TimR

Which is why endless rehearsals perfecting tunes that bomb can be soul destroying.

Depends on whether it's a rehearsal or a practice. A gig is worth 1000 rehearsals. I'm not interested in being in a rehearsal band along with a bunch of people who want to be able to say they're in a band, but don't actually want to gig. Practice is for working out new tune arrangements. Rehearsal is the last couple of practices before a gig. If you're gigging regularly you don't need rehearsals, just practices to learn new material. Assuming your band is made up of competent and experienced musicians.

Only if you're giving them an itemised bill. Most of us will be just charging for a gig. Let's hope we don't all have to join a preffered suppliers list, and have to provide insurance, PAT certs and Risk Assessments. Pub gigs will become a total nightmare.

My Apologies on further investigation and fully checking the facts. It's in 3 movements. No bars, tempos or time signatures were written: I TACET II TACET III TACET

But it's not tab is it? It's just pictures of a fretboard. Tab is bars with the strings on. The Cage Song is 120 bars odd of rests. Depending on what tempo you play it at.

I'm sure I'm being trolled or missing something vital here. But I'll bite. What do these photos of guitar fretboards have to do with bass tab?

Is now a good time to say I play cowbell during the verse? I spent several days selecting the correct cowbell and perfecting my timing.

There's also a danger of spending too much time getting a line exactly right as it is on the record. 'Learning' your part is just the initial step. Once you get to rehearsal, you'll undoubtedly have to change what you are playing to fit whatever alterations to the arrangement your band have to make to suit the abilities and instrumentation of the rest of the band. Learn your part. Practice your part to be competent Meet with the band and work out the arrangement. Practice your new bass part. Rehearse the whole thing with the band. Some or all of those steps may or may not apply depending on different situations.

I've been playing it for years. The bass part under the guitar solo is tricky but the chorus is 3 or 4 notes in E.

Maybe, but I was always taught to listen to as much material as possible and to play with as many people as possible. And I've grown up around musicians. Learning tunes when you don't have to, is never wasted time, you learn more about how songs are constructed and how they fit together. And in the long run develop vital skills as a bass player, which ultimately mean you're not sitting over a cassette player fast forwarding and rewinding while looking at the counter and trying different notes to see if they fit. Maybe nowadays that's not such a chore, highlight a section music in pro tools, set it on repeat at half speed and pick out the part. But I think that listening properly and applying theory to their playing is skill that some people have lost.

It's bizarre.

I'm not sure what exactly your problem is. I haven't set any criteria and I'm not telling anyone what to do. I'm giving my opinion. Why are you taking it so personally? Really, if you just want to listen to one genre and a set of tunes that's fine by me. Why join a covers band playing tunes you've never heard before? It's either because you want the money, in which case, listen to more tunes and expand your skillset and repertoire and you'll be more attractive to bands. Or its because you want to expand your skillset and repertoire. Bass playing is my hobby too. If I'm in the car I'll be listening to tunes I have to learn or listening for upcoming artists.

Just play TO the chords. If you know the chord the individual notes are usually pretty intuitive. You shouldn't have to be sitting there picking out individual notes of a run.

Don't see how? It was a question.

No it's not. Lots have people have taken my comment that most songs can be learned with one listen literally and then extrapolated that to all songs with one listen or you can't call yourself a bass player. I've never said that. At one point I questioned whether anyone should be playing in cover bands if they've not heard the covers that the audience will be familiar with. I'd question any musician who doesn't listen to a very wide range of genres. You're painting yourself into a corner. I didn't say you couldn't or shouldn't. At no point did I say they shouldn't call themselves bass players.