Getting back to practicing Bass after a year’s hiatus, just after some tips and advice

[Mandos]

So for a bit of background, about 2 and a half years ago I decided to learn bass after messing with music theory and failed piano attempts for years. Started with a random Kelly club custom hybrid my family had, swapped to a short scale beater I got to a friend, and finally the spring the following year picked up a sterling sub ray double humbuckler. That’s when I discovered my beater was a short scale and I had a bit of a jarring time trying to adjust. Up to that point I messed with some songs from a tab book(I’m someone who gels well with theory and info but my hands take forever to catch up) and had been using rocksmith for my consistent practice. Problem is I moved, life disrupted my practice and my attempt to give myself a goal for more engagement backfired(joined a video game jazz band that was way beyond my level to match with), and I just wound up going on hiatus.

So a bit under a year has passed and I’ve decided it’s time to fire back up rocksmith, fix one of my issues of convenience (I finally ordered a new solid stand. My place doesn’t support my wall mounts and the stand I got with my beater isn’t very good. Plus I just cleared a spot), and hope the break will allow me to adjust to the full scale better. Even if actually playing with people is still a big question, I love music so I may as well dive back in. Probably making a new rocksmith profile and refreshing my skills too.

So one of the bigger issues I have I wanted to ask for help on is that my reading skills surpass both my ear and playing skills. I can pick up the flow of a song but I suck at identifying shift points by note, the little I’ve done is with a singer on piano as lead, usually doing a simple pattern using their chords as a lead note for offsetting. But while I’m fine reading tabs I’ve had a hard time working on my ear. So I was wondering if anyone had some good advice on that. Also what’s a good rep set (stand alone and/or drill arcade in rocksmith) to work on for drilling back in the basics?

 

Thanks, honestly I really enjoy bass, plus I have zero aptitude for strumming so my attempts to mess with the guitar or the random Mandolin I have lying around were all non-starters

 

[Shroud]

I've been playing bass only for half a year but guitar for much longer (started 30 years ago, on-and-off several times) so take my advice with a grain of salt...

For ear training it's always been difficult for me to find ways to improve alone, without other musicians backing up. One thing in Rocksmith, perhaps not exactly targeted at ear training but which I find useful, is the jam session mode. There you can setup different keys and modes, and improvise at your own pace across chords changes.

For drilling basics, my favourite way is actually to pick interesting repetitive patterns in songs I like and use riff repeater to practice them at different speeds. A couple of my recent favourites are Jethro Tull's "Living in the Past" and Midnight Oil's "Stand in Line".

[Mandos]

@ Shroud that second train of thought is a good one considering one of my faves is She’s not there by the zombies and I was still dropping the occasional note before hiatus. That and the ridiculously long Yes songs that kept kicking my butt. Plus some other official and cdlc songs come to mind. Thanks

 

The jam session thought is an interesting one. Yeah, still haven’t had much luck with people since the one group I found was out of my skill and scope level. Hard to work on anything with a 12 instrument set you can’t keep up with. 

[Shroud]

On 9/17/2022 at 5:44 PM, Mandos said:

So for a bit of background, about 2 and a half years ago I decided to learn bass after messing with music theory and failed piano attempts for years. Started with a random Kelly club custom hybrid my family had, swapped to a short scale beater I got to a friend, and finally the spring the following year picked up a sterling sub ray double humbuckler. That’s when I discovered my beater was a short scale and I had a bit of a jarring time trying to adjust. Up to that point I messed with some songs from a tab book(I’m someone who gels well with theory and info but my hands take forever to catch up) and had been using rocksmith for my consistent practice. Problem is I moved, life disrupted my practice and my attempt to give myself a goal for more engagement backfired(joined a video game jazz band that was way beyond my level to match with), and I just wound up going on hiatus.

So a bit under a year has passed and I’ve decided it’s time to fire back up rocksmith, fix one of my issues of convenience (I finally ordered a new solid stand. My place doesn’t support my wall mounts and the stand I got with my beater isn’t very good. Plus I just cleared a spot), and hope the break will allow me to adjust to the full scale better. Even if actually playing with people is still a big question, I love music so I may as well dive back in. Probably making a new rocksmith profile and refreshing my skills too.

So one of the bigger issues I have I wanted to ask for help on is that my reading skills surpass both my ear and playing skills. I can pick up the flow of a song but I suck at identifying shift points by note, the little I’ve done is with a singer on piano as lead, usually doing a simple pattern using their chords as a lead note for offsetting. But while I’m fine reading tabs I’ve had a hard time working on my ear. So I was wondering if anyone had some good advice on that. Also what’s a good rep set (stand alone and/or drill arcade in rocksmith) to work on for drilling back in the basics?

Thanks, honestly I really enjoy bass, plus I have zero aptitude for strumming so my attempts to mess with the guitar or the random Mandolin I have lying around were all non-starters

What inspires you? Is there something that makes you rush back home from work (or whatever) to pick up the bass as soon as you can?

If you've previously quit playing and you're trying having a second chance, I recommend first and foremost that you stay focused on the positives, whatever works best for you that makes you want to go back to the bass, and makes it hard to put it down when it's time to sleep. Is it RockSmith? Is it jamming over a background track? Is it doing exercises? Whatever it is, keep doing it in order to stay motivated and not quit again.

If you're now motivated about improving your ear, here's a couple of things you can consider spending some time on (but be aware that usually any improvement on your ears takes quite a long time):

- transcribe songs by yourself, write down your own tabs instead of looking for tabs on the web

- try out some ear-training app on your mobile phone (I've used "Perfect Ear" at times, the free version is useful enough, no need to necessarily buy the full version) to learn to recognize the sound of intervals, scales and chords

- if you have a piano/keyboard, use it to try and memorize the sound of intervals and chords, and possibly practice singing them (as in: play a chord you know on the piano,  listen to its sound, then sing its notes in order) I suppose you can also just use your bass for this, but personally I find the piano more comfortable