Oh I don’t deny that all songs involve scales and theory but to me these seem more like tools used to analyse music rather than aids to improving playing. I can see that a good knowledge of scales and intervals is really useful for working out a bass part and maybe for composition, but I don’t see how in a practical sense it can support my playing.
Similarly, when I was (am) learning a foreign language, I had grammar classes coming out of my ears, but it was only when I was able to communicate with people that I started seeing progress. OK maybe the grammar lessons formed a good base…
But surely improvisation is based to an extent on imitation? Hence the covers
I would say knowing scale and interval relationships is absolutely critical, fundamental for composition. To use your language analogy I would liken it to vocabulary.
If you are interested in writing your own music, it’s pretty key, pun intended.
It’s also important to really understand songs you are learning. Otherwise it’s just memorization.
Note that this doesn’t have to be just a theoretical application I am talking about. I’m talking big ears here, being able to hear the difference in intervals and help understand what that does for a song. Understanding scales and intervals and what they sound like has practical applications for understanding music even just listening.
My point would be that it’s possible to acquire an understanding of these relationships covertly, i.e. though playing, memorisation and improvising on songs, rather than through grinding scales and modes. Then again it may depend on the person - some people like the numbers approach and other don’t…
I play scales as an exercise. It builds up muscle memory and gets my hand better at string crossing and moving up and down the fretboard.
And builds speed. All of which makes me better at covering songs. If a song calls for a C I don’t have to go searching. So yeah it helps with the theory end, but it improves coordination, stamina, and speed.
And really helps your fills. And composition. Some times I just put on a drum track and improvise a bass line to it
I do pentatonic scales because Geezer uses them, nothing special about it
Any time you play music on the bass, you’re getting better at bass.
Play the music that makes the most applicable sense to you at the time.
The reason people specialize is because they are in specific scenarios where it is beneficial for them to do a specific thing.
Lemmy was a rocker playing in rock bands. Those bands were successful enough that he never had to go out and do another thing.
Pino had a totally different path - his path brought him into the studio working on tons of different things… that - at the time - he didn’t always feel qualified or prepared for. But he worked on that material, worked in those scenarios, and built out a huge and varied skill set because he was in those situations.
If you have future goals of how you want bass to exist in your life, work towards those styles and genres. But if there are immediate things to do - jam sessions, gigs, bands, whatever - work on those styles and techniques that have a direct application to what you can do now to get immediately better.
My road has always been about what I was doing out in the bass playing world.
If your bass playing world is more private and individual, then I’d echo what a lot of the other good folks here have said - play what makes you happy. The most applicable thing to play would be the thing that inspires you to pick up your instrument and play!
No. The scales, the ear training, the understanding of the fretboard and what notes sound like before you play them and so on are are the raw tools that enable you to know what you’re playing(if you’re learning a song), and why you’re playing it, as well as knowing what to play when called upon in a jam or your band asks you to come up with a bass line on the fly.
Learning songs without knowing any background theory is like learning mathematical formula to try to learn calculus (you’ll be memorising the formula, but they will remain meaningless). You need to learn the mathematical theory behind calculus for the formulae to make sense, in the same way as you need to learn the musical competences for the songs to make more sense so that you know why things are being played the way they are, why the rhythm is the way it is, and why certain note choices were chosen.
So when you learn songs, they will make much more sense to you and therefore give you much more enjoyment and appreciation to play, rather than just going through the motions of moving your fingers around the fretboard.
Techniques are used to improve actual playing(performance), such as various finger exercises to keep your fingers as close to the fretboard to minimise fatigue, keeping your thumb roughly on the centre of the neck, being aware of your posture, fretting almost on the fret lines(avoid playing in the middle of the fret. This will also be useful if you ever decide to play fretless later on), keeping your wrist as straight as you possibly can, and so on.
Could you tell us a bit more about that? If I understand correctly, songster is a plugin or music library for Guitar Pro!? Or am I completely wrong here?
