Just starting in module 2, what daily practice should i do. I looked on the forum and have found several daily practice routines from josh. Only have so much time in the day, so any info on which one would be helpful. Thanks.
As a start, I’d go figure out your major and minor scales (I don’t think Josh has gotten to any of those by Mod 2) and cycle through a bunch of those saying outloud the names of the notes your playing. That’s been the first part of any warm up routine that I’ve had most of this year. I go through the G, C, A, D, B, and E major and minor scales. It helps learn the note names and it’s a quick little exercise to loosen up your fingers.
Scales are a great idea @faydout I don’t think they come into the course until closer to the middle.
What’s really awesome is when you have an idea of major/minor scales and they come up in a song. You get to a part that seems hard and you are like, “oh crap they are just running up the major scale here” and it’s easy.
I haven’t done this yet myself but I think the 5 technique fails video is probably worth some attention:
Also not practice but this video on developing safe right hand technique is worth a watch: https://youtu.be/uIYuqTsUlyM?feature=shared
As soon as you can you should start on your favorite song on the challenge list. Start with one song that you can do. The goal is to play bass not practice
You should start relying on your ears as soon as you can.
I agree with @Al1885. Whatever routines you have, remember “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”
If you’re currently at module 2, I’d suggest focusing in the course for the time being - i finished the course at the beginning of this year and at first was making sure I could nail the exercises. You’ve got the infamous Billie Jean coming up, don’t let that one phase you… as Josh says, if you can master the slow speed, you can move on to the next module.
Scales, as suggested above, are covered a bit further into the course. You’ll get there soon enough.
I remember playing a U2 song pretty early on in the course - that was cool, actually playing a song all the way through!
For me it was the Journey song. That was the first time that I felt like I got this. Think I threw horns the first time I got it on fast.
Especially just starting, I liked having a warmup that just focuses on my plucking hand (or plucking and muting), and one just working on fretting.
Lots of good suggestions on fretting practice.
For plucking hand, my practice/warmup was to practice plucking and resting different rhythms to a drum track.
- Whole notes
- Halves
- Straight 1/4’s
- Stocatto 1/4’s (or 1/8 note and 1/8 rest)
- Play on just 1’s and then rest. Then 2’s… 3’s… 4’s…
- Rest on 1’s and play the other number beats. Then rest 2… 3… 4
- Play 1, 2. Play 1, 3. Play 1, 4… 2, 3. 2, 4… 3, 4.
- Chugging 8ths.
- Triplets (usually 1, 2, Tri-puh-let; or Tri-puh-let, 3, 4)
I do all this moving around all four open strings. Usually staying on one string for at least a full bar.
@Al1885 May I ask when it comes to studying songs. what scales are mostly use to get those notes from the songs?
I’ve been relying on Major Scales (All keys) and trying to figure out Minor too. however there’s a lot of frustration even though I’ve been listening a particular song many times that I really love then when I transcribe it, no positive result yet. Apologies for this. Thanks
Have you tried playing along with TAB? I like to look on youtube for “ bass tab” and usually there are 2 or 3 that are good. While there is value with transcribing your own tab you are probably better served just following someone else. You can also slow youtube down even to 1/4 speed. Try to focus on the patterns in the songs and once you start to get it stop looking at the screen and play it. Slow is the key until you start to get it down. If a whole song is challenging just focus on a riff you like and keep playing it until you are tired of hearing it
Sorry if that wasn’t what you were looking for. I like major and minor scales just to help me understand what’s going on in a song but just playing songs is fun, rewarding and challenging.
They easy ones in Josh’s list also have tab but for me there is something about seeing tab while someone is playing just tab sheets alone sometimes can be overwhelming.
I’m with you on this one… let the course do the teaching.
Repeating lessons aready completed would be good practice that early in the course.
The most important scale to learn besides the major and minor is the pentatonic scale. It’s used in almost every genres.
What kind of music do you listen to. Give me some examples.
And if you like ZZ Top … yer gonna want that Blues Scale LOL
It also depends on how new to bass someone is too… at module 2… for someone completely new… I would say repeat lessons from 1 and 2, and get that foundation built ( just me thinkin out loud )
@Al1885 At the moment I play and try to recognize some notes about 21 Guns by Greenday by using only my ears because I really don’t like to rely any tabs just challenging myself to play that using my ear and I also use Moises App as you’ve mentioned before.
I just start to the simple songs like what Josh said though my dream is to play or cover many songs very tricky such as Primus, RHCP, and Jamiroquia or anything else that gives us grooves. that’s why I’m trying to figure out some basic or simple songs for familiarization in my head and yet I’m still not finish my Ear Training Course and Theory on TalkingBass.
Thanks
It’s good that you want to train your ear … tabs are an important part of the whole package as well. Same with standard notation, which shows timing, accents, crescendos etc.
If using tabs gets you to the finish line of a song… that is something to be celebrated. Then as you play it more, you still get that ear and feel training …
I feel you on what you want to learn. A trap I fell into before B2BA and joining a band was wanting to play all the hard stuff. I mean we LOVE bass right? But that only left me demotivated and noodling for about a decade.
Josh is a boss because he takes it REALLY slow. But while it seems slow there are layers and methods that give rewards later on. Playing a simple song seems lame on the surface but being able to get through a song no matter how easy means you now can play 1 song.
So you continue to practice it. First you get some right notes, then a riff, then you improve timing, then you play the whole song slowly, then you repeat until you can play 80% at speed, then you hammer the tricky parts and playing without tab/music.
Baby steps and putting in time are the special sauce. You keep that up and have fun and you’ll work up to more challenging stuff quickly.
@Buzzin_Canada-John , thanks for this. I’ll try to address that by using tabs while working my ear. Is this good example to grab songs from Bazzbuzz song challenge right.
If you are doing the course … most of those songs are covered in the course content … ( the tabs are included as course extras ) … but that 50 song challenge is a great list of starter tunes for sure
You have good taste in music. I like that.
There’s an upside to learning by ear, you have better retention and unlike tabs when you learn to transcribe the song by ear you are not note bound and you are more likely to pickup the ghost notes and articulations more organically. Once you start learning more difficult songs the skills really come in handy.
Take Runaway (jamiroquia), I’m glad I transcribed that song before I saw the sheet music. My impression of the song would have been different and the tab version is just way too foreign to me.
Keep at it, in the world of instant gratification, with tabs readily available it’s very refreshing to know that you want to learn the song organically by ear. It’s becoming a lost art.