RCMJ

Hi there, Playing with a pick is a real skill. It took me quite a long time to get comfortable with it, and it really helped me to just focus on being consistent with up and downstrokes. The basic idea to get started, is to play "on" beats with a down stroke and "up (or off)" beats with a upstrokes, best to focus on playing notes on one string to start with so as you don't need to worry about string crossing. I've made a playlist on youtube to help beginners learn to read basic rhythm pattens but I played all the examples pick style, it might help you to play through some of these just get some focus on picking. Maybe a bit too simple, but have a go and let me know what you think, I am planning to develop some more exercises for picking and any feedback you might have would help me too! Here's the playlist: I think some things are so basic that a lot people don't really give them much thought or practice!

Here's another:

Hi All, Here's an exercise I've found useful, combining practicing a major scale with displacement, playing one note per bar and moving along a quaver with each note: You can apply this to other scales too of course...

Carol Kaye, the most recorded bass player in history....and made some seriously useful educational content with her books, I made my own version of a two bass duet from her book "Electric Basslines 2"...now I am off to practice "Games People Play" which is transcribed in the same book...I may be some time...

Simple displacement exercise, moving a quaver along every bar...I suppose I should have made the crotchets with dots underneath in the notation, but it should be easy enough to follow. A good exercise for accuracy IMHO:

It's probably going to happen...

Here's another:

Here's my latest, from the same book, this one is pretty cool for demonstrating the dominant 7th voicing as a double stop.

Carol Kaye is amazing, so many great performances on totally classic tracks. When I first started playing (a loooong time ago), someone gave me her books, which were a bit beyond me and I don't think I appreciated just how good they were. I've recently revisited the books and there's tons of great stuff in there. I've been working through the duets, so much easier to do now I can record myself on a computer, back in the day I just had a crappy tape recorder:

Hi folks, Like a lot of bass players of a certain vintage, I learnt a lot from working through Carol Kaye's Bass Books. I remember trying to record those bass duets (there was quite a few of them in those books) by using a tape recorder and later a 4 track...anyway, I thought I'd revisit them with the wonders of digital recording and drum programming. I've started with a simple two bar one....hope some of you will enjoy it...

OK folks, here's my newest video: ..it's part of a playlist, and I have nearly completed all the possible permutations of quavers over the first two beats in a bar of 4/4. I'll post a fuller explanation once I've completed the rest, but these patterns will give anyone the "building blocks" for recognising more complex rhythms.

https://youtu.be/gL8ncdEcBiE ..this is the latest I've been working on, Telleman's Canonic Cello Sonatas but played as a bass duet, both basses play the same thing but one bass starts a bar after the other one, amazing as this was written hundreds of years before loopers were invented 🙂

Hi again, I've added another rhythm to my playlist of basic rhythmic exercises. this time the dotted crotchet and and a quaver pattern, very common in lots of basslines! ..hope these all help...more to follow:

Excellent idea. I agree with everything you've said here...it's a definite focus exercise!

I've been steadily uploading a set of basic rhythmic patterns to my YouTube channel. There's still some more to go but I've made a playlist....hopefully this will help you internalise and learn to recognise the notation of some basic patterns, think of them as the building blocks of more complex rhythms....exactly as Bilbo says above!

..great! I need to revisit this album!

OK here's my latest..One 2 & Rhythm: As well as learning some basic rhythmic patterns, I am hoping these videos could also help those who are getting their pick technique together, in terms of absorbing rudimentary upstrokes/downstrokes etc

Guys I can really recommend the book "Moneyland" for anyone interested in the bigger picture of offshore banking and what it's doing around the world...a great read! https://www.amazon.co.uk/Moneyland-Thieves-Crooks-Rule-World/dp/1781257930/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=moneyland&qid=1579010870&sr=8-1 I feel bad posting a link to where to get it from one of the biggest tax dodging corps of all, but maybe you'll get it from your local bookstore..if you still have one!

Here's a bit of Bach....I also have the cello suites which are great practice...

Anyone else like to work on classical pieces from time to time? I've never had any classical training but I've found it's really helped getting my reading together to do things like this. ...with apologies in advance to any classically trained musicians who might be offended!

Excellent stuff Tom! ..and thanks for not having TAB....so many transcriptions with TAB are unreadable due to the amount of page turning you have to do!

OK guys, here's the latest one, which is just "One & &" a basic syncopation. As usual all played with a pick on my Gibson Midtown. https://youtu.be/fsc2X9Czt0U More to follow! I'm really hoping some beginners will find these videos useful to get some simple rhythms internalised and help build a vocabulary. Please give me a shout if you're using them...and anyone feels like posting a video of themselves playing along or improvising using the tracks that would be amazing!