It could have a tie in with Guitar Pro, but don’t have that and it’s not needed.
Songsterr is a music library of songs and tabs at its most basic. You pick a song, hit play, and the cursor will highlight the notes as you’re to play them.
I have the premium version which allows me to change the playback speed. And you can choose any instrument for the tab
It has search functions, you can search for tabs for 5 or 6 string bass, and you get a list of the songs sorted by popularity.
Also in the tab at the top of each song are the string tunings, and in the tab are flags to indicate bpm, and when it changes. And it has a lot of notation included
I find it useful. Especially playback at varying speed as I learn a song, but that costs money.
The music I listen to and the music I play have usually been pretty different things. I usually listen to pop, hip hop and rap. On guitar I like to play classic rock, some metal and various finger style stuff. On bass I like jazz, Bossa, r&b, Motown and the odd rock and pop stuff.
Yes. You hit it on the head. We have our ‘catalogue’ of songs that we are expected to know or get ‘right’ with minimal practice.
Then we have a ‘work’ list where we have a % rank of how comfortable we are with the songs. When we all hit 75%, we put it in a rehearsal and see if we can work it out. If we like it, it lands in the ‘catalogue’.
And I have my own “boy, I really like this song, so I’m going to learn it” list. Some are easy, some are more complicated. Stuff like YYZ lands on that list.
I’ll also transpose keys for some songs because we play them in places the singers can sing them. So we play “Long Train Runnin’” in Em instead of Gm. That takes some work because I can’t do that on the fly, yet.
And we have very poor video, not yet to share. We’re making a concerted effort to get the gig next Friday night on good video. Need more marketing material and I’d like to share it with the Forum.
What we’ve found is that the keys these songs are in are sometimes just suggestions. For instance, we had a song that was Gb, but we_never_played_the_one.
Also, you find out when you do this that it is very, very hard to play slow and consistent. Even with a click.
I have to laugh at this analogy, because this is exactly what happened to me… I had a bad foundation in calculus, so by the time I was in Calc3 (required for Comp Sci majors in the University I attended) I could look at the presented problem and know the process (formulas/methods) for solving it, but had no idea what I was actually doing. Somehow I made it through, but not at all enjoyable.
Songsterr is basically the best web site for tabs. It contains tabs that include the note timing/duration, have tabbed out parts for all instruments and a menu to choose them, and a player.
I would question your mathematics analogy - you can’t reduce something as complex as music and all its social and cultural aspects to calculus. Music is something that is done by people, and the scales, modes, time signatures etc are just paradigms constructed to explain it.
They can help us understand musical phenomena but that’s their limit - they are not in themselves didactic tools. A good teacher can use them to draw attention to certain features of music to help you develop, but grinding scales does not directly improve your ability to express yourself. To make an analogy with language - we all share similar knowledge of grammar and vocabulary but not all of us can write a poem. Also, nobody has ever become proficient in a foreign language by memorising a dictionary and grammar chart.
But OK I will grudgingly admit that a good knowledge of the minutiae of music (scales etc.) is needed by a professional musician, if only for being able to transpose pieces or be able to play from music sheet. Also, some people do learn better when they are able to work around the framework provided by (music) theory. However, this is not anywhere near my goals right now, and my needs are served pretty well though practice and imitation.
Ear training is a good idea though. I’ve just downloaded an app for that
Why not just take the time to learn them? They make nice warm-ups and it’s just really kind of a fundamental thing to know. And they are easy on bass; there’s only one shape you need to learn per scale type, so three total, and you instantly know those scales for all keys.
Are you taking Josh’s course? It really teaches sort of the bare minimum levels of this kind of thing that you really should know.
Ok just for you I’ll give it a go . I do know the basic shapes of the major and minor scales anyway as well as the “blues” scale (I’m not sure if that’s the right name). I just can’t be bothered to memorise all the modes all along the fretboard - it eats into valuable bass time
