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What song did you learn RIGHT NOW?

G

gonzilla

Jan 26, 2009
173
0
#1
Ok, here's the format for the thread-

Name of the band - Name of the song
Bassist for the Band
Genre (Just approximate it, if you don't know)
Difficulty Rating (see Rating Guide)
Comments-


Example -

Rush - Tom Sawyer
Geddy Lee
Progressive Rock
***
I had some problems with blah blah, specifically the blah blah blah.



Difficulty Rating Guide-

* Easy. Someone picking up a bass on day 1 could probably nail it.
** Relatively easy. A bassist with a few months experience could breeze through it.
*** Moderately difficult. Doable by a bassist whose been playing for a year or two.
**** Hard. Required some skills found in an experienced bassist.
***** Insanely difficult.
 
#3
Stratovarius - 4000 Rainy Nights
Jari Kainulainen
Power Metal
*
The song was insanely easy, with the exception of a short fill towards the end of the song. While the song is nearly all roots, it's still fun to be a part of this song. If you don't know Stratovarius, think "Queensryche with more symphonic elements". I recommend this song for a brand new bassist who wants to get into power metal or symphonic metal.
 
#4
Guns N Roses - Don't Cry
Duff McKagan
Heavy Metal
*
Learning this was a piece of cake due to the plodding nature of the song (it was something in the range of 65bpm) and the relative lack of quarter notes. I think it's an important song to learn for a beginner, though, because every other guitarist out there can play at least some of this. It makes transitioning to jamming with guitarists an easy thing. I learned the song in about an hour.
 
#5
Pink Floyd - Money
Roger Waters
Progressive Rock
*
It actually took me a while to get this song down. I think the key to a beginner learning this song is to get the main bass riff down and then work from there. From that point, it's just filling in the pieces. It also gives you more time to look ahead while you're autopiloting the main riff. The fact that the song is heavily 7/4 isn't really a big obstacle if you were familiar with the song before you attempted it. Another thing that helped me out was that I played it stacatto- holding chord shapes like a guitarist would and arpeggiating them held me back, so I lifted my fingers after every note, which freed up my hand for movement. I think a beginner would definitely need that freedom of movement on a standard long-scale bass.
 
#6
Luiz Bonfa and Antonio Maria - Samba de Orfeu
Jazz
*

I'm just starting to get into samba rhythms and this tune is a real treat. The real challenge with this one is keeping the line interesting and flexible over the 4 bars of the Imaj7 and the EIGHT bars that just jump back and forth between the ii and the V.
 
#7
gonzilla said:
Difficulty Rating Guide-

* Easy. Someone picking up a bass on day 1 could probably nail it.
** Relatively easy. A bassist with a couple weeks or months experience could breeze through it.
*** Moderately difficult. Doable by a bassist whose been playing for 6 or so months.
**** Hard. Required some skills found in an experienced bassist.
***** Insane.
Click to expand...


Um... you do realize that's ridiculously skewed towards the absolute neophyte, right?
 
#9
Return to Forever - Spain
Stanley Clarke
Latin/Jazz Fusion
****
The only really difficult part of this song is the band tutti but it's a lot of fun to play once you get it. The arrangement was actually done by someone else but I don't fee like digging through all my music to find out who.
 
#11
gonzilla said:
Difficulty Rating Guide-

* Easy. Someone picking up a bass on day 1 could probably nail it.
** Relatively easy. A bassist with a couple weeks or months experience could breeze through it.
*** Moderately difficult. Doable by a bassist whose been playing for 6 or so months.
**** Hard. Required some skills found in an experienced bassist.
***** Insane.
Click to expand...

What is this now? TalkGuitarHero? Sorry dude, there aren't any "levels" to conquer in music. Lets talk about the virtues of TAB and what modes you play in a II-V-I instead.
 
#13
Muse- Hysteria
Chris Wolstenholme
***1/2
Just a bit tricky if you play it over 2 strings rather than one and racing up to the octave, but quite easy when you get into the groove of it. The coolest thing about the song is the chorus is totally open to improv :)
 
#14
Abba - Virtually the whole Abba Gold CD + some more songs

Need it for a gig in a few weeks... Bassist mostly Rutger Gunnarsson, I believe.

Rating: ** - ****, if you need to have something on that. I would have given the music a max difficulty rating of three asterisks, but no, a guy/gal with only 6 months experience could not play this whole repertoire with ease and make it sound good without serious mistakes, except if he has some serious musical experience from other instruments to stand on. I'd consider one having played less than a year a beginner.
 
#17
I think your ** and *** rating categories are too close to gether. *** should be something an average player with a couple of years of experience could handle easily. ** should be someone with only a few months experience.
 
#18
onlyclave said:
What is this now? TalkGuitarHero? Sorry dude, there aren't any "levels" to conquer in music. Lets talk about the virtues of TAB and what modes you play in a II-V-I instead.
Click to expand...

There needs to be a guide as to practicality of a song for people at different skill levels. You actually think II-V-I is the most important part important part of bass? No, the most important part of the instrument is getting people to actually pick it up to play it, and if it requires a level system to get people to progress, then so be it. So if you're looking for a thread where people talk about the virtues of TAB rather than getting them to actually play something, I invite you to find one of the other trillion threads that already exist on it.

That's the first and last I'm going to say on this.
 

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