I just tested and I really can't see different colours in notes! Just when changing pitch! Usually I see music itself as colour, but not individual notes. For me the colours just go from hot to cold as in low to high throughout the whole pitch level, but not cycling over octaves... I believe if I've heard piano when in womb I should have potential for perfect pitch, but it's clear even my relative pitch sometimes sucks! But then, when playing CD, this sounds weird but I can sometimes sense exactly what note is coming next, without remembering the song. At least I can figure shit out decently when playing over a song. Of course with bass you just play one note at a time and it's so low pitch it's kinda forgiving. But with certain music like Cradle of Filth I seem to be in my element.
Let's make me a good bassist... tips?
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ESA1996
Active Member
AFAIK this is pretty common among people who have played/listened to a lot of music. Certain melodies are just destined to go to a certain note and you can hear the note coming before it does. Occasionally composers play around with this and put a different note to the one that one would expect. Sometimes this works great and creates some interesting stuff in songs, other times it just doesn't work and you will forever be annoyed at the part of the song that doesn't go "as it should".
1:21 one is the worst example I can think of a melody not going where it should. It's clearly intentional as it goes "right" at 2:47 but I still get annoyed whenever listening to it.
Something I've occasionally wondered is that how different are these "projected notes" between people?
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Why that 1:31 - section in that song reminds me of the chorus in this song:
I'm sorry tho this pop shit sounds so gay my eyes hurt!
Actually tho, I didn't even mean melodies, but quiet sections in songs, where you totally have to guess what comes next. And often I've picked just the right note with intuition, on Cradle of Filth albums.
And yeah, sucks when you know better than the artist how some melody is supposed to go, instead of delivering an eargasm it ventures down the fucking cliff.
I'm sorry tho this pop shit sounds so gay my eyes hurt!
Actually tho, I didn't even mean melodies, but quiet sections in songs, where you totally have to guess what comes next. And often I've picked just the right note with intuition, on Cradle of Filth albums.
And yeah, sucks when you know better than the artist how some melody is supposed to go, instead of delivering an eargasm it ventures down the fucking cliff.
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ESA1996
Active Member
ESA1996
Active Member
About modes...
How are the mixolydians etc named when I'm tuned to BEAD and play harmonic minor scale?
And since there's one name for each of the seven modes (notes) contained in the scale, can I play a mode starting on say C# starting from any place with C# and it's still got the same name? In other words can I play a mode starting from any spot on the fretboard where the starting note appears?
Every instructor just assumes you're tuned to E and only play major scale (makes me feel like my musical soul has chosen the Dark Side). Yeah the bass sounds pretty in E tuning, but in metal you could actually survive with just the lowest 2 strings up until 12th fret... I try to play from elsewhere as much as sonically coherent and artistically at place, but practically that's all for jazz and stuff...
How are the mixolydians etc named when I'm tuned to BEAD and play harmonic minor scale?
And since there's one name for each of the seven modes (notes) contained in the scale, can I play a mode starting on say C# starting from any place with C# and it's still got the same name? In other words can I play a mode starting from any spot on the fretboard where the starting note appears?
Every instructor just assumes you're tuned to E and only play major scale (makes me feel like my musical soul has chosen the Dark Side). Yeah the bass sounds pretty in E tuning, but in metal you could actually survive with just the lowest 2 strings up until 12th fret... I try to play from elsewhere as much as sonically coherent and artistically at place, but practically that's all for jazz and stuff...
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ESA1996
Active Member
Normal modes go like this:
Major / Ionian
Dorian
Phygrian
Lydian
Mixolydian
Minor / Aeolian
Locrian
Harmonic modes go like this:
Harmonic Minor
Locrian #6
Ionian #5
Dorian #4
Phygrian Dominant
Lydian #2
Superlocrian
(I actually had to look that one up
)Anyway, as you can see only three of the harmonic modes are actually named. The rest are just descriptions of how they differ from their natural counterparts. Worth noting that superlocrian is actually the harmonic version of mixolydian, not locrian.
Identifying scales
Identifying a scale is done by looking at the notes it contains. This leaves a problem however. A scale with the notes of B C# D E F# A can be any of the 7 modes of B minor. Finding the root chord will tell you which one it is.
Root chord
Root chord is not an official term AFAIK. Ensimmäisen asteen sointu is what it's called in Finnish. Similar to notes, chords are named with numbers. You have E, the 4th note of B minor, which is called a 4th quite often as it's easier, when switching scales, to find the right note based on a number than a letter. Chords use a similar system. The first chord of B minor is the I chord, the 4th chord is the IV chord and the 5th chord is the V chord. The I chord is the root chord.
