chugster

Thanks for the advice!

For some reason I can't seem to get my left thumb comfortable on the back of the neck. I guess I must have picked up some bad habits that I need to "un-learn". After playing for a while, my thumb always aches and so there must be something wrong with my technique. Can anyone point me at any guidance to any common errors or guides to how you should position your thumb to avoid such problems?

I think my problem is not actually finding lessons but finding out what order I should learn things in order to increase my understanding. Its easy to find lessons on scales, chords, triads, etc but no-one says "Learn this, then this will lead you into learning this, and so on...". I guess I'm looking for a structured course rather than individual lessons.

Am I missing something because I had a look at the Major's lessons and couldn't see where the lessons were for beginners?

In case anyone is interested, I had this fixed by Martin at [url="http://www.simscustom.com"]http://www.simscustom.com[/url] and he did a fantastic job!

Here is a pic. I'd say it is 2 mm at its worst point. [attachment=73095:DSCF0524.JPG] And here is a pic of the bass. I have no idea of the value of the bass so don't know if it is economically viable to repair? [attachment=73096:DSCF0517.JPG]

I've been given an old ESP custom bass which plays fine but the skunk strip on the back of the neck is bowing out from the neck from about the 2nd to 6th fret. It isn't loose and is flush with the neck at both ends. Any idea what would cause this and if it can be fixed (economically)?

[quote name='Doddy' post='1136945' date='Feb 22 2011, 12:07 PM']Playing in drop tuning shouldn't make it harder to improvise unless you are working purely by patterns. If you know the notes a on the 'board and their relationship(not by a fingering pattern),then you should still be able to play the same stuff if you want. A Cmajor scale always has the same notes in it regardless of the tuning. You may have to finger it differently,but the notes remain the same.[/quote] Looks like the best thing is for me to find a way to learn that focuses more on the notes than patterns. Any suggestions of particular sources for learning in such a way without being bombarded too quickly with mountains of music theory?

I've looked at plenty of books and websites , looked at scales, triads, etc, and I can competently play a few bass lines when I have the tab. However, there is a missing link- I have trouble relating the tab back to the theory. i.e If I look at the tab to a bass line, although I may be able to play it, I can't instantly see what scale or triad is being used. Another way to put it :"How do you know where the use of one scale starts and another ends?" Do I make any sense?

Thanks for all your input - It's good to see that there are many differnet opinions on this! As mentioned, since I haven't been playing long, it does make it a lot easier to have the same tuning as the guitarist so he can easily show me the parts. On the other hand, I appreciate that this makes it harder for me to improvise with anything I have learned in standard tuning! Also, I have thought about tuning to standard C tuning but am worried this would make the material even harder to play with more movement around the neck required. I guess I'll just have to deal with switching between standard for learning and Drop tuning for band playing until I have been playing longer.

We use C# G# C# F#. So no, the four strings don't have the same relationships, I'm afraid!

Can anyone offer me advice on practicing and learning theory, scales, etc in drop-tuning? Maybe I'm complicating things in my head but any tricks to easily visualise the relationships between notes on the fretboardin such tunings would be appreciated. At the moment, I haven't been playing long and so I've been learning theory in standard tuning but have to use Drop c# in the band I'm playing in. Any tips (other than "don't use drop tuning") would be appreciated!

I'm primarily looking for rock/metal books but will give anything a go!

I've been learning bass for a couple of months and have seen these "Play Along" Book and CD sets. Can anyone tell me if they are any good? Does the CD contain the complete tracks with the bass missing? Any particular recommendations? Thanks!

[quote name='Tandro' post='1086657' date='Jan 12 2011, 01:31 PM']Can't help you with a website, but maybe you can try and strip out the bass part yourself. There are most probably tons of programs, and maybe they are much easier to use than what I will suggest but I've only ever used Audacity (and on Linux with wav files and not mp3, but a friend of mine used it with Windows with no real issues). See the following: [url="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/"]http://audacity.sourceforge.net/[/url] Its free! I don't know the ins and outs of it too much and it can look overwhelming cause it can do ALOT, but I use it to strip out the bass and even slow down a song without changing the pitch...so you can make your own slow versions of the actual songs and play along with your bass . If you want to spend money on hardware, I also have a Korg Pandora PX5 which can take out a mp3 player as input and take out the bass on the fly. Maybe someone has easier or cheaper options. HTH.[/quote] Thanks I've downloaded Audacity. Can you point me in the direction of any instructions to use it to remove the bass from tracks?