Practice: 9/23/2011 – First session with Jay
Tonight was my first time practicing with someone else. I grabbed Jay and we set up our basses in the living room. He has a 4-string Fender Jazz bass and a practice amp. After settling down, we did that warm-up exercise that I do, up and down the neck. Jay is new to it, so his hands are still acclimating. I think in a week, he’ll be able to play it comfortably.
After warming up, we compared notes on Stand By Me. I think we’re each playing it slightly differently. It sounds mostly correct from each of us, but there’s an additional note in one of his measures. He has a few different sets of tab, each with their own way to play it, so I guess what I came up with isn’t set in stone either. 😉
After a while, we went back to the warm-up exercise. Then, I showed him the major scale pattern. It took a few tries, but he got it. I explained its significance to him and then showed him the intro part of Lean On Me that I figured out, and showed him that it was all just the first 4 notes in the major scale, and one additional note. He was able to duplicate it, and then wanted to try Raisin in the Sun from Violent Femmes. While he looked for tab, I tried to puzzle it out from memory, and found that its also in the major scale. I stopped him and showed him what I’d discovered. After mucking about with it for a bit, I think we had the basic frame down. I’d need to listen to the song to know for sure though, and I haven’t heard it in years. I’ll post up tab of what I pieced together later.
Practice: 9/23/2011 – Stand By Me
I took a few mins to practice Stand By Me again earlier, after doing my usual warm-up and the running the major scale pattern down the E string and then up the A string. I then went back to my post with the tab for the song from a few days ago so I could look at it again before playing it to the video on Youtube. Do you know what I found? I’m doing it differently from the tab, and my way keeps my hands in position longer!
However, I also found something else – that bassline is played a lot faster than how I constructed it in my head, and there’s a flourish at the end, after what I have tabbed, which I’m not quick enough to do, and haven’t quite “transcribed” into tab yet.
Here’s a link to my previous post with the tab from the internet, and below is what I’ve been playing instead. It probably has errors, and isn’t complete yet. Its interesting to try to figure it out and learn it though:
I’m going to mess with this more later on today, when I practice with my brother-in-law.
[edit 11.11.2015] I set up a SoundCloud account. Here’s what the above intro sounds like with no amplification on an electric bass plugged into a PC with a Rocksmith cable:
I’m probably doing this wrong. Its probably in the wrong key, now that I’m starting to understand what that means, but, it still reflects a moment in time. Also, I think this song might be in one of the Hal Leonard songbooks, so I’ll look into it when I finish book 1 of the Hal Leonard Bass Method.
Practice: 9/22/2011 – Stand By Me & Triads
During practice today, I went over Stand By Me again. I’m going to practice with Jay tomorrow and he’s been learning it too. I got to thinking about the triad post I made yesterday and it made me curious, so I played some of the bass parts using the major triad, and some of it without. It worked. It still basically sounds like the same song, but a little different. It does make me think about the identity of the song and whether embellishing the notes changes it too much to be properly identified though.
Tomorrow, before heading out, I’m going to try it again with the minor triad and see what that sounds like. I might also mix it up, depending on how they sound and use both, in different places. I like that it gives me something more to play, once I have the basic pattern of the song down, but I’m worried that its too busy at the same time. I think that maybe, if one of us plays the bassline w/o any additional notes tomorrow, the other person could play it at the same time with the additional notes in places, almost like soloing. It’ll be interesting to see how that sounds.
Jay’s more of a beginner with the bass than I am, but he played a little piano and sax when he was younger. I’m planning on showing him the major scale pattern tomorrow, and maybe the major triad as well. Next week, I’ll show him the minor ones. Its funny, I look at this as something of a blind-leading-the-blind situation, with me trying to impart my miniscule knowledge to him. Hopefully, it helps, and gives us both some insight into what we’re doing.
Also, tomorrow, or over the weekend, as I find time, I’m going to write an entry about triads, because I think I understand them a bit more now.
Practice: 9/20/2011 – Leaning & Standing
Practiced for about 30 mins. tonight. After running exercises up the neck, I tried to figure out Stand By Me, because Jay is learning it. I think I got it. Its mostly on the A and D strings, starting on the 7th fret of the D.
Afterwards, I practiced the major scale pattern a little and while slowing it down, accidentally figured out part of Lean on Me. If I see Jay at the end of the week, I’ll show him the major scale and the part of Lean on Me that I stumbled across. So far, its just the major scale and one additional note.
Here’s something from the internet. When I’m back in the swing of things, I’ll transcribe it into notation:
Ugly Bass Face 