Bass Playing Skills

Re: Bass Playing Skills

On May 15, 11:36 pm, housemouse <housemo...@klassmaster,com > wrote:
> On May 15, 9:44 pm, Pt <pea...@yahoo,com > wrote:
>
> > On May 15, 3:51 pm, housemouse
>
> > > Which do you think would take the most time to learn?
>
> > > For me (and I'm guessing most people), more time to learn = harder
>
> > There are too many factors to answer that.
> > Right now I am playing guitar in a band and I'm rusty on bass.
> > Playing guitar and playing bass are two totally different ways of
> > thinking.
> > It takes me time to change my way of thinking.
> > So right now the guitar is easiest.
>
> > Pt
>
> Fair enough. It's different for everybody, and like you said - you
> have played guitar and bass for 40 years, so I'm sure you are really
> good on both.
>
> For me, it's hard to learn guitar solos note for note. Not that the
> average solo is technically hard, but because it can take a few hours
> to get all the licks down, and to learn how to play it smoothly.
> Pretty much it's not worth it to me to learn most guitar solos note
> for note. I love to improvise stuff, and that way I don't have to
> spend all that time memorizing the solos. Some guitarists I know are
> all into learning the solos note for note, and they can spend weeks
> learning one solo. If you are going to be a guitarist in a band that
> demands that note for note stuff, it can be a pretty big time
> commitment. I've played in bands where the other guitarist and I did
> some harmony solo stuff, and for me, it takes a lot of time to get
> that stuff to a respectable level. It's not just solos, some songs are
> just difficult. It's one thing to pick up a 3 chord tune that just
> uses power chords, it's another to pick up one that has about 20
> different chords with all sorts of difficult fingerings, and quick
> changes between them.
>
> For a lot of rock stuff, I can pick up the bass part pretty quickly.
> Much quicker than learning guitar solos. If the songs are really
> simple on guitar, though - it's no harder than learning the bass line,
> and sometimes easier.
>
> So to me - from the viewpoint of casual band hack, playing rock music
> - it's a lot easier to learn stuff on bass. I think to someone
> starting out, who just wanted to be in a bar band, playing rock stuff
> - it would be a lot easier to play bass. I'm sure there are other
> styles of music where it is different.

It totally depends on the song you're playing, though, doesn't it?

Some solos are iconic. I would learn the solos for Stairway to Heaven,
or Highway Star, for instance, note for note.

Re: Bass Playing Skills

The Bishop wrote:
> On May 15, 11:36 pm, housemouse <housemo...@klassmaster,com > wrote:
>> On May 15, 9:44 pm, Pt <pea...@yahoo,com > wrote:
>
> It totally depends on the song you're playing, though, doesn't it?
>
> Some solos are iconic. I would learn the solos for Stairway to Heaven,
> or Highway Star, for instance, note for note.

It also depends on which instrument you're playing the solo on.
When I play Freebird with my 8-year-old daughter, she does the chords
and I play the opening solo on my fretless bass.

What works at any given moment is always fluid as the moment itself.

Monkey Pi
--

|o| o , o ,' o , |o|
|O| <%'. `' === <\ |O|
(0) / | ( )`-' | / | (0)
p-----MonkeyMonkeyMonkey-----q

Re: Bass Playing Skills

housemouse wrote:

>
> Which do you think would take the most time to learn?
>
> For me (and I'm guessing most people), more time to learn = harder

So let me get this straight...yer saying that because you can learn a
*cover* faster on the bass the bass is easier? Maybe it's easier to be a
shitty bass player than it is to be a shitty guitarist but if that's
what you're talking about you should stop talking.

A good bass player can hear chords every bit as well as a
guitarist...chords are what single note bass lines are built on. Right?

Re: Bass Playing Skills

On May 15, 11:21 pm, jeffb <rig...@shaw.c> wrote:
> housemouse wrote:
>
> > Which do you think would take the most time to learn?
>
> > For me (and I'm guessing most people), more time to learn = harder
>
> So let me get this straight...yer saying that because you can learn a
> *cover* faster on the bass the bass is easier? Maybe it's easier to be a

I'm saying that if you had a bunch of cover tunes to learn, you could
generally learn the bass parts note for note a lot faster than the
guitar parts. Especially if there are really long guitar solos.

> shitty bass player than it is to be a shitty guitarist but if that's
> what you're talking about you should stop talking.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying for a lot of styles of
music, the bass part is a lot simpler than the guitar part, and
doesn't take as long to learn. I'm not saying there isn't any skill
involved in learning and playing the bass part. I'm just saying there
is skill involved in playing the guitar part too, and lots of times
there is just way more stuff to learn for the song.

>
> A good bass player can hear chords every bit as well as a
> guitarist...chords are what single note bass lines are built on. Right?

OK. But I don't see how that relates to anything I'm saying.

Re: Bass Playing Skills

On May 15, 11:07 pm, housemouse
> I'm saying that if you had a bunch of cover tunes to learn, you could
> generally learn the bass parts note for note a lot faster than the
> guitar parts. Especially if there are really long guitar solos.


