How do I play along with songs I like?

S

scotnewon96

New member
So I’ve been playing the bass since March of this year and although I know I should be practicing my scales and all of the other foundational things I find it much harder to practice when I’m not grooving lol. So I learned to read tabs and play along wit speed test h songs that I have the tabs for (which isn’t that many) and a lot of the songs I like don’t have bass tabs. So how do I learn to play along with them?
This may be a stupid question but genuinely curious on how you all’s approach to grooving to songs you like.
Disclaimer: I am very beginner and I picked up bass because I’ve always wanted to learn. I’d consider myself to be a “bedroom bassist” lol because I don’t want to perform or anything like that just groove with music I like. showbox
 
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Well - you will be musical, or you won't be. First thing (and this is my own view - others will hate it) is throw away the tab. Hardly any popular songs were played using it and somebody sat down and created the tab using their ears. There is NO point learning scales and the ability to read tab or proper music on a stave, if your ears and brain don;t work musically.

If I have to play a bass part and they want it as per the recording everyone knows, then I listen and listen till I can hum the part. If I can hum it, I can play it. Often I don;t even know what key it's in - I can picture my fingers in my head and can sort of practice it without even holding the bass. I learn the rhythms. I learn the going ups and the going downs. I learned every song in my bands set with a recording when I joined, replacing the old bass player who couldn't play any more because he was ill. I had his voice and his bass in my left ear and the rest of the band in my right.

With popular music the bass patterns are often very similar, so it's fourths, fifth, octaves and sometimes thirds in the bass. I learn intuitively - I don't care if I play a note at fret 5 or somewhere else as long as it is the right note, and as I am a lazy player, my goal is to be able to play it without any wild up and down the necks. I use the bottom B more than many players and play higher up. There IS a small tonal shift, but it works fine for me. I cannot play tab and from what I see, lot5s of it is a bit suspect. I'd not play it like that.This is why I like sheet music because it tells you the pitch and rhythm and leaves how you play that Bb to you - play it wherever makes sense.

You also need to develop prediction you hear a few notes and know what the next one is. Very good practice in bass playing can come from old slow rock songs - find some old Gary Moore stuff. The guitar gets the crazy stuff and the bass plays solidly and logically. Try Still got the Blues for You - every bass phrase leads you to the next and it's not that hard to play, but playing along with it will show you if your musical brain works. There are bits that sort of play A-C-E, then the next note before anyone has played it - should leap into your head and scream ITS A D! the chords and the guitar and the voice mean there is no argument over what bass note comes next. I think prediction is the biggest skill to practice, because you hear what comes next - even in songs you have never ever heard before.

Forget tab, forget learning to read music - tune your ear first. Do the same with Michael jackson' Billie Jean. Once you work out the pattern the bass plays, it's a killer song, and again, far easier to play than you might think.

When I do transcriptions of songs for stage tracks. I record the original into cubase. I set up a tempo track so I get a 4 in the bar click and then I do one or two bars at a time in a loop. Trying to hear what the instrument I am copying is doing. My memory is less good than when I was younger. Back then I might have remembered four bars worth of notes, Now, it's less in complicated songs.

Play along with the Gary Moore song and see if you can follow that.
 
I've always found tabs to be pretty hit or miss.

What I do these days is pull up a tab for a guideline.
Then I pull up the song and listen for the bass part. Go piece by piece, even note by note as needs be. As I go, I transcribe it in a way that is more intuitive. Then I play back along with my notes.

Pitfalls I've noticed with tabs to watch out for:
They're sometimes just wrong.
Specifying where on the fretboard you should play something isn't usually helpful. Play the note wherever is simplest (least physical effort) in the progression.
They rarely include useful timing info.
 
Keys? We ain't got no keys! We don't need no keys! I don't have to show you any stinking keys!

:laughings:
 
Hey scotnewon96. My answer would depend on a couple things. First....how old are you and second.....what's your overall goal for learning bass?