How to identify the root chord?
Basic intuition will usually tell you which one it is but a good tip to finding it is that a song will almost always end in the root chord. It is also common for melodies to start with the root chord. The last melody note will also very likely be the root note of the scale the song goes in. This can help you identify whether a scale is, for example, B minor or D major.
Where can you play said D major then?
Anywhere with the notes of D major. As long as the chord progression under it maintains D major as the root chord, the scale will be D major too, no matter where you play it, even if you start a melody from, say, a G note which would, without the underlying chord progression, make the D major scale appear more like a G lydian.
Some more CD:s:
Cradle of Filth - Bitter Suites To Succubi
Cradle of Filth - Godspeed On the Devil's Thunder (awesome songs: Shat Out of Hell, Darkness Incarnate)
Moonspell - Darkness and Hope
Cradle of Filth - Damnation and a Day (awesome songs: Promise of Fever, Presents from the Poison-Hearted)
Nile - Annihilation of the Wicked (did this 2 times, it's exotic and brutal)
Dimmu Borgir - Mourning Palace (easiest album so far)
Arch Enemy - Rise of the Tyrant (there's a piece worth checking out in songs 2, 3 and 6)
So far Cradle is my favourite stuff to play on bass. I originally expected Hypocrisy to be the main thing, but... I will say more later when I play some of them, one album was impossible to understand bass wise, or just mixed inaudible, or maybe it's quite technical... (like Bodom, it would be impossible to play over Bodom without knowing the songs by ear in advance.) And Type O Negative, but I will spare them for a bit later after I've honed out my noobness.
What I notice in bands like Cradle and Arch Enemy is they seem to have a selected three notes in each song that are like the theme of that song and keep repeating quite a lot? I do get faster all the time picking up what the notes are.
Cradle of Filth - Bitter Suites To Succubi
Cradle of Filth - Godspeed On the Devil's Thunder (awesome songs: Shat Out of Hell, Darkness Incarnate)
Moonspell - Darkness and Hope
Cradle of Filth - Damnation and a Day (awesome songs: Promise of Fever, Presents from the Poison-Hearted)
Nile - Annihilation of the Wicked (did this 2 times, it's exotic and brutal)
Dimmu Borgir - Mourning Palace (easiest album so far)
Arch Enemy - Rise of the Tyrant (there's a piece worth checking out in songs 2, 3 and 6)
So far Cradle is my favourite stuff to play on bass. I originally expected Hypocrisy to be the main thing, but... I will say more later when I play some of them, one album was impossible to understand bass wise, or just mixed inaudible, or maybe it's quite technical... (like Bodom, it would be impossible to play over Bodom without knowing the songs by ear in advance.) And Type O Negative, but I will spare them for a bit later after I've honed out my noobness.
What I notice in bands like Cradle and Arch Enemy is they seem to have a selected three notes in each song that are like the theme of that song and keep repeating quite a lot? I do get faster all the time picking up what the notes are.
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Works0fheart
Active Member
What I'm about to say please do not take offense to, but there really is no way to take short cuts with becoming a musician and it seems you don't really have a set routine in place or an organized way to practice. Yes, what you are doing is very helpful, but it is one of many, many aspects to playing an instrument. I won't try to say that any one thing is more important than another, but right now you seem to lack discipline which is very important when learning any thing. Yes, I understand that scales and things like that can become boring and it may seem useless for an instrument like bass, but I think it should still be approached the same way as any other instrument.
A good example for things to practice would be some of these things
- Time/Tempo - Different key signatures and how to properly play patterns of notes within each and being able to identify those patterns and signatures by name (triplets, waltz', etc). A huge majority of musicians in the making get stuck just noodling around the fretboard trying to stay in whatever key they're in at the time without really paying much mind to what is going on rhythmically.
- Inversions/Harmonies/Octaves - Take a part of a song or riff that you like and learn harmonies for it, or playing it in different positions. A good example of a band to do this with for harmonies is of course Iron Maiden. Be sure to really keep an eye on what is happening with each voice though as opposed to just committing the parts to muscle memory. Inversions are also great because it forces you to take a chord or something of that sort and approach it in a whole new way. Octaves are pretty straight forward, but still important I think.
- Right and Left hand dexterity - Practice each of these individually and together. Try to play strict legato with your left hand for a set period of time, but also try to do several picking patterns with your right hand in another set period of time. Finally, bring both hands together and try to articulate your notes as cleanly as possible with these techniques. With your left hand, be sure to also use different combinations of fingers for the same line for instance, this way you can have well developed strength no matter what combination of fingers you are forced to use.
