Day 143 of teaching myself how to play bass (Take Me Away - Lindsay Lohan) Freaky Friday Soundtrack

[@mokii931]

Angling the neck up like that is perfectly fine. You'll find many, if not most, bassists do this. What's importance is that you're keeping your wrists straight to avoid injury. Keep up the good work. Instead of trying to play up to the speed of the song, slow the song down so that every note is played with proper technique and good posture, then speed up the bpm by 2-5 numbers as you approach the live speed of the song. This may seem like a pain, but it'll set you up for more success in the long run and keep you from injuring your wrists. I also highly highly can't recommend enough the "beginner to badass" course from bassbuzz.

[@deartuation]

That's what I've been trying to do actually, I've had a lot of issues with my fretting hand (thumb numbness, tingling in the pinky) so I'm trying really hard to work on the technique to avoid injury if I can. I've watched various posture videos, but sometimes when I'm concentrating on so many different things it's easy to forget or squeeze the neck hard as I try to control. As for slowing down songs, 100% ya I agree with everything you said, I do it from time to time and actually I do try to play the bassline slowly without any backing music at all if I'm struggling a lot in the first place. I have seen a lot of people talking about his beginner to badass course, especially on Reddit, is it really that good? I do like his BazzBuss videos already, I think he's a great teacher. I'm still a little skeptical because it just reminds me of those websites that are like "SPEND £500 ON MY BECOME A GREAT BASSIST COURSE TO MASTER THE BASS IN ONLY 24 HOURS!" kinda thing lol.

[@mokii931]

@@deartuationI literally cannot recommend that course enough. I’ve purchased it twice, it’s that good. I played bass for around a decade and still found missing pieces in my foundation as a musician that were filled in from Josh’s course. Worth every penny

[@tobio1988]

Hey. I just got your Video randomly recomended from KZbin. This is the classic "Boradcast yourself" stuff I loved and love about this platform. I play bass for about 20 years now and can just encurage you. Keep on doing it! You pointed a lot of things out that did not go so well and I can absolutely salute you for uploading the video none the less! You also got a few very helpfull comments already. I could not resist and took my bass to play along with you :-D A few small additional hints(if you like to read them): Try to train your ring and small finger to hold down strings by themselfs (it gets you a lot of freedom down the road). Also: Look for some songs with a lot of eight notes that you can use as a substitute for a metronome (Smells like teen spirit has a lot of them). This helped me back in the day to get tighter. In any case: Thank you for sharing and good luck and fun in the future!

[@deartuation]

Ahhh that's super cool, thanks for jamming along with me, I love that :D Yus, the ring and pinky finger are devils to train, especially with them being shorter I feel like they're just in the way sometimes lol, but I will try to incorporate them a bit more, you're totally right. Definitely will try Smells Like Teen Spirit, that's a great one actually! Thanks for the suggestion and tysm for your encouragement :)

[@tolstoy21]

100% agree with @mokii931's comment about slowing the song down. Keeping your thumb mobile is great way of muting strings. As you move from the E string to play the D, as an example, your thumb should be anchored on the A string. And yeah, learning bass is all about getting all manner if blisters and raw fingers! Thats goes away in time. I too play with the neck tilted up for the same reason as you., However, I sit with the bass between my legs in a classical guitar sort of style. But, that's just a personal preference. Been playing that way forever. Strengthening your fretting hand, especially for playing those lower frets near the headstock, takes time, a lot of time, and dedication to doing fretboard exercises. I think it's a great idea to keep your mistakes in videos, and I like your commentary. It's nice to see someone putting in the effort and who is not afraid to put themselves out there to possibly solicit advice from total strangers who've taken the same journey you're now embarked on. Anyway, keep playing and keep posting. And know that at least one total stranger on the Internet is routing for you!

[@deartuation]

Thank you so much! That's encouraging, as I thought it was just me that was really struggling with those lower frets, so I am glad to see that it's just a matter of needing to strengthen my fingers over time which will come gradually the more I play. Honestly, I'm kinda shy to upload with mistakes, but I can't show progress without including them and it might encourage someone some day so I don't mind all that much and ofc I get some great advice usually. :P What particular fretboard exercises would you recommend? If any? Or is it just a case of practicing scales over and over?

