Playing with musicians for 1st time

I’m in the last module of B2B. Finished 104 of 109 lessons. I’ve paused the lessons because I’m on a trip to visit friends and family, all of whom play something.

The family are guitarists and piano players. We’ve mostly played through songs, along with jamming over some chord progressions. Sometimes I find and hear the key/chords. Other times they’ll call out the chords. Regardless, for the most part, I’m making my own bass lines except in some instances where they say, “Play this.”

And I’m keeping up. When a cousin joined us, he asked, “Is he a bass player?” My brother said, “Yeah, he’s learning.” We started the first song and the cousin said, “He sure sounds like he’s a bass player.”

And a couple of them mentioned they’re shocked at how quickly I’ve learned. I played the bass for the first time ever mid-January of this year. And unless you count the piano, it’s my first stringed instrument. Regardless of speed, I can play and keep up with other musicians playing live.

The friend is a multi-instrumentalist and a song writer. We did some of the same, playing through songs. But we also did quite a bit of 12-bar blues progressions, just jamming and playing off each other. He’s in the middle of writing a song and asked me to write a bass line for it. So far it’s just the verses, but I came up with a bass line that he loves.

And after doing some rhythm guitar with it so we could refine the line he had me continue to play while he improved some guitar solo over it. Said it was super helpful. From my perspective it was great because without drums or his rhythm guitar, I was able to keep a consistent beat.

That line was super exciting. It’s because I hear distinctively how the line should go, and can make my fingers do it. It’s like it’s the only line that would work there (which I don’t believe, but it still feels that way.)

Playing with others is amazing. And while I thought I could do it, now I know that I can.

Thanks B2B and @JoshFossgreen .

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That’s just awesome @thewritescott.

There are a few exceptions, but a song is not a song without a bass line. It’s a huge responsibility as a bass player to deliver the low end, lol.

I’m glad you had a great time. Can’t wait to hear how you amaze a non-family bandmate.

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Thats amazing! Congrats! I’m about 1/3 of the way through the course, and I can tell I’m learning super fast as well. This course is really incredible.

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Congratulations. Hopefully you will inspire others to take the leap and play with others :+1: :+1: :+1:

I have two questions.
When you jam are you playing 1/8 1/4 or just whole notes notes?
And my second question is are you playing just roots, roots and fifths or roots 3rds and 5ths or some other group of notes?

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I couldn’t list all the songs. As far as pure jams, we did twelve-bar blues and a little bit of just playing off the chords we were laying dow .

When I jam, I mix it up. It’s a blend of 1/4, 1/8, whole, half, even 16th notes. Did quite a bit of syncopated rhytms, too.

And depending on what we played, tempo, and such, I would sometimes do just roots but I also threw in a number of slides, 3rd, 4ths, 5ths, walking bass lines, and such. Did some riffing over the major and minor scales.

I did something else that was satisfying. A cousin was calling chorsds out on a song we were doing. He said, F-minor. A brother said that I’m on bass so it’s just an F. I made a point of playing minor arpeggios (root-3rd-5th) EVERY time I got to that F-minor. Fortunately it fit the song as well.

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I’m off to do this for the first time in about 2 hours :face_with_spiral_eyes: :woozy_face: :cold_sweat:

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I think that the main take away from your post, that most beginners will miss, is just how much fun it is to practice/play with other musicians. Of course human nature plays a big part in this but overall we all make mistakes. Usually others will give advice to help you correct issues, usually in a positive way. After all, as had been said many many times the goal is to improve and just have fun. It all gets better as time moves on - assuming one practices of course. Practice and time are the main things that we all have to face.

Good luck at your next jam and congratulations again on finding like minded musicians to play with. :+1:

Good luck. Let us know how it turns out. :+1:

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Have a look here:

went pretty well I thought, I had fun, they liked how I played, going back next week

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