Here is a video for guitar that helps a bit with the legato thing but this can very easily be applied to bass
Again, what you're doing with improvisation is great, but be sure to build yourself a routine. Make sure to set a schedule up for yourself where you are setting aside an allotted amount of time for each activity. Another important aspect is monitoring your progress somehow. Make sure to keep notes of how fast you can play something or recordings of how clean you are playing. This may seem arbitrary and pointless at first but it's the best way to see if you're progressing when you can compare your practices with older practice sessions.
Like I said, not trying to be harsh, just trying to give you some constructive criticism. Best of luck to you.
I try to find ways to practice different areas (such as the ones you mentioned - I'm looking into it) in a useful way, so I could develop a routine that actually benefits me. It feels like the challenge bigger than learning itself is actually understanding what to practice/learn. Trying to play over songs is just one nice form of practice, and in no way intentional to insult those who practiced till their fingers bled and grew cobweb in their hair before even imagining to be worthy of attempting to play over a section of a song.
What I notice when playing over a CD is it's difficult to perfectly do all these things simultaneously:
- figuring the notes that are being played by guitars and keyboards
- staying in rhythm with the drums
- playing fast
- playing clean
- maintaining movement instead of standing still, changing stance depending what's being played
My pattern of learning anything in life is: understanding what exactly you're doing, understanding the big picture (and your role in it), dividing everything to segments, then connecting the seams / understanding how they correlate.
What I notice when playing over a CD is it's difficult to perfectly do all these things simultaneously:
- figuring the notes that are being played by guitars and keyboards
- staying in rhythm with the drums
- playing fast
- playing clean
- maintaining movement instead of standing still, changing stance depending what's being played
My pattern of learning anything in life is: understanding what exactly you're doing, understanding the big picture (and your role in it), dividing everything to segments, then connecting the seams / understanding how they correlate.
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Works0fheart
Active Member
That's a good way of looking at it. There are a lot of exercises in the world of both bass and guitar that seem super tedious and pointless until you've gotten really good at them and then you start seeing those techniques flowing into various areas of your playing.
Great routine today... After playing over an album I sat down with 80 bpm metronome, went thru both the minor scales I know in every different way I could think of. Even spelling out the names of tones in modes while proceeding with only every second beat. Then I doubled speed in the 80 bpm going back and forth the fretboard in this X-motion, advancing one fret at a time (sweep picking), such as:
-1-------------4-2-------------5-3-------------6-----
---2---------3-----3---------4-----4---------5-------
-----3-----2---------4-----3---------5-----4---------
-------4-1-------------5-2-------------6-3-----------
Btw now I understand the reason why bass fretboard is easier to memorize than guitar is not just the fact it's got less strings, but because it's symmetrical, while the guitar has that one odd string due to the E-F / B-C rule which means one has to learn so frigging many shapes for the chords on guitar.
Yesterday I played over Behemoth - The Apostasy, couldn't tell much more than each song using one note more than others (is that what they call the key?)
Today played over Swallow the Sun - Emerald Forest and the Blackbird, obviously a dynamic and memorable album that covered the whole bass fretboard pretty much.
-1-------------4-2-------------5-3-------------6-----
---2---------3-----3---------4-----4---------5-------
-----3-----2---------4-----3---------5-----4---------
-------4-1-------------5-2-------------6-3-----------
Btw now I understand the reason why bass fretboard is easier to memorize than guitar is not just the fact it's got less strings, but because it's symmetrical, while the guitar has that one odd string due to the E-F / B-C rule which means one has to learn so frigging many shapes for the chords on guitar.
Yesterday I played over Behemoth - The Apostasy, couldn't tell much more than each song using one note more than others (is that what they call the key?)
Today played over Swallow the Sun - Emerald Forest and the Blackbird, obviously a dynamic and memorable album that covered the whole bass fretboard pretty much.
ESA1996
Active Member
I actually used to play that same X shape pattern on guitar except that with 6 strings I always skipped the A and B strings, otherwise it was identical.
The root note is usually the most used note in a song so if there were say, more B notes than anything else, the song will most likely be in B something. Being Behemoth I'd imagine it would be B minor or perhaps some diminished scale.
B Diminished: B C# D E F G G# A#
As you can see the diminished scale have nothing in common with the normal major/minor scales. They are just alternating between fulltone, semitone, fulltone, semitone... They even have 8 notes per octave compared to the modal 7. A diminished scale mode exists where the thing starts with a semitone instead of a full tone so it would go B C D D# F F# G# A.
Did the same shit today. First played over album Swallow the Sun - Hope, then the routine I did yesterday, only today I practiced the modes also starting from the 2nd string. (Is this wrong? Also, can you use open notes in modes?) At least it helps to memorize the notes from up also. When going thru the modes and spelling the note names I play every second beat. Needed several attempts always to get it right.
