So last night, a few glasses into a marvelous box of cheap wine, I decided to continue my efforts to revitalize the internet flea-market that is Craigslist.
Community → Musicians → “Hey everybody I’m a 44yo guy who is into all music except country and modern pop. Looking to find some kind souls to jam with”
This morning I have 3 responses so far. One of them is from a band that gigs in bars I’ve actually heard of in the city.
I’m like a wk5 B2BA player but I’m just looking for some advice on how to approach all of this. I think I’m too much of a country boy to spend my weekends in Philly bars but is there any un-written code for how I can play with strangers without losing a kidney?
Full disclosure: I bought my house on Craigslist and still have 2 kidneys (as far as I know)
Anyway I guess I’m looking for confidence advice or maybe some ideas on what to work on so that I can not embarrass myself with others.
Be honest with yourself. What do you really want to do? What will bring your joy and satisfaction?
Communicate with them and be honest. Let them know what your bass skill level is. Find a way to let them hear you play. Ideally in person playing with them. Be sure you communicate what you’re hoping to do.
They’ll be able to tell you better than us if you’re going to be able to keep up with them.
If you and they aren’t a good fit for each other, they’ll be better able to direct you to someone else who you’d fit better with, or give you guidance on what to work on.
As for technical advice/playing advice to best keep up with them:
Better to do something simple well than fancy poorly.
Hit the root on the 1.
Look at the drummer. Connect with them. Play with them.
So I turned down the guy from the band. But what’s really cool is he sent me the site for their band and it has all of their songs on there. Most are rock/bluesy with walking baselines so I’ve been having trouble trying to figure out how to play them. We’ll see what else comes up. I have 2 other replies from guitarists just looking to jam so maybe I’ll hook up with them.
I’m just over a year into bass playing, so the below is based on that incredible level of experience…
At about 5 months in, I joined BandMix and was contacted by a couple of bands, one a general covers band and the second a punk band. Both sent me their set list - about 40 songs each - and I freaked out! A) some of the songs looked hard and B) how on earth would I lean 40 songs over a short period? I declined both.
A less scary route, I decided would be to form my own band, that way we could jointly choose songs and evolve together. So this is what I did. It started with guitarist #1, who frankly wasn’t very good. Even with my rudimentary skills, I could hear that he was either constantly out of tune, or just hitting bum notes. While he was on board, I found a singer (never sung in a band before, but up for the challenge and can hold a tune). Guitarist #1 was replaced by guitarist #2 (who was better, but a bit of a prima donna ), and we found a drummer. At this point, we were actually starting g so sound line a band! Then guitarist #2 started to wanted to play complicated songs … that we made sound cr@p … so musical differences and all that, he left. We have now found guitarist #3 (who is very good), so we will se how we get on…
Key point, is rather than try to find a band and learn their set list, form a band! It’s frustrating, but also fun!!
Oh, and at 5 weeks in, you know what a root note is, you know the difference between a whole note and chugging… you’re good! You’re a bassist!!
They have a “cheap” box wine out here called black box. I’m not too much of a drinker anymore but for $21usd you get 3 bottles worth and it’s not half bad
I think it was a dark and dark cab blend of some sort. YUMMY!
Hahaha I don’t know what the heck happened there it was on my PC so I can’t even blame autocorrect… I guess it’s ok though I couldn’t spell musician either
Yea I felt bad saying no since I spent my unemployed morning learning their songs and getting 25-50% of each.
I will say the B2BA course has been a game changer. My kid likes to play Rocksmith (I’m not much of a fan anymore) but in the 3 weeks since we played last, I went from getting 20% and feeling rushed and now I’m getting a lot more notes and hitting 80%+ on the easier songs without feeling too rushed.
I love how I can actually see and hear the difference. The course isn’t taxing at all and I supplement it with learning tab songs on YT at 1/2 speed.
I like Black Box red blend… I think it is slightly better than BotaBox. Very convenient when wanting 1 or 2 glasses during the week without worrying about a red going bad.
That’s too bad, it would have been a great and fun experience. Do you have their website? We could have help her with transcription so you could have try to see how you would do. In any rate, you’d have a week or two to prepare any ways. Oh well, you were lucky to get offer for audition. May be next time.
