How do bass players learn to play?

[hixmix]

By sleeping with the drummers wife.

 

[chesterfield]

I started playing bass lines on a guitar when I was 14 because no one else wanted to play bass and they owned all the gear (hmmm...... maybe the beginnings of my GAS attack). Lots of good advice here - listen to good bass players, and listen to lots of different styles of music. I took music theory in college (at the same time playing in an 8-piece band) and that helped me more than anything else. Studying 4-part writing really helps you to get away from playing only roots and develop more melodic bass lines. Knowing what to play, and what (and when) not to play, is a very subtle thing. Good luck!

 

[MISTERQCUE]

I learned the old fashioned way, I learned how to read music!
Then I would transform git solo's in the G-clef and converted them into the C-clef and learned how to run up and down the bass! I learned the Stanley Clarke percussive thumb-slap technique, Donald Dunn's grooves and finally MisterQ's own
hellafied,funk-ti-fied stlye of speed runs!
Playing bass takes practice, practice and more practice (as with any other instrument) When I was 13, I would stay up to 3 in the am just playing the bass with no amp,fingers sore as hell but I kept on! Now playing bass is 2nd nature to me!
BTW, in hi-skool and collidge, I mostly played the upright acoustic
which gave me more strength and speed of which at the point now I hardly ever play straight bass-lines! I'm one riff-o-maniac
playing fool who'll always throw in a run every 2 measures of bass
lines!
Besides, bass players are soooooo coooool with the honies in the audience! Don't believe me? Ask my daughter!

 

[Chris Shaeffer]

Thanks for all the advice, folks! This is a pretty good starting point. Good stuff, great people.

Thanks.

 

[records4u]

Well...... if you do decide to play by using music to play by.... using records with a record player with a cue arm. Then practice what you know and recue those real small/hard spots {these are usally changes} with the cue arm, all the way up will cue it way back, cue up a little will go back a little {some times one groove or .00563 of a second}.....I found drinking helps the early stages to tolorate yourself playin {I hope you are a fast learner}...but have not tried sleeping with the drummers wife to see if that works..are you sure its the drummer and not the singer or backups?.....How bout the lady next door..she plays..

 

[Chris Shaeffer]

OK, I'm running into something that makes me wonder...

I'm mostly playing on projects that I am recording and I'm somewhat shocked at how sloppy a bass can sound when soloed and yet sound OK in the mix...

Or am I just drunk? Bass is such a sensative instrument- are there some techniques to playing it consistently and cleanly. Right now I seem to have to concentrate pretty hard on making it clean and lose the feel and enthusiasm.

Again, its sounds OK in the mix (thank you, compressor) but I'm not sure my technique is doing the instrument justice.

(Drummers have wives?! Does that mean they reproduce?!)

 

[CDT-sHaG]

ive played electric bass....pick style, fingers and slap, for about 16 years...

i learned by trying my best to emulate the grooves in pariment funkedelic, U2, the beatles, jaco pastorius, billy shehan and stanley clark...lol..all those different sounds....when i started..

failing miserbly at the time, but having fun and eventually getting my own wierd combination of styles from it.

really, to play clean...you have to apply the same technique as guitar...fretting and plucking/picking cleanly...that means about 200% more effort than on a guitar....plus precise, accurate left-hand note-sliding for those of us without gorrila paws...

tone also...get a nice crisp bridge pickup sound to combat muddiness if that's your thing...