Randlepmcmurphy
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Bass. How hard can it be ?
Aug 11, 2008, 22:20
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I've just started to learn the Bass guitar and basically for all you people like myself who have no musical talent let me tell you it's a piece of piss. How anyone who plays in a band and gets a fourth/fifth of the takings at the end of the night can honestly say they've earned it is a liar and a bounder. In the short space of five months i've mastered the beginning of 'Peaches' and nearly a third of ' Jingle Bells' which is my Christmas party piece covered. I spent a small fortune on books and DVD's covering all the usual plodders like Jaco Pastorius, Jack Bruce and other lightweights and thought "Bollocks" i'll learn the Sid Vicious technique instead ,which is great as you just turn it up as loud as you can slash yourself with a razor blade now and again and if anywone tells you to turn it down you twat them over the head with it!!! sorted brilliant. If anyone's looking for a bass player short on experience but big on self harming give us a shout i'm only a phone call away.
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Lawrence
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Edited Aug 12, 2008, 01:49
Re: Bass. How hard can it be ?
Aug 12, 2008, 01:48
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Well I've done some stuff with a bass. Mostly did Jah Wobble type stuff but trying to imitate Peter Hook was a bit more difficult...
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achuma
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Re: Bass. How hard can it be ?
Aug 12, 2008, 02:05
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To simply chug away on a few notes on the bass is easy. To play it well, to the point people will say "that's one wicked bass player", well, that's not so easy and will take lots of hard practice and preferably some natural talent for the instrument and natural feel for music. It al depends on how far you want to take it - do you just want to take the first baby step, or as far as you can go?
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Five
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Re: Bass. How hard can it be ?
Aug 12, 2008, 03:19
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Some would say you lose all the honest expression the minute you learn proper thing number one about your instrument. Not me, mind, but it's some that would.
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IanB
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Re: Bass. How hard can it be ?
Aug 12, 2008, 06:16
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There's a lot to be said for the happy accidents that come with approaching an instrument with no preconceptions but at some point you have to learn to play the damn thing so that you can get the ideas in your head out into the open and, if you are dealing in conventional western harmony, you might as well learn something about that too. If only so you know which rules you want to break and why.
It's the great failing of English rock and roll since 1976 (and why we turn out so many one record wonders) that people confuse absence of facility on an instrument with some kind of noble and naive primitivism. Not being able to play and choosing to play simple are two very different things.
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rojo
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Re: Bass. How hard can it be ?
Aug 12, 2008, 06:25
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Lawrence wrote: Well I've done some stuff with a bass. Mostly did Jah Wobble type stuff but trying to imitate Peter Hook was a bit more difficult...
how so? all yer got to do is put on a manc accent and grow a beard... oh and just make sure you hit a couple of high notes vaguely in tune
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Squid Tempest
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Re: Bass. How hard can it be ?
Aug 12, 2008, 08:29
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IanB wrote: There's a lot to be said for the happy accidents that come with approaching an instrument with no preconceptions but at some point you have to learn to play the damn thing so that you can get the ideas in your head out into the open and, if you are dealing in conventional western harmony, you might as well learn something about that too. If only so you know which rules you want to break and why.
It's the great failing of English rock and roll since 1976 (and why we turn out so many one record wonders) that people confuse absence of facility on an instrument with some kind of noble and naive primitivism. Not being able to play and choosing to play simple are two very different things.
I don't think you don't need to learn music formally to "get the ideas in your head out into the open". I've never learned to read music, or anything formal about harmony or melody. Instead (coming up via the punk/reggae route originally), I learned to sort of play by ear*. It works for me, although, admittedly, I'm not sure how many people would call me a good bass player!
*Actually I play with my fingers.
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elegant chaos
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Re: Bass. How hard can it be ?
Aug 12, 2008, 08:51
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Whenever I play bass after ages of playing a guitar - my forearm hurts like hell after a few songs - because of the width of the frets on a bass it can be quite strenuous.
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Spaceship mark
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Re: Bass. How hard can it be ?
Aug 12, 2008, 09:16
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That's why I like the Gibson/Epiphone EB0 with its short scale, really thin neck and really floppy strings.
And the fact that the great big silver pickup is loud and entirely without subtlety...
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Wiggy
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Re: Bass. How hard can it be ?
Aug 12, 2008, 10:02
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It's a mans instrument! =;o)
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