Time to actually learn theory - this lesson will cover everything you need to know as a bassist.
If you’re doing the Beginner to Badass course, this lesson… is utterly unnecessary because I’ll teach you all this stuff as you progress through the lessons. You can watch for fun now, or wait til you finish the course and then think “ooh aah I know all this stuff already, go me.”
Bass Theory Resources PDF
Wanna dig deeper on any of this stuff? I’ve got more lessons and resources to be found in the free PDF here -
What theory concept has helped your bass playing the most?
Wow! I think this is one of the better ones I’ve seen for a while. This address pretty much all the music theory questions that pop up regularly and does so in just 19 minutes!
I’m curious how much of these are inspired by threads on this forum? Because I can think of several that have come up that I would liked to have this video to just point them to. Or is this a case of just topics that have come up recently because they’re topics that come up a lot?
Also really appreciate the demystifying the idea of “Music Theory” being this strange and complex thing… and showing that the concept of Notes is music theory.
It depends! I definitely poke around sometimes to get a sense of what people are asking about on a given topic. And when I run technique challenges etc. I lean on the forum a LOT to see if I got the difficulty right, what people struggle with / learn from, before turning it into a final Youtube video.
This was a great video! I had never heard of tritone yet. And I’m a little alarmed by the warning that by studying all the scales I could die! I will take my chances.
@JoshFossgreen I like how you managed once again to speak of The Lord of the Rings, and did you say “nerdity”? I thought you made up that word, but I was wrong.
After spending a little more than a year in this forum, I’m wondering whether all bass players have a degree of nerdity (It seems so, myself included). Is there a Major and Minor Scale of Nerdity? And the arpeggios for that? I’m waiting for a new module called Seventh Chords of Nerdity.
And because I’m asking a lot of questions, I would like to ask more, if it is not a personal video trade secret: what do you use to create the animations in your video? Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro? And what about the notation/tabs in sync with what you’re playing? Pardon my curiosity!
For me theory is not that difficult as it can seem at a first glance. Theory is something, created to make things easier to understand and recognize.
For music theory is something like a grammar, spelling and stuff for foreign language - you can learn how to speak, read, write and understand spoken language without knowing the grammar concepts - but with knowing them it will be much, much easier. Cuz they a like set of patterns that make you better understand, how language actually works and how to use it in a correct way, so that people could understand you correctly.
Same for musical theory - it’s an easy way to learn, how the music works and helps you to share your ideas with other musicians, no matter which instrument do they play. Theory - is a “grammar” of music.
But theory without practice worth nothing. The most important is not just to learn some theoretical concept, but also to explore, how it works in real world, how is is used in actual music.
So dont be afraid of theory - there’s no rocket science in it. Concider it as a guide, that makes understanding the music easier.
Yes! Received the email announcing this new video as I was beginning Module 9, so the theory Journey is underway. This theory overview video is like looking at the initial high view of a Google Maps route before diving down into the turn by turn directions. Perfect to use in conjunction with the B2B lessons.
Tom the editor works in Premiere, which connects to AfterEffects for some of the fancier stuff. The tab stuff is all hand animated, funny I’ve had people think we use some kind of ‘tab software’ but I just spit a tab out of Sibelius and then we keyframe it manually.
I’m only at Module 8 lesson 5, so if this information repeats, great!!!
FORM; I knew about 12 bar, but I didn’t know the vernacular was Form, so that was a missing piece, along with |A|A|B|A|, and I will review the Form for rock later.
Scale intervals really hit home on this video; I was really hearing them listening to Weezer Pork and Beans, and again on The Cure Close to You, by interval number, which was new for me. Key must not be too far behind.
Of course eirlier in 8 reminded me of this, so I am catching up on what the kitty said to do. Wish I still had the LP.
I think that’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard, LOL.
I used to be really into car audio (yes, I had a car with a “booming system”). I wish I still had one of my old systems, I’d totally drive around blasting the Powdered Wig Musical Alphabet Battle song.
I will take my chances.
