How Do I “Actually” Learn Songs?

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Instead of just learning a new song and moving on to the next one once I can play it, I’ve recently been trying to break down the songs I’ve been learning by analyzing them more closely. You know, looking into what scales and chord progressions are being used, how the song structure is laid out, etc. The problem is that I don’t really know how to do this effectively, at least in a way that can help me better understand the basslines in the songs I’m learning. I’m also unsure of how I can effectively apply what I learn from analyzing these songs into my own bass playing.

With all that being said, how do you guys break down and analyze songs? How would you recommend I do so to improve my playing?

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No theory necessary, just old fashion. Listen to the note and figure out which one, then listen to the next note, rinse repeat, :joy: Next thing you know you have an intro down, then move on to the verse, then chorus and so on.

This kills 2 birds in one stone, one develop your ear and apply what you learn, and two, learn how to transcribe a song. Getting a tab is easy but next time you hear a song you like you don’t know where to start without a tab.

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Another approach is to first learn about the harmonic structure of a song: the chords that act as its backbone and the tones of those chords that make up the notes played during the various parts of a song. This might sound more complicated than it actually is at first glance, but it really isn’t hard once you learn some basics.

Think about it this way: As a small child, you’re taught the alphabet. That’s great, but you still can’t read.

But then, you’re taught the spelling of simple words that kids commonly know: dog, cat, boy, girl, Jack, Jill, etc. Now you have some vocabulary to work with.

Then comes learning simple sentence structure: Jack and Jill went up the hill, etc.

The point is that music is most definitely a language. It has vocabulary (chords, scales, arpeggios, etc.), structure and “grammar.” In other words, music (a song) is constructed and spoken in particular ways so that other musicians can understand it and listeners can appreciate hearing something they are familiar hearing.

All of this is not to say that just learning the specific notes of a specific song is bad or wrong, because I know I’ve done that. But learning how and why a song (and a ton more) is built that way makes learning essentially any song you want to learn faster and easier.

@JoshFossgreen brilliantly introduces this general concept in the Beginner to Badass course. He keeps things fun and light, but make no mistake: he’s teaching about how music is composed and why, and he uses multiple examples (songs) to illustrate the various ways a bass can be used to communicate it. He’s a tricky one, that guy. :wink:

But back to previous advice: Learn songs. However you can. As many as you can. If you never care about or think about how they’re built and why, you’ll at least know how to play those specific songs.

But if you ever become curious to learn more songs, faster and better, or maybe even how to write your own songs some day, there are many great bass courses available that can speed you on your quest.

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I second the recommendation for @JoshFossgreen 's B2B lessons here. I’m working through B2B having previously done Mark Smiths Bassic Fundamentals, consequently and bearing in mind I could already read standard notation (slowly), I rattled through the initial modules quite quickly (though picking up loads of useful stuff along the way). I have just finished module 7 and that was something of an eye opener with his improvisation stuff which has sort to given me permission to just follow the chords structure of an existing song making sure I find my way back to the root on the first beat of each measure. Something I had thought way out of my grasp is suddenly not so far out. And with it comes a much better understanding of how bass lines are put together. And from that, hopefully, a quicker pick up of new bass lines.

Obviously only scratched the surface at this point and still masses to learn, but wouldn’t life be boring if there was nothing new to learn!

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So far, I’ve tried to learn songs note by note, but I’ve been less attached to the song structure. But now I’ve found out that it’s not the right way because I’ve come to a song where it doesn’t work smoothly anymore. The song consists only of roots and fifts at 130 bpm, quite simple, but the chords have no real structure. The first half of the song is BBEABBEABBEBABAABABABBDDDDBDEADEDDBBEDDBBADADDBBDEABBBBEBEADDBBDDDADDDDDAB, all in b, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Knowing the sound of the respective note and connecting it to the respective part of the song is not really easy for me. Does anyone have any ideas on how to proceed here?

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Most songs are made up of much shorter repeating musical phrases. These are usually also grouped into a recognizable song structure (i.e. intro, verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus, …) and spending the time to analyze and break the song down into these chunks will make learning much faster.

Here’s an intro:

In other words - the larger structure of the song is useful to understand too, besides just the chord progression.

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This is only of limited use here, as there are many variations. But yes, that’s a good approach.

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What is the song? Unless it is something specifically designed to not have any sort of structure, there probably still is a structure it just may not be as obvious as “verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus-out”

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It is nothing special and already follow some intro/vers/chorus/vers/bridge/outro structure. Check it out: https://youtu.be/Ga6R0m_WQwU?si=4KjP8A0_pR50kuIf