artist. Musicians aren't certainly required to create anything new. You can be a completely competent musician, maybe play in a cover band, do things exactly as they're recorded, in time and with feeling. That's a great musician. But that is different from being an artist. An artist creates something new. Or at least something new in their head even if it isn't re-inventing any wheels.

I think you're selling yourself short if you're trying to live up to some kind of "perfect musician" in your head. As long as you're happy making music.... even if it's not your own, that's good enough in my book to be a great musician.
 
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#197
Core Creek said:
And here starts the debate between musician and artist. Musicians aren't certainly required to create anything new. You can be a completely competent musician, maybe play in a cover band, do things exactly as they're recorded, in time and with feeling. That's a great musician. But that is different from being an artist. An artist creates something new. Or at least something new in their head even if it isn't re-inventing any wheels.

I think you're selling yourself short if you're trying to live up to some kind of "perfect musician" in your head. As long as you're happy making music.... even if it's not your own, that's good enough in my book to be a great musician.
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Which is why I place live music above all other art forms. As an aural form, music truly exists only in the moment of creation, is witnessed only by those in earshot, then is gone forever. Be it the Berlin Philharmonic playing Mozart, any Glastonbury headliner, a cover band filling the floor at bar, a bloke with a guitar busking in the street or whatever, great live music has an immediacy and intimacy like nothing else. It demands attention - blink and you miss it. And anyone part of creating that is, without doubt, IMHO, a musician.
 
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#199
Neil Folkard said:
Just wondering what everyone struggles with the most in bass world. Speed, theory, fills, gear?

Don't get me wrong, I'm always working on improving my technique, but for me, a relatively new player, the biggest challenge by far, has been understanding gear, effects pedals and order in the chain, especially in live situations. It almost seems like you have to be a scientist to get all your amp settings and effects pedals and levels and being heard but not being too loud all integrated well, especially in live situations.

How about y'all?
Click to expand...
Prices
 
#200
Curtbass said:
I always thought everyone inherently had good time because I was lucky enough to grow up around musicians. Playing with some people has showed me that is not the case. Definitely agree with this statement. If your timing isn't together then everything is a mess.
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+1 time was never a problem in my case .. I started struggling with the timing of other people for whom the situation seemed not to be the same ..
 
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