So I found out last night that I might need to play 13 additional songs for a show at the end of the month. Strategy wise would you recommend:
Focusing on 1 or 2 songs a night and playing them over and over
Looking at the chords and just trying to play roots in case everything else fails
Trying to read tab while playing on stage
I’m leaning towards #2. To just try and take things from roots first and then dig in to see if I can add more intricate things. #3 probably won’t work since reading and playing don’t seem to work well under pressure.
These are mostly straightforward rock cover songs and I have been given the option to swap out with some of my bands songs they don’t play much if there are easier songs. There are a couple that might be a little beyond my level technically but I think I want to minimize swapping as much as I can.
I would take a week and just get familiar with all the songs maybe half of them are super easy and you can warm up with them for the rest of the month. after you find the easy ones tackle the others. you got this!
The simplest thing to do first is to really listen to the tunes, over and over, finding the groove of each. Then play along with the tunes, sticking to root notes all the way through. Finally, make damn sure you come in on the one, no matter what.
Good advice. If you know the roots and can nail the one, you can dress things up to fit the tune. But don’t take it from me…take it from the Coolest Man in the Universe:
@MattyD we are in the same situation here’s what I’m doing unfortunately I (in this instance) don’t have the luxury of simplifying the songs as I’ll be playing the with the original artist,
Oh man! Yea mindset is everything. For me if I feel like I HAVE to do something my brain will do the opposite. I was happy last night, we haven’t been able to get the band together for a while and for the most part I made great improvements across the board. We played through 20 songs and the majority sounded pretty good
I’ve been trying to go 2hrs when I practice but I have been taking days off here and there and that has also been helpful.
Mostly I practice at night but maybe I’ll start trying for a lunch and evening session and see how it goes.
What I would suggest is, deconstruct the songs first. Most songs have a fairly ordinary construction, verse, chorus, verse, verse, chorus bridge etc.
I found mapping them out was a lot easier when it comes to remembering how to play them. And don’t worry about sometimes going root/fifth, it’s tried and tested, and 99% of the audience won’t notice if you are not sticking 100% to the original bass line, except if you are planning on playing songs like Another one bites the dust.
Also, having too many tabs on stage is not great, but, write down the chord progressions on the songs you are not completely comfortable with and have that with you. At least you know what key the song is in and you can always do a 1-2-3-5 or 1-3-5-3 based on the what scale is appropriate for the chord.
This is exactly my recommendation as well, the first thing I do when preparing to cover something. I actually like to load the mp3 in a DAW and add DAW markers for each song section. Make sure to set the DAW project BPM correctly first and then you can make the song line up with its correct measure lines and even visually see some transitions.
I’ve been in this same boat a few times over the last couple years with different bands that I’ve played with. Honestly, it does feel and seem a bit overwhelming especially when it happens the first couple times, but on the upside, it does seem to get easier the more times it happens particularly if you’re a bass player that fills in with different bands at times.
What I found works for me is once I’m given a set list of songs, I go through them and identify any that I may already know how to play - this list grows as you play with more groups because I’ve found that most of the groups I’ve sat in with where I’m at play many of the same songs - so like I said earlier, it does get easier.
After sorting through the list, I take every song (even the ones I already know) and run them through Moises and adjust each track EXCEPT the bass track to a low volume (I adjust to 10%) and then export the track into a folder so that I can listen to the songs over and over and over and over. Having the bass track louder than the rest of the tracks helps me to focus just on each of the bass tracks as they relate to each song. Here is where you can identify which songs have a more difficult (or busier) bass line than others. Also at this stage I will try to find lead sheets for each song that identify the chords as they relate to the lyrics. Again, keep listening to the songs while looking at the lead sheet so you can gain a visualization of the chord changes while listening to the heavy bass lines of the songs…. Make any notes on the lead sheets that can help jog your memory…. Listen over and over and over and over…. *** This is where I’ve found a good set of bluetooth earphones or headset come in handy ***
After total immersion into the songs, then I’ll start off with the “lower hanging fruit” songs since they can be learned fairly fast, and then just start working my way through the list as best I can - all the while still listening to each song over and over and over….
Another thing I’ve learned early on to do when given set lists like this to learn is to ask the BL if he/she expects the bass lines to be played “note for note” or if you’re allowed freedom to create your own. Ain’t nothing more embarrassing than the BL stopping a rehearsal in the middle of a song and pointing at the bass player (me) and saying something like “Hey, you’re missing a walk down (or walk up) bass run!”……
The only other thing I can mention is one of the most important - HAVE FUN!! Having fun with the learning process is just as much fun as it can be when playing with other musicians…. ALWAYS have fun!!! When playing bass (at least for me) stops being fun, then doing it becomes nothing more than a JOB….!!…. .
Last night I put all of the songs into Moises and used their chord feature to show the chords and changes. I was shocked how close I could get to something “playable” just playing roots. There are a few tricky ones but those were actually the easier ones.
Songs like Celebrity Skin by hole it was cool because I played the roots but filled in the memorable riffs. Songs like Black Horse and a Cherry Tree though were too weird not to jump into tab right away.
I think I’m going to keep the roots first then look at tab method. It’s a good confidence booster and way to get a feel for the basics rather than jumping right into note by note play.
Yea it’s a bit of my fault because we decided a month or so back that I’d stick to the first half and really work on nailing timing instead of trying to learn more since this is our old bassist’s last gig.
I’ve been getting away from using the lead sheets I’ve made but I think I might need to get back to it. Good call. A lot of these 00s “punk” songs sound too similar for me to sus out the pattern by memory instantly.
Yea I’m going to print it out in huge font with notes and color for tuning changes. It’s hard because I keep forgetting to tune BACK from drop D on a couple of songs. for the 1/2 step down songs I have another guitar but if I forget to tune back up I’ll have to do the conversion in my head
… Here is how I did it…