If you are playing in a band you learn to play your parts.
The bass has a part, lead guitar has a part, rhythm guitar has a part,
keys, drums etc.
If everyone knows their parts when you put it all together it sounds
good.
Learning any one part is not difficult.
The difficult thing is being able to hear the parts separately.

Pt

Re: Bass Playing Skills

housemouse wrote:
> On May 15, 11:21 pm, jeffb <rig...@shaw.c> wrote:
>> housemouse wrote:
>>

> I'm saying that if you had a bunch of cover tunes to learn, you could
> generally learn the bass parts note for note a lot faster than the
> guitar parts. Especially if there are really long guitar solos.

And I'm saying learning cover tune parts is not how you should be
judging what's "easier".

>> shitty bass player than it is to be a shitty guitarist but if that's
>> what you're talking about you should stop talking.
>
> That's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying for a lot of styles of
> music, the bass part is a lot simpler than the guitar part, and
> doesn't take as long to learn. I'm not saying there isn't any skill
> involved in learning and playing the bass part. I'm just saying there
> is skill involved in playing the guitar part too, and lots of times
> there is just way more stuff to learn for the song.

STOP THINKING ABOUT LEARNING COVERS!!!!!
The difficulty of a part in a fucking cover tune is *NOT* how you judge
the difficulty an instrument. What you *can* say is that many bass parts
in cover tunes are relatively simple. I'd agree with that statement. It
doesn't mean mastering the instrument is any easier than mastering any
other instrument.

>> A good bass player can hear chords every bit as well as a
>> guitarist...chords are what single note bass lines are built on. Right?
>
> OK. But I don't see how that relates to anything I'm saying.

And therein lies your problem.
Should you ever get to the point where if you hear it you can play it
then all this "one instrument is harder than another instrument"
bullshit completely evaporates.

Re: Bass Playing Skills

jeffb wrote:

> Should you ever get to the point where if you hear it you can play it
> then all this "one instrument is harder than another instrument"
> bullshit completely evaporates.

I'd say that once you have that musician in your brain, every instrument
becomes easier to learn. Sure, it takes a while to manage dexterities,
but if that's all you're concentrating on, it goes a lot faster.

It also goes faster when your *mind* knows what to play. The most
difficult licks I encounter these days involve what you said: Once I can
hear it - I mean *really* hear it - then physically playing it becomes a
lot easier. What I thought was beyond my physical dexterity at the time
is often simply beyond my musical brain.


--
Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.
- Anonymous

Re: Bass Playing Skills

Jim Carr wrote:

> I'd say that once you have that musician in your brain, every instrument
> becomes easier to learn. Sure, it takes a while to manage dexterities,
> but if that's all you're concentrating on, it goes a lot faster.
>
> It also goes faster when your *mind* knows what to play. The most
> difficult licks I encounter these days involve what you said: Once I can
> hear it - I mean *really* hear it - then physically playing it becomes a
> lot easier. What I thought was beyond my physical dexterity at the time
> is often simply beyond my musical brain.


That's an interesting observation I've certainly found is true. If I was
ever having trouble playing something I would put the bass down and work
on the part until I could sing it accurately. Once I could do that I
could easily play it.

That *really* hearing it you're talking about is everything. During my
first harmonica lesson recently it was tempting to let the teacher think
I was a freak middle aged prodigy rather than a professional musician
transferring those skills from one instrument to another.

Re: Bass Playing Skills

jeffb wrote:

> That's an interesting observation I've certainly found is true. If I was
> ever having trouble playing something I would put the bass down and work
> on the part until I could sing it accurately. Once I could do that I
> could easily play it.

I just look at the tab. :-)

Seriously, though, we're on the same page. You gotta hear it in your
head if you're going to really conquer it, be it a major scale or some
fancy double-thumping, pick-muted arpeggio on an 8 string fretless at
192 BPM.

> That *really* hearing it you're talking about is everything. During my
> first harmonica lesson recently it was tempting to let the teacher think
> I was a freak middle aged prodigy rather than a professional musician
> transferring those skills from one instrument to another.

A couple of years ago my nephew was showing me his recorder (the wind
instrument) from school. I asked him to play a few songs. He asked me to
try it. Of course, I haven't picked up one in 30 years, but I gave it a
whirl. First thing I did was figure out where the major scale started
(not hard), then played a few melodies. He was, of course, amazed.

It was a good opportunity to give him the "music is up here" speech.

--
Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.
- Anonymous

Re: Bass Playing Skills

On May 16, 1:43 am, jeffb <rig...@shaw.c> wrote:
> housemouse wrote:
> > On May 15, 11:21 pm, jeffb <rig...@shaw.c> wrote:
> >> housemouse wrote:
>
> > I'm saying that if you had a bunch of cover tunes to learn, you could
> > generally learn the bass parts note for note a lot faster than the
> > guitar parts. Especially if there are really long guitar solos.
>
> And I'm saying learning cover tune parts is not how you should be
> judging what's "easier".
>
> >> shitty bass player than it is to be a shitty guitarist but if that's
> >> what you're talking about you should stop talking.
>
> > That's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying for a lot of styles of
> > music, the bass part is a lot simpler than the guitar part, and
> > doesn't take as long to learn. I'm not saying there isn't any skill
> > involved in learning and playing the bass part. I'm just saying there
> > is skill involved in playing the guitar part too, and lots of times
> > there is just way more stuff to learn for the song.
>
> STOP THINKING ABOUT LEARNING COVERS!!!!!

