How many here practice by playing along with bass lines on YouTube videos? Since I’m very much still a noob at this, I’m wondering if this is a productive way to learn? Also, I’m not a big Country fan, but I find the bass tracks on Country and blues songs much easier to play along with than rock. I feel it gives me a chance to work on my rhythms rather than twisting my fingers in knots trying to keep up with faster rock tracks. What do you guys think?
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It’s absolutely a legitimate way to learn. I use this track as a warm up sometimes. Nothing crazy but fun to play and it makes me listen to the rhythm and work on my timing.
Lot’s of great resources on YouTube. It’s a golden age to learn.
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I think YouTube is a perfectly valid way to learn by playing along.
There are rock songs you can tackle. Zombie by the Cranberries won’t twist your fingers in knots. Free Fallin by Tom Petty is another good one. Tainted Love by Soft Cell is another good one, and I am currently learning a cover of Little Drummer Boy by Joan Jett.
The 50 beginners sing list on this site has a number of rock songs
Even the ones that are more difficult, you can start by chugging on the root notes and adding in complexity as you progress.
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I like the “smooth jazz” play-a-long videos with the chords. Nothing too complicated, but enough interesting changes for me to practice straight lines and substitutions. The videos usually loop through the changes enough times so that I have an ample amount of time to work through many different patterns, especially substitutions.
I also enjoy the jazz standard videos with chord charts. I’m more comfortable using the lead sheets than not, unless I really know the tune in and out.
It is also fun to play along with videos of the actual artists playing their tunes, especially jazz standards, for example Ellington, Fitzgerald, Pass, etc. and a current singer I truly love: Thisbe Voss!
Besides my beloved jazz, I do like 80s country like Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakum, etc. Their videos are fun to play along with when I’m not in a mood to play the more chordally challenging old school jazz standards.
For reasons that would bore my Bass Buzz friends, I no longer play with a group, so videos allow me to play vicariously with many of my favorite musicians and singers.
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In addition to the great points already made, I’d like to add that you can use the speed controls to slow down YouTube videos (to 75% and 50%, if I remember correctly). Great way to practice at slower speeds and then gradually speed things up.
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This little doo-dad seems like it might be really cool and let’s you keep your hands on the bass.
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Apart from Harry, Samboat is great too and has new content every couple of days. Doesn’t have full music notation, but has tabs with note durations. Also has nice organized playlists, though some of the “Easy” songs still have tricky bits. And he’s quite funny with his antics in some of the videos.
There are others too, but I mostly use Harry and Samboat if I’m doing playalong tab videos.
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I use YouTube videos. Practicing is practicing, and everything I’ve head and seen says practicing is the key to getting good.
The channel I really like for this is yonit speigelman.
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I got this pedal directly from Vidami. Set it up for my wife to follow along her video piano lessons. Works like a charm after the web extensions are installed for the various compatible websites.
To my chagrin, Bassbuzz.com is not one of the website extensions…
I wonder if anyone on the forum from Bassbuzz could reply. Is it a possibility that bass buzz could be a compatible website???
Thanks
jm
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According to the specs, it should be compatible with Vimeo.com. I always thought the Bassbuzz video lessons are Vimeo based as well. Are you sure it doesn’t work? Is there maybe a way to run the device in “Vimeo mode” for the Bassbuzz videos?
YouTube and this site, simply copy the URL from the browser window you’re watching YouTube from and paste into the site.
Loop sections and set speed 
Also, check out @chris_van_hoven channel. He’s created some awesome play along tracks and I’m finally playing some Metallica on bass as a result 
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You just earned three more wishes for play along tracks, my friend 
Thank you!!!
EDIT it might be better to use this link as an entry point, as my youtube channel contains some kayak and professional stuff too, that is totally boring for the average bass player!
This is where you should start:
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Subscribed
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Nooo, don’t subscribe! Some say that those videos s#ck, make you play worse and are generally evil - think “The Ring”
The videos don’t suck, it’s just some of the machine transcriptions that do
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But still, they are evil ^^
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I like videos like this one:
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I kind of like what our own bassBuzzer @alex_b does on his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BassCoversWithTabs/videos
It’s in many repects much better than my channel!
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First thing I saw was a Sonic Youth song.
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