Hello fellow bassist. I need help finding sheet music. I recently completed my second pass of the Beginner to Badass course and was feeling confident enough to reach out to local musicians. I’ve been asked by a local guitarist and drummer to come by for a jam session and see if I would be a good fit for their band. They’ve given me a list of about 30 songs to practice before we meet in about 2 weeks and I’ve run into a problem that’s seriously slowing down my progress. I can read sheet music, and I REALLY like the BassBuzz format of having the notation of the bass clef on the top line and the tab underneath (almost looks like reading the grand staff). It’s great for reading the rhythmic structure and for quickly looking down to the tab for fret/string placement. Now that I have 30+ songs to learn in just a few weeks, I really want to find all of the music in the same BassBuzz format (sheet music on top/tab on bottom).
When I go looking for the music on apps like Ultimate Tab, all I can find is tab that is seriously lacking important details. Normally that’s not a big deal and I just stumble through it until I figure it out, but now there’s a ticking clock and a lot of music to get comfortable with. I need to streamline my practice for this jam session. I’ve looked at MuseScore, but I’m not finding a lot of resources that provide the same formatting that we get on BassBuzz. For those that have been in a similar situation, what did you guys/gals do? Please… please, don’t tell me you just use music writing software and create your own version, because I know I can do that too, but I really didn’t want to dedicate the hours… like I said, I need to streamline my practice. Any help or insights are greatly appreciated!
I found one in a Google search that pointed to YouTube, but when I didn’t find the next 3 songs, I stopped. I’m really trying to find a go-to resource. Also, about the 30 songs, they didn’t ask me to learn ALL 30 songs in 2 weeks. They just provided a list that happened to have 30 songs on it. I might be pushing myself a bit… to be fair.
There are lots of good YT resources but you do have to fish around
But there are millions of songs so you won’t find a single repository of notation.
Constantine for example does great covers and free notation or tab as separate files.
My free advice after playing for only 6 years is this.
Choose just 5 songs and let them know the 5 songs you’re going to work on for the audition. Be honest with them about your experience and skill set. That’ll reduce the work / anxiety and give you a chance to give it a good go. That’s a totally reasonable request imho
The videos are great, but I’m really just looking for the music. I should have clarified earlier, while I like the format of bass clef on top and tab on bottom, I’m not wanting a video to follow along with to learn the song… just the sheet music.
Yep, I was just going to suggest that for that and many other videos I’ve seen, they’ll have a link in their description to the notation/tab. Sometimes it’s open and free like this one, others I’ve seen ask fir an email, and others ask to pay.
I had no idea. I guess I’m showing my age. I clicked everything around that video and after about 5 minutes found the link to the sheet music. Thank you so much! I’ll go digging, now that I know what to look for.
I’m on your side here believe me @pbazz I really think playing with other people is the best thing for improving. But also understand your limitations and work within them. Playing just root notes and 5ths is about 60% of my bands set list of over 40 songs. That’s right, they’re paying me to play just root notes You can simplify most songs and still be able to play with others.
Here’s a great video from Mark on the fundamentals of learning songs.
You don’t have to know the songs exactly note for note. As long as you understand the song structure (chord sequence) and basic rhythm you’re a long way there already.
For any songs I’ve learned, I’ve often found them on Youtube. A bit of pause and play of the video (and screenshotting the tab) and I can usually make myself something usable.
30 songs sounds like a lot though, I would try to get that number down a bit!
Constantine (mentioned above) makes some of the best sheet music (notation + tabs).
Other good source of great notation is Bernd (tiefsaiter) on youtube. He also has a Patreon account, which is very cheap and affordable, and he shares there sheet music with notation and tabs.
You can check his channel to see if you find songs you want, and then subscribe to his Patreon to get the sheet music as PDF files:
Patreon:
As Barney said, it is very unlikely if not impossible to find a source with notation & tabs for all the songs you want. Basically one has to do some detective work and dig in to find sheet music for songs. Sometimes all we can find are tabs, and often also bad tabs (I have found lots of bad tabs from Songsterr).
We have another thread about this very subject (and probably a lot more threads you can find using the forum’s search function). Check this: Paid tab service - anyone use one?
Congrats on finishing B2B twice and getting the jam invite!
One thing that might take the pressure off: ask the guitarist if they have chord charts for the songs. Most bands do. At a first jam, playing the root of each chord in time with the drummer, plus the 5th and the octave when you feel comfortable, already sounds good and shows you can lock in. You can add the exact lines later.
For 30 songs I’d pick the 5 or 6 they play most and learn those properly, and follow the chords on the rest.Good luck at the jam, let us know how it goes!
I tend to use ultimate guitar and they have Guitar pro tabs for many of their songs. Those have bass clef and tab and can be downloaded and loaded into guitar pro allowing you to tweak them.
I have been following this bassist’s YouTube channel for some time. Her covers are great! She has more than 1 thousand videos on youtube, and has covered a lot of different bands. She has notation and tabs on all her newer videos. Now she also decided to create a Patreon account for people who want the sheet music as PDF.
Unfortunately don’t know. I’m not her Patreon subscriber, so I can only see what kind of content she has there (that is locked to non subscribers). She has 443 posts of isolated bass tracks, 459 posts of PDF transcriptions, and 412 .gp files.
But I don’t know what the gp files contain. I noticed in her membership plans it says “Guitar Pro 8 files: you will have access to .gp files from all my covers, past and future, that feature on-screen tabs.” Maybe they only contain the tabs?
I agree with the 30 songs being unreasonable. I would let them know that you will look at all 30 - but ask them to give you 10 than you can put 80% of your effort into knowing half/-way well. IMO if I tried to learn 30 songs in two weeks that would be such a large amount of knowledge that it would be difficult, for me, to feel that I could be very good at any of them.
You can simplify most songs and still be able to play with others.
