bass tuition

[arrowheadguitar]

Yesterday I had a lesson in playing bass.

I've played guitar, bass and drums in various bands without ever having lessons (apart from some fairly pointless guitar lessons at school which I never learned a thing from).

As I play in a band (duo?) with an acoustic guitarist who has no great urge to solo I have a lot of freedom to play as much or as little as suits a song and I have become increasingly aware that my lack of knowledge and technique are putting a limit on what is available to me when I want to create, especially on the fly. I have a tendency to stick to little runs and tunes that I know will work and it's a frustration that has slowly grown until I have decided to do something about it.

I began by running through a few little bass lines that I have either played live or tinkered with when practicing and immediately had one or two short comings pointed out to me in regards to my right-hand technique. This was followed by a simple exercise that showed where I was going wrong and gave me the first thing I needed to practice before the next lesson. This was quickly followed by another observation of poor left-hand technique which can be aided by a change in right-hand technique and thus a second thing to practice. Part of me would have preferred nothing but praise, but if that had been the case I wouldn't be looking for lessons in the first place, so better to have these things cleared up and eliminated to free me up to play everything I want to.

The next stage was an introduction to music theory, something I know needs a lot of work and one of the things I've begun to address. I'm beginning to grasp a little but need understanding of its application. As a result of a few simple explanations I have some more tasks which will set me on my way to a better understanding of the neck and the freedom to roam around it when the time comes to do so. It also showed up my woeful lack of knowledge as regards the location of notes on the neck, another thing I had on my list of "things I need to learn".

As this is the first lesson, I'm sure that I'm at the bottom of a slope which may be steep to start with (as I have a whole range of things that need addressing at once, but without which I have no firm structure to build upon) but which will become a little less so as I begin to understand more.

So a big thumbs up for lesson one, and much to practice in time for lesson two.

P.

 

[hankSRay]

Very cool man. Lessons are a big help. I'm still a pretty much self taught player myself, I've taken a few lessons, but they've always been from guitar players who teach bass, so I've never really stuck with them too long because I never felt they had any real interest in bass. If you have a good teacher then you should definately stick with it, so good luck with the learning process.

 

[koogie2k]

Lessons are great. I take them from a Berkley grad because I am a guitar player playing bass in a band. So, why the lesson? Well, I was playing the bass like a guitar player.....in which this band, it works, but I would like to do something besides follow the bass note. So, my instructor got me into some exercises and off the pick. He gave me some great right handed finger exercises and some left handed fret techniques. We are into some theory and I have seen my bass playing increase tremendously thus far. I am complimenting the tunes we are writing so much more and it has been a noticeable difference to my bandmates. They love my lines and what I do to the songs. That in itself is a great compliment to me and only improves my confidence. Keep up with 'em. I play constantly and it is always nice to actually hear the improvement.