IvanHardy
Well-known member
yeah i also was going to throw in something about that, that theoretically, most things work and there is very few things that flat out dont necessarily work per say(that render as noise or just so heinously wrong that the floor stops). ill look up some o' that stuff, and i can speak german, poorly but would like to re-learn it. music theory and history is a fun subject out there and i did enjoy learning some of that. the history of modes is fascinating and its kind of funny how people used to during the dark ages (i think it was the dark ages), simply just play those modes note for note while chanting things, i swear when i was listening to those i could smell the church incense) but one of the cooler notes on them was a lot of those modes at the time were incredibly groundbreaking and they orriginated from different tribes of people if i remember correctly.
as for my personal pursuits of music theory, i just kind of did one of those "getting what i wanted from it" things with musical theory and just left it at that. it helped me a lot with fingerboard framiliarity and it is beyond excellent for that, and it helps you play along in bands a lot too because you develoup this ability to transfer any bassline you come up with in your head to the fretboard without the "um what frets do i hit for that?" pause.
and earlier by what i meant by "scam" when i was "assing" it up was, music theory helps you think outside of the box, a lot. a newbie who jams on a bass all day may not necessarily experiment with notes like that. same as a person whos played rock bass all their life. in other words music theory makes you do things on your instrument you wouldnt try by sitting around playing it a lot all day or necessarily learn from tabs. there are scales no one uses because they're odd to our culture and sound akward to our ears. dick dales use of middle eastern scales blew a lot of people's minds because no one heard that stuff applied to american surf music at the time.
before music theory, i, like many newbies played on two strings at a time, i didnt even think of jumping from an e string to a g string or an e to an d because honestly i didnt know what the results would sound like.
the reason i kind of stopped looking into it and started forgetting the names of modes and scales is i felt i got framiliar with my instrument enough to speak with it and i kind of resided to "eh most things work somehow out there and can be explained somehow out there"
i personally believe music theory is one of mans descriptions of something thats there, kind of like explaining how the body works or how come the sky is blue.
and music theory really is a fascinating subject that even breaches into the medical field. if you havent seen this i reccomend you do, it is amazing
YouTube- World Science Festival 2009: Notes & Neurons, Part 1 of 10
now back to on topic...
ivan you should definitely not be afraid to deviate from your guitarists rules because theoretically most things work. if it sounds like noise tinker with the line till it doesnt. the drop tunings as i said before aren't really for bassists and if you want to develoup fingerboard framiliarity and get the low notes you get from d you are better off just tuning the whole thing down two steps which would make it DGCF, this will sound like your standard EADG but it will be lower and if you wanna play something in EADG you will just move everything up two frets! and if you want it to play an EAD or G while open you can simply just buy a capo! and you can make a simple adjustment instead of dealing with the annoying keep everything in place but move everything on the e string up two frets. i find drop tunings frustrating like that but thats a personal thing, you may not find them frustrating as plenty of people play in them.
and learn fingerbaord framiliarity however you can cause its what helps you speak with your instrument, whether you learn it by theory, playing other peoples stuff or just messing around on the bass is up to you, i personally would do all three with mind that even stuff thats uncharted or unframiliar can work and sound good but you just have to make it work. i vaguely remember hendrix saying something about that subject, that a lot of the times he would play and that notes that didnt initially click he would make the guitar line evolve and make them click as he was playing.
however if your only playing in these tunings because your guitarists demand you follow them note for note do the mature thing and tell them to eat poo.
thank you kevins. i'm playing more and more and becoming more comfortable with my playing. With this new band no one tells me i have to drop down an dplay with them. except one of the guitards Kevin (in my band lol) who when i met him told me to not be afraid of tuning to C that it won't warp my neck. but he's the idiot of the group and the one who gives everyone a hard time so i disregard anything he says now.At the moment i'm playing to my favorite bands liek Fall Out Boy, Green Day, Avenged Sevenfold, Metallica, etc who all stay in the E and D Range. those 2 tunings are what i want to become comfortable with. I do Still feel a little iffy on the lines i try to come up with on my own but in time i'll grow confident with my lines. Just recently i learned that the notes past the twelfth fret were octaves higher. I would rather just leave both of my basses tuned to standard but i'm thinking of setting up one of them for Drop D th eonly thign is i don't know if i could just keep the same gauges i have or how to do the set up.
