So my bass playing...

Try here     http://www.bassmasta.net/b/bass_lessons/    I'm almost as good as Levin, but seriously it halped me a lot.

^^ Have you ever heard Pink Floyd basslines? Some of those are pretty tough.

Edited by progismylife - December 08 2006 at 12:29

Yay, I suck too!  Makes me feel good I'm not the only one.... Recently I spent an hour just getting one short riff down from Rush.... still, you don't want to hear it.  Though the songs I've made up, I'm kind of proud of.  You just have to play around and excert your abilities alittle bit.  I've also like taking piano songs from early learning stages and playing those too.  Try playing marry had a little lamb!  That's a fun one!  One suggestion too, try to avoid tabs from tabs sight.  Those things are stupid in my opinion, hence my slaughtering of Rush.  Poor Rush, I hope they never hear my futile attempts to play thier material.  But just start simple and slowly move on, you have to challenge your self with something harder.  If you don't mind metal, Queensryche has some tight stuff, but also a little more simple in some places, just do something that's challenging but not impossible.

Learn as much music theory as you can.

 

Edited by Eetu Pellonpää - December 21 2006 at 14:18

First of all, do you go to a proffesor?
I play bass, and what I did is first learn the arpeggios, scales and positions on all the bass. I remember I started with simple blues and improvisation on it, then rock in general, hard rock, metal, etc. Then the modes, some theory (don't know if that's the right spelling in English), and lots and lots of improvisation ... Actually I'm improvising on complex harmonies to improve my skills (recommended with jazz rock, that has helped me A LOT!) and I'm starting with some exercises to increase speed. Also, if you have a good professor that may help a lot.

If I were you, I'd get a bass guitar teacher, as you're obviously having lots of problems trying this on your own. 

sleeper wrote: Learn your scales and see what notes work together for a certain mood and in what wayyou play it. Experiment is the best option IMO.

    And ignore most of the rest. Then if you want me to like you, bass is not just for rythm, it's a marvellous instrument that should be swinging in the background. So try forming patterns and music, not just one note on the 1st hit.

Thanks for the suggestions and wonderful help. 

It has been steadily improving since I posted this topic.

What I've been doing is that every couple of days during our free time at school me and a friend or two will go to the music room and jam 12-bar blues.  In a little over a month, I'm really learning what rhythmic and melodic patterns sound good. 

There's no better way to improve than to play with other musicians.  Especially superior musicians; you'll have to improve to keep up. 


Edited by rileydog22 - February 08 2007 at 20:27