I Think I'll Play Bass
I Think I'll Learn How to Play a Bass
Where was I? Oh yes. I was marching around wearing a chicken suit and a sousaphone (simultaneously), a super super senior in college, thinking I knew more about music than all the music majors at the Lionel Hampton School of Music.
But the whole time there was one thing that I always wanted to do that I hadn't yet. I wanted to get back into music. I wanted to learn either bass (acoustic upright of course), or piano. I fumbled around waiting for an opportunity for one or the other to crop up for years. Then one day it arrived. Our neighbor of ten years, Patty, taught piano to both our children, but for some reason I never thought to take a lesson myself. But her daughter was the bass player in a folk group called "The Two Dollar Bills". On nice evenings in the summertime we would hear the soft tinkling of stringed instruments wafting over the fence between our houses. Once they played in the front yard and then took a break, leaving the bass lying in the grass affront the house.
So I sauntered over there and picked it up. I plucked two strings and instantly new how to play it. You see, the strings on a bass are five half steps (on a chromatic scale) apart. So that means that the fifth from any root is same fingering position and one string down.
Ok, that might be a bit complex for someone with no music experience. So I'm going to try to boil music theory down to just one or two paragraphs. Let's give it a try.
A song is -- A melody (usually with words) overlaid on a progression of chords with rhythm.
A chord is -- A group of notes that compliment each other in harmonic ways.
Harmonic -- a note having certain sub frequencies that match those of other notes in the chord.
The most popular chords are Major and Minor, which both contain the root, third, and fifth of a scale.
Here are the notes of major scale: root-do, 2-re, 3-mi, 4-fa, 5-so, 6-la, 7-ti, octave-do. Just like The Sound of Music. The only difference between the major and minor scales is that the third is flat (a half step down).
So, in a song, the lead instrument is playing a melody, some sequence of notes that often reflect the inflection and rhythm of human speech, while the rest of the instruments and/or voices are playing chords that harmonically support that melody. And the rhythm of non-melody instruments usually follows a style, such as rock, reggae, blues, etc.
And there it is. Now you know everything there is to know about music. Ok, there is a bit more. The rhythm instruments: A guitar will play and chord all notes at once, and the strum becomes the rhythm, as if to say "dog". But the bass will play the chord one note at a time as if to say "D, O, G". But all the rhythm instruments play the same chord at the same time. And in fact they combine their chords into a combined rhythm. For example, in country and folk music, the bass will play the root of the chord on the 1st count of the measure and the 5th of the chord on the 3rd count, while the guitar plays the entire chord on the 2nd and 4th count of the measure (called the back beat). Other genres will vary who plays when and how much syncopation, but basic rules apply.
Ok, that took three paragraphs. But you see, the minute that I figured out that a root and 5th was so easy to play on a bass, I knew this was the instrument for me. So I went on ebay and ordered a brand new (BLUE) cheap Chinese upright acoustic 3/4 bass. 500 lousy bucks (a good bass can cost anywhere from $8k to $32k. The same day I went down the to local pawn shop and bought a crappy $100 electric bass and crappy $50 bass amp because I couldn't handle the 10 day wait for delivery of the acoustic. I couldn't play the crappy electric bass for shit. Frets. I can't handle frets. Fat fingers.
The acoustic bass arrived. I would have to dig too much to find an early picture of the bass, so here's one from playing at John's Alley, a local pub here in Moscow that has live music two or three days a week.
And here is a happy me once I’ve learned to play it well enough to play with a number of groups. But this also is well in the future of this story:
I had it set up by a professional luthier (look it up -- not going to explain it), and began figuring out how to play it. Yes, I am completely self taught. Never took a lesson ("All my notes are a matter of guessin"). As a result, I have horrific technique. I get the notes I want but I do so in ways that would make a pro bassist blush.
I learned how to play by trying to play the bass line of all (some) of the songs on my music playlist. The first song I successfully learned how to play was a tune by Ray Charles. Not terribly simplistic either. I can't even remember which song but my romantic memory thinks it was Mary Ann:
Probably wasn't one so complicated, but anyhow, once I learned one song I knew the rest were possible. I would just fast forward through most songs on my playlist that were at the time impossible, and try the simple ones. In the first few months I went from figuring out a few songs to being able to ferret out maybe 30 percent of the songs on my playlist.
This point in the story occurred 9 or 10 years ago. Somewhere around 2010 or 2011.