You don't mention if you're learning from a teacher. If you have any aspirations of playing with others...you might want to get some good early foundational learning from a teacher.....at least until you have a better grasp.

Mick
 
I have a small usb mixer and I have the audio out from PC going in and my keyboards and mic going in.. I have everything going out to the headphones and adjust so what is coming from the PC, be it a youtube video or mp3 and play along. I'll start and stop and try n figure out what they are doing in the song and keep trying till I get it right... Rob's listen till I learn to be able to hum my parts is an interesting approach I'll have to give a go...
 
Aptitude assessment. First day lesson one. Show them a simple bass line. My favourite was Pink Floyd - Money. Four strings, three fret positions anywhere on the neck. It tests if they've at least tried to play and understand where 5ths and octaves are in relation to the chord root. It tests their aural acuity - that bom-dooby-do, dum dum dum dee bom..... sequence. Show them slowly then see if they can do it. It also reveals if they are stuck in bars of music with 4 or 8 beats as this has 7 - so it's harder. It tests how their dexterity is. The actual rhythm plods so it shows how good they already are. Personally - if Lazer had people who needed to play on one note like this and learn this way, then musically, they're always going to be struggling. Like those guitarists who when you shout G, stop playing, look at their left hand, and put the fingers down one at a time, then start to strum. No musician should think about being in a band until their fingers develop muscle memory and can go from C to G between beats. Until you are that competent - stay in the bedroom. It's not the guitarist's job to teach somebody to play the bass.

Some excellent musicians cannot improvise - that's a different skill. I know one guy who plays the clarinet. Get him in the studio playing something amazing and ask him for a bit for level, and he has to find a piece of sheet music to play. He is totally unable to play from memory. It's bizarre - saying, don't worry, just play anything gets a blank look.

For a budding bass player, walking bass patterns are great to learn too. They sound good but again - once learned you can play in any key.

Other songs are actually easy on the different notes, but need rhythm concentration. Final Countdown is a great one for that. Listen to the rhythm the bass plays. Sounds all the same, but listen again and it is not - little differences. The dum, dummy feel is also quite tricky for some people to do. Other good songs to try to play along with are repetitive disco ones (Disco Inferno is a finger twister but repeats over and over so once you have it people think you're really good) or Deep purple smoke on the water where it's really play along and not too hard.
 
I use a music analytical software called deCoda when I want to break down a piece of music. You load the song into it and it starts by telling you the key and bpm and maps out the chords. It then goes way beyond that. You can do the typical slow the track down to learn. There is also a graphical window function where you can highlight just the bass, lead or any portion of the music you want to focus on. You can also reverse this window function to remove the bass or lead and turn the song into a backing track of sorts. There is an analysis page where notes are laid out piano roll style where you can even pencil in midi notes and export as a file. Currently on sale for $20
 
There was no tabs or youtube in my day when learning songs on the guitar. It was a system of putting on a record and picking up. and dropping the needle multiple times to learn certain parts of a song. This applied to learning the lyrics and harmony parts as well. This helped me to gain an ''ear'' for music and how it works. Knowing what key the song is in is helpful as you can work off the root notes. Song are just patterns that are put together in a certain order. Figure out the patterns and key and work within them. I find scales helpful but they aren't a neccessity. You'll know when you hit a wrong note that doesn't fit. For the songs you like and want to groove with, I'd start out learning the song in stages. Start with the intro and first verse. Then move on to 2nd verse, which you should have down from learning the first, to the bridge if it has one. Then move on to the chorus and so on. Basically learn all the different patterns seperately then put them all together for the final result. Some songs have the basic same patterns throughout, while others may have multiple patterns. Initially it's time consuming but will get easier as you get the used to the method.
 
I developed a really bad habit with the band when we were on stage waiting to start while the DJ was still playing the music - I'd join in with everything, usually music I'd never heard before. The guitarist then started to join in too - then the keys. Drummer of course, refused to play the silly game. One time we got really into it and the music finished and we carried on with it then went straight into our first number as the keys worked - we thought it great. No idea what the song was and never heard it since!
 
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