When did you begin to memorize bass lines?

[logdrum]

Sing the bass lines. It helps to have at least a 2 octave range (and surprisingly - not everyone has that range which I found out when I was teaching ). Obviously unless you are baritone or a bass vocalist, it would be probably an octave or more about the actual bass pitch. As you move and progress along some notes like ghosts should be substituted by non pitched sounds.

 

[DCErik]

1979, as there were few other options. You'd wait for the song to come on the radio, press Play+Rec, and work it out from there unless you were fancy and had a subscription to Bass Player mag.

 

[Bass4ThePublic]

From week 1 of playing when I was like 13. I memorized NIB

 

[MotorCityMinion]

Started out just jamming. Made it up until it fit. Bought the first 2 Mel Bay books, penciled in the notes then learned some scales and how to walk. Got better at making things fit because of those scales. Trying to memorize stuff that I would never be capable of playing fluidly was maddening and futile so I focused on what I could play well and went with that. I'm not saying don't push things that you struggle with, that's how you learn. I play for kicks, not professionally so I can get away with this approach.

 

[bass12]

I never used TAB and was memorizing bass lines from the beginning (lifting them off cassettes). I strongly encourage the use of ears over TAB. Even if you’re learning to read (which I would also strongly encourage) it’s important to train your ears away from the page.

 

[Low End Scum]

Since I learned by ear and by tabs to Prog Rock and Indie songs, right away.

 

[Pyrrho Epoche]

I live by two simple music rules:
1. If it doesn't swing, it's not getting played.
2. If it's not a workout, It is not getting played.

Just practice and repetition. It just happens after a while. I can't be bothered with alot of music, especially tabs.

 

[Polfuste]

The same way as some others here: by ear 35 years ago. And for 33 years after cause i just started to learn to read less than too years ago. So the more you'll play the tune, the more you'll remember it. But no rules: everybody is différent. The only key thing is the more you play it without reading your tabs, the more you'll be able to memorize it. Start with small parts of the tune one by one, and Then assemble it.

 

[LowendG]

I too learned by playing along with records and memorizing. I never made any notes or charts. That continued for all the original bands I was in as a younger player - we never wrote stuff down or showed up to rehearsal with a chart. I didn't start doing that until I started playing as a hired gun. Now, when I have to learn a bunch of material for a gig, I do a run through making simple little charts--usually numbers charts just in case the key changes--and just enough info to show the general arrangement and trigger my memory for any tricky bits. I find just the act of making my little chart helps speed up the memorization--I guess it's the visual component. Then I'm usually "off the paper" after a couple run throughs (that's the goal at least!). I know theory, but I don't read notation, so the numbers thing is a great tool for me. I've never even tried to read tab--seems really weird to me and likely to inhibit your progress more than enhance it.

 

[Fynn]

Oh, I've been able to memorize them right from the start. One of the first lines I ever learned was the main track to the videogame Doom, which originally of course wasn't written on bass, and wasn't even in the same octave, but still easily translated to bass. I retained that in my memory for over 5 years without playing it once.
To be fair, that was a pretty easy line, but my point is that I didn't exactly have to try and remember it. There's muscle memory and just generally memorization. I have that line in my head, but also in my fingers.
When were talking about more complicated stuff, or whole songs, then it's the same thing, but of course it takes longer to commit it to both muscle memory and normal memory. I learned the Muse song Psycho about 7 years ago. Took me days to commit it to memory, but it worked and I could actually tell that I was making progress with it. Once it's really in there, it tends to hold a couple years, and at the very least a couple months in my head.

 

[ProbablyTooLoud]

Day One.
But hey man, time better spent, in my opinion, would be learning simple melodies.

 

[Thunderthumbs73]

I'm nine weeks in to learning bass. Realistically, at what point did you begin to memorize bass lines? I don't have anything memorized and still work off of tab as well as beginning to learn music notation sight-reading. First week doing that. But memorization. When did ya'll start?

Memorization: Listen to the song with a focus on the whole so that when you think about the song name or see it, the song plays out in your head and memory EXACTLY like hitting the "play" button on whatever your music-playing device. It MUST start there. From there, you can focus on bass lines better as a LISTENER. Once you can focus on the bassline, THEN you have enough memory of both the song and the bass part that sitting down with a bass and working on the physical playing of the song will be a productive and rewarding exercise.

The idea is to make sure you're trying to not learn too many things all at once. Break down the task to smaller, discrete bits.
1.) The song.
2.) The bass part.
3.) Trying the bass part.
In exactly that order.

