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Tips & advice for all bassists thread

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McSnuggles
stefk0
SuperMaximo93
Nuck81
Smaz
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Post  Smaz Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:43 am

Got any tips? Anything you wished you'd known when you first started playing bass? Anything you'd learnt the hard way that would help others? Post 'em here! Smile


Always go into a shop & try out any gear you're thinking of buying. In the case of buying a bass, buy the one you play, don't be lured into cheaper online prices - the extra cost (if any) is worth it. Ordering my 2nd bass online pretty much put me off bass playing, as the bass wasn't set up very well & it was fairly awkward to play.

Spend time learning scales, notes on the bass & general theory. It will help your playing, and will give you something to improvise & make lines with. Besides, you need to know the rules in order to break them Smile

Practice regularly if possible, rather than for a long period once every now & again. 30 minutes a day is better than 4 hours on a saturday.

Record yourself playing, or if you can't then play infront of a mirror. Being able to listen back to the recording helps you listen for any mistakes you make, and if you have video too you can see your hand positioning etc.

When learning tabs, be sure to play along to the song until you can play it comfortably & confidently. I made the mistake of just reading tabs, playing the bassline & moving onto the next one - I didn't get anywhere with my bass playing.

Try to learn by ear - it's not actually as hard as you think! Start with simple songs, just pick out root notes. Once you've found the root note of a riff or bassline, the rest of the notes will be under your fingers - us bassists are lazy, we don't like moving around the neck too much Smile It'll also mean that you can learn to play any song, rather than those that you can find half decent tabs for.

Get hold of instructional books & go through them thoroughly. I bought a slap bass book that was pretty short & simple, but my slap playing improved greatly.

Change your strings often - well, in comparison to how much / what you play. I change mine once every 1 - 2 months. Also, take good care of your bass! Clean it regularly, keep it on a stand etc.

Can't think of any more at the moment, off to work... Will add more later Smile
Smaz
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Post  Nuck81 Tue Apr 28, 2009 4:54 pm

Learn you scales!!! With the exception of first position, all scales follow the same sxact fingering pattern, you just start on a different note. Also when playing scales learn your scale degress.

Root= 1
2=2
3=3

and so on till you get to 8 the octave which is back to one. With that knowledge you can form basic chords since you know 1-3-5 together make a major tonic triad. Basically every other scale degree will sound "good" with each other
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Post  SuperMaximo93 Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:00 pm

Nice thread! Smile

My tip is on the left hand, to put as little pressure as possible on your thumb behind the neck. Really hurts your hand where the thumb muscle is. I spent a week soon after I first started playing trying different hand positions to stop my hand from hurting when I played and I found that the way I played originally was fine, I was just putting too much pressure on my thumb.
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Post  stefk0 Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:26 pm

I think I've sorta gotten used to the pain on the thumb, I actually press down on my bass hard when I play.. dunno, it just seems more natural and agressive to me Razz
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Post  McSnuggles Tue Apr 28, 2009 10:19 pm

Learn an easy song that you love, for me it's Stand By Me, and keep playing it until you've got it DOWN. Then use that song to practice some of your different techniques. You know exactly how it should feel or sound, so practice your hammer-ons, pull-offs, slapping, popping, improv, and whatever else on it. It has really helped me since the song comes completely naturally, so I can focus everything I'm doing on the technique I'm learning... instead of having to think of where to position your fingers and how to slap or whatever else.

Play along to music. When you're listening to your iPod, pick up your bass and play along. You don't need to make good sounding music, just work on timing. It can help a ton. Also try to make music that sounds good with the song and it can really help with improv.

Don't sell that "crappy" bass and get a new one as soon as you start playing. Playing on an older, worse sounding bass can actually greatly help your skills. It will make it much easier to play on a better bass because you will have to play each skill very well to make a good sound on your bad bass.
McSnuggles
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Post  Drakon7 Tue Apr 28, 2009 11:40 pm

I totally agree with Snuggles here

Learning that one song [hell, maybe even 2 or 3] helps alot. For me its Bulls on Parade and Miss Murder XD
I like playing them with a metronome, and then speeding up and up and up and up. Its a fun excercise that kinda feel like its helping XD
I also find those bass books really helpful. You can get about 30 different for about every single genre of music. Theres nothing wrong with playing music of a genre you dont like. It teaches you new ways to play, and that will help develop your style.
Drakon7
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Post  McSnuggles Wed Apr 29, 2009 12:23 am

Oh yeah forgot that one. When you learn a song and really know it, don't just keep playing it or forget about it. Experiment with it. Play it really fast or really slow. Or maybe just mess around and create a new song. That's actually a great way to write a song, slightly change a riff you know.
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Post  mts Wed Apr 29, 2009 2:49 am

First thing that comes into my mind is to learn how to tune. Tuner is good ofcourse but training your ear is imo good thing to do and practise. Just pick your e string from 5 fret and compaire it to open a string. They should sound same and when you are near you can listen how the sound..err(sorry my english) resonates and it sould be stable and not doing wave kinda thing if you can image sound as waves. Sound sould be flat and not bounce around.

I dont know does that make any sense to anyone else?


Well when your first two strings are in tune then pick a strings from 5 fret and open d string and then last two.


And more important if you canot tune your e string to perfect e well you can still play if just your bass is in tune with itself. But then you cannot really play along with some mp3's, cd's or someone else. But you can play your bass and learn your stuff anyway. At least i found myself in this situation often.
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Post  Smaz Thu May 07, 2009 12:29 am

Look after your nails!

I used to bite my nails all the time, but kept getting ingrown fingernails, small peices of your nail that would dig into the skin, cause it to become very sore etc. I started clipping them instead & it's got rid of this problem. It used to affect my bassplaying a lot - it hurts to put pressure on it if it's your fretting hand, or hurts to play if it's your playing hand. I broke my clippers, and bit one of my nails.... I'm regretting it now Sad
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Post  Dmanlamius Thu May 07, 2009 10:14 am

Purchase a can of Fast fret! Very good investment to keep your strings *pertwangy*!
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Post  ThreeLetterSyndrom Thu May 07, 2009 2:17 pm

Make sure your timing is right. If you're playing in a group formation, you're doomed if your timing is bad. Doing this will improve your timing.

Exercise:
Get a click metronome and set it to about 100 BPM. Clicks only. Now, the trick is that if you clap at the click, the click disappears. You can't hear it anymore.
So try clapping on the metronome clicks. It's suprisingly hard, I must say. If you can't get it right after a few minutes, speed up. If you're doing great, speed down. The longer the time between two clicks, the more time you've got to make mistakes.
Also, clapping harder does not make the click go away. A normal clap does the trick just as well.

Play along with the song you're learning. It helps in making your playing just that bit tighter.

ThreeLetterSyndrom
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