More tomorrow.
Where was I? Oh yes. I was marching around wearing a chicken suit and a sousaphone (simultaneously), a super super senior in college, thinking I knew more about music than all the music majors at the Lionel Hampton School of Music.
So I had a career and a family and grew all up, sort of.
But the whole time there was one thing that I always wanted to do that I hadn't yet. I wanted to get back into music. I wanted to learn either bass (acoustic upright of course), or piano. I fumbled around waiting for an opportunity for one or the other to crop up for years. Then one day it arrived. Our neighbor of ten years, Patty, taught piano to both our children, but for some reason I never thought to take a lesson myself. But her daughter was the bass player in a folk group called "The Two Dollar Bills". On nice evenings in the summertime we would hear the soft tinkling of stringed instruments wafting over the fence between our houses. Once they played in the front yard and then took a break, leaving the bass lying in the grass affront the house.
So I sauntered over there and picked it up. I plucked two strings and instantly new how to play it. You see, the strings on a bass are five half steps (on a chromatic scale) apart. So that means that the fifth from any root is same fingering position and one string down.
Ok, that might be a bit complex for someone with no music experience. So I'm going to try to boil music theory down to just one or two paragraphs. Let's give it a try.
A song is -- A melody (usually with words) overlaid on a progression of chords with rhythm.
A chord is -- A group of notes that compliment each other in harmonic ways.
Harmonic -- a note having certain sub frequencies that match those of other notes in the chord.
The most popular chords are Major and Minor, which both contain the root, third, and fifth of a scale.
Here are the notes of major scale: root-do, 2-re, 3-mi, 4-fa, 5-so, 6-la, 7-ti, octave-do. Just like The Sound of Music. The only difference between the major and minor scales is that the third is flat (a half step down).
So, in a song, the lead instrument is playing a melody, some sequence of notes that often reflect the inflection and rhythm of human speech, while the rest of the instruments and/or voices are playing chords that harmonically support that melody. And the rhythm of non-melody instruments usually follows a style, such as rock, reggae, blues, etc.
And there it is. Now you know everything there is to know about music. Ok, there is a bit more. The rhythm instruments: A guitar will play and chord all notes at once, and the strum becomes the rhythm, as if to say "dog". But the bass will play the chord one note at a time as if to say "D, O, G". But all the rhythm instruments play the same chord at the same time. And in fact they combine their chords into a combined rhythm. For example, in country and folk music, the bass will play the root of the chord on the 1st count of the measure and the 5th of the chord on the 3rd count, while the guitar plays the entire chord on the 2nd and 4th count of the measure (called the back beat). Other genres will vary who plays when and how much syncopation, but basic rules apply.
Ok, that took three paragraphs. But you see, the minute that I figured out that a root and 5th was so easy to play on a bass, I knew this was the instrument for me. So I went on ebay and ordered a brand new (BLUE) cheap Chinese upright acoustic 3/4 bass. 500 lousy bucks (a good bass can cost anywhere from $8k to $32k. The same day I went down the to local pawn shop and bought a crappy $100 electric bass and crappy $50 bass amp because I couldn't handle the 10 day wait for delivery of the acoustic. I couldn't play the crappy electric bass for shit. Frets. I can't handle frets. Fat fingers.
The acoustic bass arrived. I would have to dig too much to find an early picture of the bass, so here's one from playing at John's Alley, a local pub here in Moscow that has live music two or three days a week.
And here is a happy me once I’ve learned to play it well enough to play with a number of groups. But this also is well in the future of this story:
I had it set up by a professional luthier (look it up -- not going to explain it), and began figuring out how to play it. Yes, I am completely self taught. Never took a lesson ("All my notes are a matter of guessin"). As a result, I have horrific technique. I get the notes I want but I do so in ways that would make a pro bassist blush.
I learned how to play by trying to play the bass line of all (some) of the songs on my music playlist. The first song I successfully learned how to play was a tune by Ray Charles. Not terribly simplistic either. I can't even remember which song but my romantic memory thinks it was Mary Ann:
Probably wasn't one so complicated, but anyhow, once I learned one song I knew the rest were possible. I would just fast forward through most songs on my playlist that were at the time impossible, and try the simple ones. In the first few months I went from figuring out a few songs to being able to ferret out maybe 30 percent of the songs on my playlist.
This point in the story occurred 9 or 10 years ago. Somewhere around 2010 or 2011.
More tomorrow.
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