I play in three bands with active song list of about 50 songs each, with very little crossover of songs played by more than one band, so that's a minimum of 150 performance-ready songs I have ready to go at any moment, to say nothing of ALL the others I've memorized after 30+ years of being a gigging bassist. Take it from me when I say I know this memorization thing. Or at least it works for me...

 

[Shenron]

I'm nine weeks in to learning bass. Realistically, at what point did you begin to memorize bass lines? I don't have anything memorized and still work off of tab as well as beginning to learn music notation sight-reading. First week doing that. But memorization. When did ya'll start?

When you need to. Or when you want to

 

[bikeplate]

I started playing before tab. Use your ears and listen to the song you'd like to learn without a bass in your hands. Then take your basd and learn it

 

[Pings Bass]

We didn't have tabs available when I was coming up, so either I was reading sheet music in school and never memorizing, or I was rote learning by ear and memorizing as I went for the rock bands I was playing in.

If I were teaching a young pop-rock bass player today, I'd probably teach that way, too. It's an aural tradition. Learn by ear, play by feel. Tabs may be a shortcut to figuring out a line, but it's a crutch you have to later learn to discard.

On the other hand, if you ever want to progress beyond rock, learning to read and write standard notation is invaluable. I encourage it over tablature, since it is a universal written language.

 

[nervous]

Like most here, young and from the start. And when I started your learning tools were limited and my effective tool was the basic tape recorder, leaning by ear: play, rewind, play, rewind, play, rewind until you wore out the tape or the machine controls. Learning Rush tunes at speed is a challenge. And, no offense to no one, but I loathe tab. For bass, guitar, whatever. I think that is the devil's tool and a nasty crutch to development. When I see a TY video and the first comments are "do you have the tab' instead of those folks simply digging in and start the hard work of ear training, taking notes and spending the time to actually improve. It's a lazy response. Again, just my .02, do as you like. But using your ears to connect your hands to your musical brain remains one of the best learning methods in my option.

What I do find modern and useful is a tool like Transpose. Transpose | Pitch Shifter - Browser Extension which is a multi functional Chrome extension that works with YT, Spotify, and maybe more, and just the simple ability to loop a passage to help learn a part is fantastic.

 

[wboyd68]

I've always prioritized understanding why a bassline works over memorizing a line. To me, the only point to memorizing a line would be if I was in a note for note cover band or tribute act, because the only way you would play a memorized bassline is if everyone else in the band were playing memorized parts that went with a memorized bassline. For me, that isn't fun or creative at all, and for me, the whole point of making music is because it's a fun, creative outlet. I've been fortunate in my 40 years of playing to have been involved with bands that prioritize original material were my basslines have always been free to evolve.

 

[bigjames]

For me memorization came from repetition...but what also helped get basslines and concepts into my brain was learning music theory, so you are not "just" playing something you memorized, but also playing something you "know" and understand where the progression is going and what comes next.

 

[JRA]

I never have depended much on anything other than memory and, I can read music. Becoming accustom to tab or charts to play songs can be limiting your own personal touch in playing a song. In essence you are learning someone else's interpretation of a song by reading only. What you are doing is fine but, you aren't learning to be creative and make a song yours.

that's not how it works for some, e.g., lots of folks can read and add their own creative "personal touch" at the same time --- so, it's not an either/or process.

per the OP: i don't remember exactly, but i was memorizing music stuff from the beginning (i was a child with a piano in the house). i don't know how old i was (still a kid) when i realized manuscript/notation helped me to "remember" limitless amounts of music --- my first kid band (age 14) relied on sheet music to learn tunes, but then of course we didn't use those to play gigs. when i played music for a living i had good memory and i used SN charts for learning (and on the bandstand for many/most gigs). for most of my music life, i've played jazz, so knowing/remembering the changes was more important than knowing basslines.

i'm not a note-4-note guy. and TBH, my memory isn't what it used to be....so it all works out. some parts of some basslines are iconic. all the rest is up for grabs, always, so: what's memory got to do with it? uh.....i forgot.....

 

[GreyBeard]

I'm nine weeks in to learning bass. Realistically, at what point did you begin to memorize bass lines? I don't have anything memorized and still work off of tab as well as beginning to learn music notation sight-reading. First week doing that. But memorization. When did ya'll start?

I never worked off tabs because they were not around back in 1968. I started by memorizing from day 1