Your Bass "Ah Hah!" Moments

+1 to everything @Gio said, @eric.kiser. I would also add that honestly, I do have my days where I don’t think I’m very good, and I know other pros go through that too - there’s a Lee Sklar interview I think about a lot where he was saying something to the effect of (paraphrase) “after 40+ years of recording in the studio, I still have thoughts the night before a session like ‘man I hope I don’t suck tomorrow, I hope I can think of something good to play’, etc.”

I think the distinction is when you’re more advanced, the suckage is more subtle and sometimes just in your head - obviously Lee Sklar doesn’t suck and never has and never will. But subjectively, I think the doubt and the feeling of plateauing is natural and I can definitely relate.

But -

I’d be curious if @Mac was really playing things worse, or if his ear just got better and started noticing flaws/issues that were already there, but now with a more refined ear he’s able to pick them out and start improving them. Not saying that’s necessarily what happened, but I think it’s a thing that happens to people in general.

I remember phases in my early days of playing where I thought “wow I sound so good, the stuff I’m playing is so cool,” and then I would listen back to recordings months or years later and be like, “oh wow, my rhythm wasn’t that good, and my tone was weird.”

Honestly even looking back on some of my cover videos from years ago on Youtube, I remember recording them and thinking “perfect, nailed it!” and then I watch them again now and notice mistakes or sloppiness I didn’t catch back then. Such is life!

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That is the most insightful and inspirational thing I have heard in a while. Thanks for that.

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Thank you for your replies @JoshFossgreen @eric.kiser and @Gio and a totally different perspective which has certainly got my brain thinking in a different way .
I had never even considered that someone of your abilities had “off” days and probably do not have the “ear” to pick one out if you did lol :joy:
I hadn’t thought my ear might be improving ( I hope so) and if it is a lot of that credit must go to your teaching oh Jedi master.
On another note, I do wonder if I did play everything perfectly if I’d get bored and quit :thinking:
P.S
I do suffer from the never quite being good enough as a child syndrome which probably doesn’t help

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That’s interesting about Lee Sklar worrying about sucking in a studio session. It’s somewhat comforting to know that even people who you regard as super human are human after all.

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Josh that was a great post.

What’s amazing here (and important for the beginners around here) is that there probably even was a time when Sklar did subjectively “suck”, very early on. And he didn’t let hit stop him, and he kept on working through it. 90% of mastering anything is perseverance.

Going in to the studio for 40 years, and still having doubts, but still going in and getting the job done - that’s what differentiates a professional from an amateur. The curse of Perfectionism can be one of my many demons too, and your point about becoming more and more self critical over time is a really good one to think about.

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Oh yeah. I can definitely attest to this for myself. Thanks for this Josh. I’ve seen this happening but I didn’t quite have this perspective on it. It made perfect sense when I read it.

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There is, of course, stuff like the “Dunning-Kruger effect” (originally applied to over-estimating oneself, but equally valid to under-estimating one’s skills) and the “impostor syndrome” and similar things that shine a light on those aspects of human psychology that have to do with how we perceive and rate ourselves, and none of us is immune to them, one way or another.

Being older/more mature makes it easier to tackle, though. I think some of these self-doubt moments would have hit me much harder in my younger days!

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Probably does not qualify as an ah-hah, but I was playing Otherside today (for the millionth time), and at some point in the song I noticed that I was not paying attention to the physical aspect of playing (which finger to pluck with, which string to pluck, what note to fret next and with which finger, etc). I was just playing the music. Or rather my fingers were playing the music, because they were on autopilot. Anyway, it felt so good… This is probably what musicians feel when they play music. Hope I’ll get there sometime!

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That is an awesome moment @akos! It’s a great feeling when your fingers just play the notes and you don’t even have to think about it.

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Not sure this is a ah hah moment but I thought I would share…

When I got the bass I went through the knobs and couldnt really tell the difference between the different settings but when I was going through then yesterday I could really make out the differences between the tones… So strange I couldnt hear them before I thought there might be something up with me or them or the fact that they are the same pick up they just sounded the same lol… Not sure what happened there…

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It sounds like your ear is getting trained the more you play.
Good on ya for even bothering playing around with the knobs too. I’m too lazy or just plain forget to do it or even try the active switch to be honest. I sort of like the sounds I’m getting and tend to leave it at that.
Same as pedals. I have a few but I’m too damn lazy to take them to my outdoor practice area. Shameful really after spending the cash I did on them

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Did you change the strings by any chance? On my first bass I couldn’t hear any tone difference either, until I put on a fresh set of strings.

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No I didnt its a new bass with the strings it came with.

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Ye thats what I thought my ear has just become more attune to it… Still a bit strange because i thought I would have a good ear having played guitar for a number of years but bass is definitly different in many ways.

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I had one of those a ha moments last night working with arpeggios or chord tones. It was something simple but it just clicked after all of these years as a guitarist.

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I had an ah hah moment the other day when I became aware that the circle of fifths is mostly coming from (and useful for) classical music as it is ordered with increasing numbers of accidentals in mind (establishing key signatures); while the circle of fourths is useful especially for jazz since the fourth relationship is exactly what is used in II-V(-I) chord progressions, one of the main chord progressions used in jazz and R&B.

So, C-F or F-Bb or Bb-Eb and so on are all II-Vs - for me, the circle of fourths had always just been the circle of fifths backwards, but is is actually meaningful to see it as a tool in the context of II-V(-I) progressions.

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I love this. I completely identify with this ah-hah moment.
In the classical theory classes, they always called them “falling fifths” rather than fourths. Same damn thing! And at the same time I’d be in my jazz classes talking about the circle of fourths. The same. damn. thing.
Composers on all sides love the sound of descending fifths (ascending fourths) in the bass movement!

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A big Ah-Hah moment for me (regarding the circle of fifths) was when I realized that the C-F-Bb-Eb-Ab-Db-Gb-B-E-A-D-G sequence of the circle of fifths is identical to the (vertical) sequence on the fingerboard of the bass. This helped me immensely in familiarizing myself with the fingerboard, and learning to navigate from one note to another.

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I think a lot of magic happened for me during the middle modules of the course. The first couple of lessons on scales, intervals, and chord progressions really opens up your eyes to what’s possible.

That was probably the first time I felt like I was understanding music and not just reading tabs or whatever. It was also the first time since starting back playing that I felt confident enough to play with someone else.

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Today I found myself listening to a song my friend and I are working on not because we are working on it, but because I like it :slight_smile:

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