[@tolstoy21]

@@deartuation I would look to the following KZbinrs -- Dan Hawkins Bass Lessons, Tom at Talking Bass, and Rich Brown -- The Brownstones. Their channels have a lot of great free content for beginning bass (and even intermediate). Each of them is great at explaining and demonstrating various aspects of improving your playing. Tom and Dan have some content on fretting hand exercises, along withy lots of other great stuff. Rich Brown is my personal favorite. If only everyone had an instructor like him! Lots of really great content at Scotts Bass Lessons, but a lot of their content requires a subscription to their whole bass program. BassBuzz is also great, and although they have free content, it's another subscription service. The one exercise that strengthened my hand the most is called 'spider walking'. You can search that online or on KZbin and find lots of demonstrations. It's not easy when you first try it. But if you worked at it like fifteen or so minutes every day in various positions on the neck (not just the comfortable ones), you'll definitely improve both fretting hand strength and technique over the course of a month. You might not perfect it, but doing that suddenly makes other things feel easy. Scales and arpeggios are also good. They are easier than the spider walk and will also give you practice in terms of theory (even if you don't understand what you're playing at first). Spider walking, on the other hand, is just pure hand strengthening. Where it shines is building up dexterity between like the ring finger and pinky, which scales and arpeggios can miss. Anyway, lots of good stuff on KZbin. Good luck and have fun!

[@BarricadeShane]

This song is a banger. Keep it up

[@luz8707]

Hello. I don't speak English (I'm translating) but I wanted to congratulate you for the work you are doing with perseverance, plus I accompany you with my electric guitar :) I hope you do excellently in whatever you set out to do.

[@deartuation]

Thank you so much!

[@ryescuza3985]

Simply amazing. Just showed your videos to my friends learning how to play instruments for them to be inspired by you. Thank you! Keep it up! You can use the "Tap" feature of a metronome to sync it to a song you want to measure.

[@deartuation]

Aw, thank you so much! If I can inspire even just one person I'd love that, bass is really underrated :) And ohhh I see, thanks, I'll have to check my tuner/metronome for that. I was using an online metronome just to try it as I often plug my bass into my interface to practice through headphones, are there any online metronomes that are able to do that for songs as well that you know of?

[@shasta9863]

really great cover, your fingerstyle is better than mine haha. subscribed

[@deartuation]

Haha, no way! Thanks so much, how long have you played the bass for? You play well with a pick, which is something I can't do at all xD Fingerstyle is my favourite so far :)

[@shasta9863]

@@deartuation have been playing guitar in general for the past 6 years and i got my first bass around a year ago! for as long as ive been into music ive always been drawn to more punk/hardcore styles that dont really use finger picking at all. add that with my already years of guitar experience and you could see why im good at using a pick lol. its inspiring to see progression content like yours, it makes me feel like its never too late to learn :D

[@deartuation]

@@shasta9863 Oh damn, that makes a lot of sense! I don't think it's ever too late for anyone to learn any instrument, if it makes someone happy they should just do it, I regret not trying sooner :P

[@shawnmoon4680]

I got the same bass also can you please explain how u started playing bass and what did you first learn

[@deartuation]

Nice bass you got! :P How I started was I stumbled across someone playing a bass cover on KZbin (I can't remember which channel or specifically what song it was now because my memory is terrible, but I think it was a metalcore song) but I remember thinking to myself, holy hell, bass looks incredibly fun to play and so I went down the rabbit hole of watching different people play, watching how their playstyles differed, discovering what slap bass was and then somehow found myself watching beginner guides to bass (I think BassCamp and BassBuzz). I was watching and I really wanted to try and play along but I didn't have a bass. I pondered on it for a long time for several reasons: I've never played an instrument before, I'm not sure how well I'd do without a teacher (there's not many bassists or teachers in the town I live), I have really small hands and short fingers and most people I saw play the bass have REALLY long fingers lol, I have ADHD and I am incredibly impulsive with purchases, specifically hobbies, I'll buy everything for them, do them for a couple weeks then never touch them again. So I waited for over a month all while still watching bass videos, reading guides, reading guides on how to read tablature etc, even a bit of music theory and I was like "what the hell is this? xD" Then one day while scrolling Facebook marketplace still fixating on bass, I saw a second hand bass and amp for what I thought I was cheap and my partner took me to go buy this bass from a disabled woman, the bass had been neglected, left to rust and corrode away in her wardrobe. So, I learned how to take the strings off, how to clean the bridge, how to clean the fretboard properly, how to clean the frets and polish them a little, how to check intonation etc, how to put the strings back on, all within 1-2 week of me having that bass. Of course before doing all that I downloaded Yousician on my phone and was trying to play along with some songs on there and tried to play that song everyone plays first on their bass (Seven Nation Army - White Stripes). It sounded TERRIBLE, I had no idea why the tone was so bad, obviously I was still a beginner it was gonna sound bad, but one day I was like "is it my nails?" so I clipped my nails short and plucked the strings as before and there was a massive change in the tone, I was very happy. So in truth, I learned a lot of things, although not very well, in the beginning. I'd say the main focus were how to pluck the strings properly (across and fully into the next string, not up), how to fret properly (placing the fretting finger just behind the fret) and how to read tablature because I wanted to be able to try and play along with songs I enjoy. Most importantly, I learned how to be patient and just keep doing the thing even if I suck at it, we don't learn without sucking at something first and we aren't learning if we aren't messing up.

[@shawnmoon4680]

@@deartuation sorry for the late reply! Thank you very much