My Diary of a BassMan: From Day Zero To Low End Hero

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So finally my gear had arrived - lot’s of new experiences and feelings. Something I thought will be easy eventually become a problem to solve, something came more or less naturally. So I just decided to share my thoughts and feelings with other buzzers in the form of some sort of diary - to get help or useful advises, where needed.

Day Zero

Tried to find comfort position of the bass. Weird feelings - the lowest frets seemed out of reach because they are almost miles away from body, the highest frets - barely can reach with some weird positions of left hand. Funny tho…

Eventually I figured out that I feel better playing standing than seating - because seems that for me it’s more comfortable when the neck is quite high (like 30 degrees angle) while the body’s lowest point is right above by right leg or a bit to the right - seems that it’s a matter of “fine tuning” that will come with the time.

Right hand came almost naturally - but only picking and thumb plucking, something like how Sting plays (by the way even being more of a hard rock/heavy metal guy, I’m huge Sting and The Police fan) - just more or less naturally found a position for fingers and the thumb movement. Of course I now sound stinky rather than Stingy both soundwise and speedwise, but again - i thing that practice makes perfect.

As for index-middle plucking - now i can play only with one finger (like mighty James Jamerson) - index or middle. But here again - practice makes perfect.

And here comes left hand. The main problem for now - to get used to all that biomechanics and to make it work. Especially - to make work the fingers. What came almost naturally - muting strings with the index finger (again - practice makes perfect). But fretting - now i tend to somehow overpress the strings, to press thew with much more force than needed.

And the second problem to solve - to stretch the fingers. Now they tend to hold together with a bit of tension, I almost can’t spread them at all… So maybe it’s better to start from higher frets (12-t and above) and one by one move to lower ones just to adjust left hand and fingers step by step…

But the higher the fret - the wider fretboard is, and the biomechanics change - some problems with reaching the E-string arise. So maybe it’s better to start from G-string and move step by step to lower frets and other strings. Just to let the body adjust gradually.

So here Day Zero ends… Any advices and so on always warmly welcomed.

P.S. If I posted this one in the wrong place of the forum - I have nothing against moving it to the right place.

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Welcome @Alex_Hevari , great post thanks. All your queries and questions will be wonderfully covered by our amazing Josh as you progress through the course in the next few lessons. Your struggles are universal and correct when anyone first starts, we’ve all been there. I enjoyed your 1st diary entry and looks forward to your next

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@Appletones Thanks for your words man.

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You’re very welcome Dude, the forum is very friendly place and the course is very good at teaching perfect technique before getting more advanced. I wish you joy on your Bass journey @Alex_Hevari

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Alex, did you have previous musical experience with other instruments before starting bass? Or is the musician/bassist thing completely new to you?
I think you covered Day One for a lot of people picking this up for the first time.

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Completely new. Is that a big problem/issue?

Butr I know theory fundamentals and can read both tabs and sheet music.

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Not a problem at all. I was just curious. I come to bass after 50 years of sax/clarinet playing. SO the musical feel and reading notes, and a bunch of what Josh covers in B2B is second nature to me. Just curious how folks who are completely new to playing instruments absorb and apply those other skills.

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Man, I like sax ever since I’ve heard my dad’s Gerry Mulligan and Kenny G records when I was in the elementary school! If I lived in a private house instead of an apartment, I probably would learn to play the saxophone long ago.

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Be cautious there, practice makes permanent. That’s the origin story of “bad habits” :rofl:

Your initial goal right now is to play the note (mainly root notes) properly at the right “time” note value. Best way to do that is to slow down the time. Doing that at slow speed allows you to focus on quality of the note and build quality muscle memory.

There’s no rule that you have to play with alternating finger so you can do what’s comfortable but it sooner or later you’ll need to use 2 fingers to play. As always, I’d encourage new players to try Gary Willis method. When you start everything is hard anyways why not do it the most efficient way possible.

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So here is…

Diary of the BassMan: FromDay Zero To Low End Hero

Day One

In the John O’Neill “The Jazz Method For Tenor Saxophone” book found an excercise for the very beginner, called “The Baginner Blues”. Simply said - just 12 bars of B and C whole notes played in the pattern:

B | C | B | B
C | C | B |B
C | C | B | B

And tried to replicate it on the bass on the 9 and 10 frets of the D string. Ultimately played it twce as slower as orignal tempo (Original - 88 bpm, my tempo - 44 bpm)

Here I am (use phones, please - dunno why the sound is that quiet - seems that some issue with my smartphone):

Of course I suck, or as I’ve begun to say - I’m stinky. Somewhere even a bit out of click (but mostly I’m locked with click pretty well). But I did not hope that I will be Stingy from the very beginning. So practice makes perfect.