Just by saying that, you made me thing about covers. It's like trying
to not think about a pink elephant.


> The difficulty of a part in a fucking cover tune is *NOT* how you judge
> the difficulty an instrument. What you *can* say is that many bass parts
> in cover tunes are relatively simple. I'd agree with that statement. It
> doesn't mean mastering the instrument is any easier than mastering any
> other instrument.

The OP was talking about "getting together to jam" - not necessarily
mastery of the instrument.
I'm not saying mastering bass is any easier than mastering guitar. I'm
saying it's easier to learn some tunes quick on bass to "jam" with
your buddies. Maybe I missed something, but the whole tone of the
original thread (and the thread in alt.guitar he was talking about)
was pretty much about amature, informal band stuff.

If this thread somehow switched to being about mastery, I missed that
part.

>
> >> A good bass player can hear chords every bit as well as a
> >> guitarist...chords are what single note bass lines are built on. Right?
>
> > OK. But I don't see how that relates to anything I'm saying.
>
> And therein lies your problem.
> Should you ever get to the point where if you hear it you can play it
> then all this "one instrument is harder than another instrument"
> bullshit completely evaporates.

Yeah, I'd like to get to that point. I'd love to be one of those guys
(on guitar or bass) who could hear something once, understand the
theory behind it (or whatever), and replicate it perfectly. Since I'm
just an amature, It's not likely I'm going to be putting in the time
to make that happen. I don't really know too many rock guitarists that
are at that "hear it, then play it level". Actually, I don't know any,
they all have to spend a few hours listening and figuring out the
exact notes. If you are a Pro jazz bass player - I guess you are
around people like that a lot. To me this thread was about casual
jamming, and guys who were hack amature bar band guys like myself, so
I approached it on that level. If you are talking about the Pro level,
well I don't have much to say about it, and I'll consider you the
expert on that.

Re: Bass Playing Skills

Pt wrote:
> On May 15, 5:51 am, iarwain <iarwai...@hotmail,com > wrote:
>>> There is absolutely no question that playing guitar well is harder than playing bass.
>
>
> I have been playing both for over 40 years and I totally disagree.

Of course you do. First, everyone is wired differently. Watch little
kids - tossing a ball comes naturally to some while for others it's
kicking a ball.

Second, what instrument you learn first probably has a large effect on
what you perceive is more or less difficult. It's not only from a
physical standpoint but from the mental approach.

But objectively speaking I would say that there's a lot more manual
dexterity involved playing the guitar as opposed to the bass. What that
has to do with the price of bananas in Sumatra is beyond me.

--
Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.
- Anonymous

Re: Bass Playing Skills

Pt wrote:
> On May 15, 5:51 am, iarwain <iarwai...@hotmail,com > wrote:
>>> There is absolutely no question that playing guitar well is harder than playing bass.
>
>
> I have been playing both for over 40 years and I totally disagree.
>
> Pt


What *is* hard is:
1) Playing 3-piece lead, and
2) singing significant quantities of lead vocals.

Singing is hard work.

--
Les Cargill

Re: Bass Playing Skills

Les Cargill <lcargill@cfl.rr,com > wrote:
> Pt wrote:
>> On May 15, 5:51 am, iarwain <iarwai...@hotmail,com > wrote:
>>>> There is absolutely no question that playing guitar well is harder
>>>> than playing bass.
>>
>>
>> I have been playing both for over 40 years and I totally disagree.
>>
>> Pt
>
>
> What *is* hard is:
> 1) Playing 3-piece lead, and
> 2) singing significant quantities of lead vocals.
>
> Singing is hard work.

I'm not sure which is harder, singing or playing lead, but for me doing
both at the same time is like driving and talking on a cell phone.

Re: Bass Playing Skills

iarwain wrote:
> There was a post on alt.guitar recently. It said basically that
> whenever they got people together to jam, they could always find some
> available guitarist or else someone who couldn't play bass very well,
> and it always worked out. They were very much implying that playing
> bass was easy, and if the bass player wasn't very good it didn't
> really matter.

I like jamming as much as the next guy, but in a lot of jams I've been
in, the guitarists really seem interested only in hearing themselves.
They don't care about the song so much as their solos or whatever. So,
yeh, in those cases the bass player is just a place holder.

But if you want to get serious about your music, you'll pay close
attention to who you have on bass and drums.

Re: Bass Playing Skills

Not many people walk into a house and think, "I wonder if the
foundation, roof and framing will hold together in a strong wind?".
They notice the color of the rug and the fresh flowers. Unless the
roof caves in during a storm. Then they think about it, but it's too
late.

The superior musicians I've played with notice the structure. (Not
tooting my horn, I've played with the other kind, too.)

BW