What are you struggling with?

[Al1885]

Definitely see your point and feel it too. I went through the reading music like a bootcamp as I was young. I can read it like a book but other than announcing the note I have no idea what music theory it fall into or what’s it suppose to do. Luckily, I play bass so I can quickly relate to the note,

I do encourage you to give it a try and maybe learn a few songs a year by ear once you can do that then the fun begin. Not gonna lie, unless you are a professional transcriber on Fiver, this could take a while but don’t treat it like you are on Fast and Furious X by Castaway with all the time in the world. My first song took me a few months to finish and years later I found out I was still wrong, Owner of a lonely heart.

[Al1885]

@DeadPixels

@Paul_9207

It took me about three years of playing bass to get comfortable learning by ear.

I haven’t got anywhere near the ear training/transcribing part of B2B yet lol, but I can hear enough playing tab that a note is sometimes not right, and “occasionally” find what sounds more appropriate, this mean I’m learning without even realising it? Lol

The learning and transcribing by ear is not to bad for me once I got around to do it. That said, I’m so bad at inputting them on Guitar Pro 8 notation is one thing the tab is just brutal, One of the song I did Lemonade it’s a minute and some change, that took me a couple of hours to transcribe but took me a week to input

Lemonade cover revised

김예인 [Yein Kim] - Lemonade | Headless Bass | Multiscale Bass | Ibanez

[Billn]

Learning music by ear was one of my goals when I picked up bass so I’m definitely still going to work on it. It’s a skill like any other, I suck at it because I haven’t trained/practiced it but I can improve it.

I’m going to start trying to improve it on stuff like the easy 50 first songs, not 12/8 iron maiden songs with multiple key shifts though. I write that down and it seems obvious I was being silly but, uh, I just want to learn some favorite songs and didn’t really think about difficulty

[Al1885]

@Billn

Learning music by ear was one of my goals when I picked up bass so I’m definitely still going to work on it. It’s a skill like any other, I suck at it because I haven’t trained/practiced it but I can improve it.

Someone said this to me very early in my music life I just started playing bass on a 6 string guitar.

Things that which we persist in doing become easier, not because the nature of thing as change but our ability to do has increased.

To take the first step is already 50% there.

[John_E]

Learning by ear is a very troublesome thing for me, because a note on bass is a different note on alto/bari sax and yet another note on tenor/soprano. Whoever came up with transposing instruments should be dug up and shot.

[Billn]

Ok it’s somewhat hilarious that I ended up deciding to take another shot at transcribing by ear on Folsom Prison Blues, and I ended up a half step flat of Josh on the recurring root/fifths. I played the C# and F# in Josh’s tabs and it sounded worse so I went and looked through the 50 first song threads and it seems like the tuning is all over on different versions. I ended up matching this Ultimate Guitar transcription pretty closely Song 4 - "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash - #153 by Barney that Barney screenshot in the thread so I guess I’ll call it a win-ish.

My head hurts now lol.

[howard]

It really helps to be holding your instrument and trying intervals out. You can do it!

[Nebel]

@John_E

Whoever came up with transposing instruments should be dug up and shot.

So we know where you will be, if the zombie apocalypse happens and the dead will rise from their graves!

[Billn]

I cannot imagine doing this without an instrument in front of me. Keyboard might be a tiny bit more convenient, but I don’t have one.

[howard]

Yeah I actually use keyboards for this too, much much easier to visualize the intervals.

[Cyclops13]

Struggling with the darn flying fingers myself. I just try to be mindful of it and do the best i can to keep them in check. I quit letting it stop me from learning though, as before I wouldn’t get past a lesson or module until I had my fingers in check. I imagine the more I play and practice they will be more well behaved. If not, I might have to cut them off.

[MikeC]

Do this slowly every day, and speed up gradually. It will tame your flying fingers and teach you a few more tricks, too.

Practice THIS Daily (10 Mins)

[JoshFossgreen]

@Paul_9207

it looks like you barre the 14th fret and play from there. Is that correct? and how do I unlock this skill?

Yep! How to unlock - practice it a bunch lol.

@Paul_9207

These are all the same notes, but are played in different places. Is this to keep the plucking flow consistent?

It’s to try to mimic the flow of how the piece works on cello, those notes are a mix of open string and fretted note to get a cool change in tone without changing pitch. it sounds kinda dumb/boring if you play it all on the same fret/string, so it’s more of a tone/sound thing than a technique decision.