Also tried to play this with index-middle-index-middle - was even more stinky (constantly wanted to play faster, frogetting to change fingers)

But what’s more important - I’m having fun even when trying to do excercise again and again.

So for tomorrow - continue practicing this one, maybe starting to adjust tempo. Or maybe just concentrate on the right hand to try to get constant decent sound on open strings…

P.S. I’m righty. My smartphone cam just mirrored the picture - will fix that.

P.P.S. Special thanks to @unclephool for sharing his saxophone memories. That immediately prompted me too that sax book and the beginner excercises in it.

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Nice!!
Try thumbing through not out. Even better try plug it with your index finger or middle finger.

This can be counterintuitive but that tempo is too slow, unless it’s very technical, the lowest you’d want to practice is about 80 bpm, any slower you have too much time to think of ways to screwup. :rofl:

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Hah - that’s. I already mentioned it

Just ended the day with a short session for right hand at 50 bpm whole notes. Felt that with a slow tempo I think much more about not making mistakes, not missing beats, not messing sound - and voila,mistakes and messing are here. But still I’locking with click quite well (notes out of click happen occasionally - mostly when… guess what… I start thinking about not to miss the beat. So I definitely will raise tempo.

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Synapses that fire together, wire together

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Day Three

Worked on my right hand. Thumb picking is getting way better - at least can play on all four strings from lowest to highest and backwards on 88 pm whole, half and quarter notes, stay locked with click and have almost desent tone (some notes are good, other - more or less muddy or messy, shorter or longer)

Also tried index-middle - whole notes on 88 bpm are almost there, messy but locked with clicks.

Palm muting with thumb picking - on the way. Messy still, but at least it looks like muting.

Left hand - that yesterday excercise done on 88 bpm (original tempo). Nod ideal, some notes are a bit short, some sounding messy or muddy, bur at least played all 12 bars almost locked with click (some notes a bit off-beat).

Also tried to play forst three notes on E strings (open, first and third) on 88 bpm. Whole notes done (again far from ideal - some notes messy, muddy, shorter, longer, but still…)

Also muting with left hand fingers - done… almost.

Had fun? Absolutely

Sorry, no footages today - still did not fixed that issue on my smartphone (it’s almosr 5 years old) with sound to make it loud (yesterday it took me three hours or something to make it at least hearable with phones)

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By the way - when tried index-middle, there was an issue: with index finger the tone is good, with middle - some buzzing-like thing adds (on open strings)

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It takes time to build up your finger strength.

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Never give up..

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Day three - morning session before the work

Started with Lesson 1 from Rich Brown’s Brown’stone channell. At least tried to do it

Here I am:

I know - the tone sucks. But It’s just first effort And I don’t want to make bad habbits from the very beginning.

By the way - in the beginning of the session I had some tension in my right arm (mostly hand snd shoulder) but slowly it fades out - at least it seems so.

With the left hand - for me seems that I press with my thumb too much. But if I try to release the pressure - the thumb becomes loose, so instinctively I press more. And also some tension here and there and need to focus to control my fingers. Matter of practice, right?

P.S. Fixed the problem with the sound and mirroring on the video - simply bu using the tablet instead of smartphone to make the footage

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Day four

First time tried to learn actual song, the doom metal classic Solitude by Candlemas.

Candlemass - Solitude.

Quite a great and fun to learn song for the beginner (dunno why Josh did not include it in B2B.

And It’s a weird feeling - to play actual song after just fve days after my bass arrived and I started learning. Even if this is only first sequence (intro) - but locked with the drummer (Janne Lindh - great one btw).

Started to work on sequence 2 and 3 - figured out how to better use the fingers (which one does what) - so now I need to work it all to the muscle memory.

And also need to work on changing the fingerings and positions (sequences 2 and 3 have slightly different fingerings and chande from one to another and backwards each bar and also sequence 1 is played around fret 7 and sequences 2 and 3 - on first three frets).

Now i’m focused just on fretting (on plucking - only when changing strings). So there are rattling and buzzing here and there. Maybe I’m wrong and better will be first focus on plucking to work everything there on muscle memory and then work on freting.

When I play the whole song, I will post a footage (but dunno - better to drop tuning half-step or use VST plugin to change pitch (Leif Edling, as most metal bassists, plays in Eb (or D#) key. And I’m mostly a metal guy).

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I would suggest to spend time focusing on the course and do the songs as a side thing at most for now. There’s a lot of fundamentals you need to pick up.

(Not trying to discourage from playing songs here either! Just that you’ll find approaching the songs much more productive with the knowledge and technique you pick up in the course.)

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