My wonderful fiancee bought me a bass for Christmas. A Squire Jazz bass. Linky.
She picked out a damned nice bass. I usually don’t like the idea of buying an instrument until I get to play it, but this thing is perfect for me. The action is great, the intonation, etc is spot on. It plays well and sounds awesome. I am going to use it for recording, direct in. I haven’t had a chance to record with it too much yet, but what I have done sounded great. I need to figure out the EQ, reverb and the rest but that shouldn’t be too hard.
Now I just need to learn how to play the damned thing
My left hand does fine. My right is ok for finger picking. I need to practice a bit and get my speed and accuracy up. But…
I need to learn slapping and popping.
Anyone got any good and fun lines to work on? My knowledge of funk is sorely lacking. I thought about pulling up some P-Funk songs and starting there, however I am not sure that is a good idea at this point. The P-Funk might just cause maggots to start eating my brain.
On the bright side, when I am recording I won’t have to translate bass lines to my keyboard and (very badly) play them that way.
You may want to look at RockSmith - a game available for PC and major consoles. It uses a USB-Jack cable, and (effectively) teaches the player to play Guitar/Bass in the context of the game. Of course, the songs provided may not be be your preferred style, but they will cover off the basic techniques and you have to get pretty solid with the rhythm to get the points (as well as hitting the right notes).
Once I have mastered the guitar section, I am liberating a bass left in our loft by our daughters friend (for over 2 years), restringing it and giving it a go.
And now for an obligatory joke …
Si
I shouldn’t have told that last night at Open Mic night with the bassist standing right behind me. She made me carry her amp to her car.
Congrats on the new venture into bass. I’ve played bass for 10 years on and off along other instruments. Mostly I play electric basses and only occasionally an upright double bass. My primary recommendation is to play until your fingers hurt each day and then play a little more at least for the first month or two. Keep playing frequently after that if you wish to keep your fingers at or near nominal strength and dexterity + skin callouses.
DI can really sound great depending on the equipment. I certainly use it for recording usually, but the raw thrill of a roaring vacuum tube amp is spine tingling. The heavy weight can be a bummer during transport though.
For bass players of all stripes (from beginner to music professor), I recommend reading the forums at talkbass.com for discussions on basses, mods, amps, speakers, cabs, finger technique, effects, live sound, studio, bitching about drummers, etc.
That reminds me of a bio my husband put up on his old band’s page. He did his entire profile with a play on words using the fish instead of the instrument. It really was quite amusing.
Finger strength isn’t going to be much of an issue, been playing guitar for 30 some odd years. I need to work a bit on that, but not much. The night I got it I played for about 2 hours without much fatigue.
The things I need to learn are a) slap and pop and b) how to groove. I am used to playing on top and I am quite notey. So, pulling back and sitting on the groove is going to take a bit of restraint.
The hard part is going to be getting myself to actually work on the correct technique instead of faking it. My left hand is strong enough that I can get through a lot of stuff using half-assed right hand technique. My picking with an actual pick is damned good but playing bass with picks is just wrong.
I also plan on getting a classical this year. More right hand work.
I had started a response earlier with a suggestion or two, then deleted it - you know music and guitar, so I didn’t want to presume. But reading this puts me back on track to make my couple of suggestions:
Focus on simple, less-is-more groove lines. The one I have cited here on the SDMB more than once is Take me To the River, Talking Heads’ version with Tina Weymouth’s super simple, but super hard to get groovin’ correctly, bass line. Another one is Give it Away by the RHCP’s - pretty simple but the foundation of the song and nicely funky.
Look up Bootsy Collins on YouTube - he has one about how to play funk where he shows how you start by hitting the 1 beat and branch out from there.
I would have to assume that YouTube is chocked full of folks trying to teach the basics of popping and slapping. Frankly, the actual techniques are pretty straightforward if you are willing to put a little oomph into your attack. When I have a chance to mess around on a bass, I am really slapping with the side of my thumb and really plucking the strings to pop them with a hooked middle finger - nothing delicate about the attack…
Here’s something that worked for me when I was learning to play the electric bass.
I’d sit up in my room (any room will do) with the radio turned on to the local oldies station, and the amp turned down low, or run through headphones (or no amp at all) and I’d try to play along to everything I heard. You’ll get exposed to a huge range of styles, and you’ll improve your ear at the same time.
I second Enlightened Meditation’s suggestion to visit Talkbass.com. I don’t spend as much time there since I discovered the Dope 'cause you can’t just talk bass all the time, but it’s a great resource and can be very entertaining.
This is how I learned. Just play along to any song, even if at first it’s just one note in the key of the song. I did this to a few songs I owned and gradually starting elaborating. Eventually I was able to play most of the song’s bass line and kept going until I leaned every note. It was great fun. Do this with song after song. Eventually you’ll be forced to copy a few different styles and you’ll find the best way to recreate what you hear.
The next step is to join a band. Then you’ll really accelerate your learning.
I know Bootsy. Caught P-Funk in Taos a long time ago and been a fan ever since. Gonna restock my music collectiion. Probably ought to grab some James Brown as well.
I have about 10 songs that I need to put bass lines on. Hopefully this weekend I can get something done.