@Paul_9207

that 14 to 19 is a bit of a stretch.

yup

TL;DR: I have no insights, it’s very very hard and requires skills almost totally unrelated to normal bass playing!

[howard]

Barre on guitar is hard enough. On bass it must be brutal

[Paul_9207]

@JoshFossgreen

I have no insights

I appreciate the honesty of this reply.

[Billn]

It’s actually less of a struggling and more of a success, but I’m trying to learn Blink 182’s The Rock Show for Valentine’s Day (what could be more romantic than a song from the album “Take off your pants and jacket”).

Picking eighth notes at 193 bpm was very not in my abilities when I started this, I could get to maybe 160. I was up to 190 with a metronome and open string a bit ago, so almost there on the right hand part! The left hand part has like five total notes and almost all of them are played for an entire measure, so getting the right hand down is definitely the hard part.

[Paul_9207]

Once you get that down you will be able to play like 80% of the Blink songs. Mark can play, but he likes to follow very similar patterns.

[sunDOG]

@Billn

Blink 182’s The Rock Show

Not heard this - just googled - I assume you’re playing with a pick? I’d be freakin’ impressed if it was finger stylie…!

[Billn]

Absolutely with a pick, which is also how the original was played. I bet if I put in a little more effort I could get to 200 bpm eighth notes with three finger plucking. I’ll make that a future effort for learning a cannibal corpse cover.

[Frank_Beard]

I have not looked at the hundreds of posts in this thread… perhaps my question has already been addressed???

Apologies- long post.
The subject of my my post could be me asking how well traditional guitarists translated to bass… hear me out:

This is my first “real” post on this website other than my intro a few weeks ago (and hanging out in the lounge a bit.) I self- describe myself as the “ultimate noob” with respect and attitude toward the bass guitar despite a familiarity with 6 & 12 string acoustic guitars. I am willing to admit my bass ignorance and inabilities.

Have had the bass for about a month and I am still in what I would call the “getting familiar with this thing” stage. I even went as far as following the tutorial on setting it up! I think I got it right, but am still getting used to it.

Bass: It is a bit frustrating, confusing, tedious… not sure of the right words… I am trying to describe that it is a bit disappointing for me. And I think it might be my physical positioning.

Question below but with respect to my musical ability: I used to play 6 & 12 string for my own enjoyment (or amusement?) I have not picked up those in perhaps close to 10 years. It was around the time that I bought a fixer-upper house, thus my attentions were elsewhere. I still have all my fingers despite all the sawing and nailing…LOL. Even back then, I was only an advanced beginner bordering on “intermediate-ish.”

Ago and with practice and determination, using tabs, I could play While My Guitar Gently Weeps (chords only) similar to THIS VERSION. I could also play close to this version of Dust in the Wind.. My abilities were really only the chord finger patterns and rhythms of the songs- no “lead” or single fingering note sounds. Dust was mostly chord changes only a different picking style gave it its depth and character. There were no single notes in my interpretations. BTW- if to gauge my abilities compared to those I posted above, I would consider myself, at my prime, as a 7 on a scale if those videos posted are a 10.

Fast forward to today. Any translations of any past music aptitude are not transferring well to the bass.
The biggest thing I notice is I am not doing well with playing single finger notes on the bass fretboard.

My mind can still see chords and If I were to restring my old acoustics, I feel that with some dedication I could be at or near my previous abilities in a few weeks time. I am not suggesting that I try playing bass chords today… only providing more context. Even if I wanted to do chords, I do not have the finger strength. With respect to “typical” single note playing, I do not have the dexterity yet to cleanly place the individual digits on the bass.

Concern number two: My plucking hand has that almost 90-degree wrist-angle with respect my forearm as it rests over the guitar body. It is not painful but sure feels very awkward. If I try to raise my arm to a more upright position I feel like a bird with a dislocated shoulder because it sticks up quite uncomfortably. It does not get numb but gets tired quickly. I am having an awkward time doing the index-middle finger alternating method along with arm/ hand positioning.

In order to try and “feel” a more comfortable plucking position, I have lengthening my strap using an old belt. I am trying to experiment by standing up with the longer strap to place my plucking hand almost straight down at the strings. I sorta’ recall an image meme here describing different bass playing positions (can’t find it.)

I feel as if I cannot walk and chew bass gum at the same time especially being somewhat proficient on the guitar.

I am avoiding picking up the bass. I am sorta’ intimidated by it.