julietgreen

It's our other guitarist's fault. We're exciting but not that exciting.

There I am with my band, Semillon.

There's something about the processing of notes which for me doesn't seem to pass the memory part of the brain. Straight to fingers - rather like touch typing - or not remembering directions when someone else always leads the way. Although it's exciting to get a new piece of music all written out and be able to play it straight away, I now find it something of a nuisance and would probably trade for a really good memory and a great 'ear'. I hate having a music stand on stage and it's not appropriate for the bands I'm in. I'm relieved that the processing of basslines is different - maybe because it is more visual - and I don't have to have any crib sheets. But I can't join in and busk along with stuff I don't know.

I play for 'Semillon'. Yes, it's intentional. Rock covers with female lead vox (not me).

As a musician, I'm not much of a musician. Here's my confession: as a sax player, I know I should learn the music by heart and not rely on the 'dots' but that only works for me if I've never seen the dots. Once I've seen them, I find it almost impossible to remember without looking. As a bass player, I can remember, but I learn the parts without much thought for the theory, in spite of that DipMus from the OU. I should know what to play because I should be able to hear what those guitarists are doing and I should be learning to improvise by committing scales to memory and spending serious time working out lines through the chords. And as for looking at TAB - Everyone knows that's a sin! I hang my head in shame (and because it looks better).

If you are require to play a range of tunings, e.g. standard, 'drop D', detuned by a minor third, etc. do you opt for quick retuning during a gig or do you opt for multiple basses? Or do you just use a massive instrument with loads of strings?

I'm still new at it and so commit to memory by a combination of patterns and 'singing' the bass line. I know if I can't hear myself play I'm much more likely to make mistakes. I also know that if I can't hear the rest of the band, particularly the vocalist, I can forget what I'm doing, so the direction of the music must have a major impact.

It's got to be my own personality because I'm just not good enough to make a faithful replication of anyone else.

Play with other musicians.

Love the Korg. Not too pricey and saves so much frustration for quick tuning while the guitarists are doing their incessant widdling. As a sax player, I downloaded the gStrings app for android and I'm very impressed. It picks up the tuning notes from the instrument or the amp and isn't phased by all the extraneous noise going on around.

Check out Dave Marks too. He's ace.

Well Ben, do you have any advice on the fretting and the fingering of this? I can't make up my mind whether to try to hit all the notes or pull off on some. Gonna try Danny's suggestion, but I'm sometimes slower on open strings than on fretted...

Hmmm - hadn't thought of that. I've been trying something along the lines of ...

[b]--------------------[/b]
--------------------
[b]7-5---5-------------[/b]
[b]----7---7-5-7-5-3-5-[/b]
and since my hands aren't huge, been having to use little finger on the 7th fret. I shall have a go at that suggestion, Danny, ta.

The band in which I play bass (at only an intermediate level, since I'm mainly a saxophonist) wants to do a cover of this. I'm definitely not up to speed with the triplets in the interlude, though the others parts are coming. Is there any advice other than keep going till it's faster? I'm concerned that bad technique will prevent me from ever playing at speed.

Yeah we cover this with female vox in our band. Always goes down well.

Thanks for the welcomes folks. I also play saxophone and in fact am doing both on New Year's Eve - 2 bands - cheesy rock and then some ska to finish the night.

Followed the signs from Dave M on YouTube. I'm relatively new to bass, having done more blowing than fingering, so to speak - but having fun now playing local gigs and slightly out of my comfort zone.