I raised the metronome from 80 to 90 bpm. In the last X-figure practice when playing 2 notes /beat it was almost too much; one definitely doesn't develop so rapidly.
This song was pretty epic, it seemed to use B, G and A from many places on the fretboard. The enchanting female choir melody (starting 4:20) I even mimiced from the top of the fretboard - the bass is playing it at some points such as 5:55 from up in the middle. Maybe it's their other guitar that uses less distortion, playing on lower strings closer to the right, or maybe it's the bass, hard to say.
I raised the metronome from 80 to 90 bpm. In the last X-figure practice when playing 2 notes /beat it was almost too much; one definitely doesn't develop so rapidly.
This song was pretty epic, it seemed to use B, G and A from many places on the fretboard. The enchanting female choir melody (starting 4:20) I even mimiced from the top of the fretboard - the bass is playing it at some points such as 5:55 from up in the middle. Maybe it's their other guitar that uses less distortion, playing on lower strings closer to the right, or maybe it's the bass, hard to say.
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ESA1996
Active Member
Did the same shit today. First played over album Swallow the Sun - Hope, then the routine I did yesterday, only today I practiced the modes also starting from the 2nd string. (Is this wrong? Also, can you use open notes in modes?) At least it helps to memorize the notes from up also. When going thru the modes and spelling the note names I play every second beat. Needed several attempts always to get it right.
I raised the metronome from 80 to 90 bpm. In the last X-figure practice when playing 2 notes /beat it was almost too much; one definitely doesn't develop so rapidly.
This song was pretty epic, it seemed to use B, G and A from many places on the fretboard. The enchanting female choir melody (starting 4:20) I even mimiced from the top of the fretboard - the bass is playing it at some points such as 5:55 from up in the middle. Maybe it's their other guitar that uses less distortion, playing on lower strings closer to the right, or maybe it's the bass, hard to say.
The modes, while not as commonly used as major/minor, are good to know all over the fret board just like the major and minor scales (Though I must admit I only know G major and C major by heart as they are the same as E and A minor). TLDR: No matter where you start practicing a scale it is never wrong as long as the notes you play belong in said scale. There's nothing wrong with playing open strings either.
Noticing I haven't memorized the upper notes much, I seem to have focused on the root, always telling the higher string notes deriving thru a root... so today I started spelling over modes starting from the top. Maybe someday every note can come instantly, like the ones that are now firm in the memory...
Question of the day: as I'm practicing in B tuning, will it be difficult to transpose the note shape of the fretboard in my mind if I want to play in E on another bass?
Question of the day: as I'm practicing in B tuning, will it be difficult to transpose the note shape of the fretboard in my mind if I want to play in E on another bass?
ESA1996
Active Member
If you tune up to E and wish to play in B minor it will be a challenge but if you play in E minor the fret positions will be the exact same as B minor in B tuning.
Oh yeah. Then there's of course the possibility that I have my shit set in B, while a band I play might have their songs designed for E.
ESA1996
Active Member
That's not too hard. E minor in B tuning is the same as A minor in E tuning. The only difference is that the second note of the scale is dropped by one semitone.
B minor:
B C# D E F# G A
E minor:
E F# G A B C D
In this case said semitone would be the lowering of C# to a C. Otherwise the scales are identical.
The natural minor shape is very easy to memorize, it's quite linear, but when you throw one note a half step away, like say the harmonic minor, the shape is all around the place, takes a bit more work to instantly tell the pattern with your eyes.
About drums:
There are sections in songs where pedal drum kicks faster than a guitar riff proceeds. Is there a general rule or do I juts have to listen to tell whether I play as fast as the pedals or as slow as the guitars?
Then there are rhythmic changes where drums suddenly do unexpected things during a stable guitar presence (tempo), should I then stay in the timing followed by guitars, or jump in to do the unexpected fills with drums?
They say a bassist has to lay the rhythmic foundation, but sometimes it seems unclear whether it's the guitars or drums that form the speed of the song.
About drums:
There are sections in songs where pedal drum kicks faster than a guitar riff proceeds. Is there a general rule or do I juts have to listen to tell whether I play as fast as the pedals or as slow as the guitars?
Then there are rhythmic changes where drums suddenly do unexpected things during a stable guitar presence (tempo), should I then stay in the timing followed by guitars, or jump in to do the unexpected fills with drums?
They say a bassist has to lay the rhythmic foundation, but sometimes it seems unclear whether it's the guitars or drums that form the speed of the song.
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