5 tips that will make you a better bass player

Rocker

Found this on the internet:



Makes a lot of sense.

Funkfingers

Tip 1 spells the end of Adam Clayton's career.

Bridgehouse

I thought she might have been the bass playing equivalent of Mary Spender and develop a @darthed1981 style crush - but, er, no. Nope. Nah. No.

Bridgehouse

Interestingly, I do tips 1-4 pretty much 100% of the time, and she's spot on. 5 however, I partly disagree. Keeping it "down" is important for the right parts of the song - but if you play in a band with a lot of dynamics, then playing higher up, with more subtlety as she calls it is actually very useful. 

Otherwise not a bad vid tho!

Rocker

I think the 5 tips can be distilled down to 1: Less is more

Bridgehouse

Rocker said:

I think the 5 tips can be distilled down to 1: Less is more

That's true. 

I find myself considering every note actually. That might sound a bit "wanky" but it's true - I do.

darthed1981

Bridgehouse said:

I thought she might have been the bass playing equivalent of Mary Spender and develop a @darthed1981 style crush - but, er, no. Nope. Nah. No.

I thought your muse was Olivia Colman?

Bridgehouse

darthed1981 said:

Bridgehouse said:

I thought she might have been the bass playing equivalent of Mary Spender and develop a @darthed1981 style crush - but, er, no. Nope. Nah. No.

I thought your muse was Olivia Colman?

It is. sigh. You've started me off, and it's bedtime now..

ICBM

What's wrong with open strings? For a start there's no other way of playing a low E... and they also sound great, exactly because of that natural sustain. You can always lightly damp them if you don't want that.

Most of the rest is spot on though. On the last one, I like playing high up on the low strings because it has a distinctive sound, but I don't on the high strings.

Bridgehouse

ICBM said:

What's wrong with open strings? For a start there's no other way of playing a low E... and they also sound great, exactly because of that natural sustain. You can always lightly damp them if you don't want that.

Most of the rest is spot on though. On the last one, I like playing high up on the low strings because it has a distinctive sound, but I don't on the high strings.

I’m similar - high on low strings. 

I think her point with open strings wasn’t put across well. She seems to be talking about repetitively using open strings throughout the song. To be honest - thinking about it now, I’m not sure what she meant..

horse

The point on open strings seems to be that they will sustain when you change note / muddy and clash - well they won't if you dampetn them when changing....

Point on fills seems to be to not overplay if you can't pull it off and keep in time.. Well yes

Agree on less is more in general

Agree that altering the root note needs to be considered, but I can enjoy it as a device to make a chord sequence less generic, or to introduce one-off variety such as on a last chorus or outro

I do tend to prefer tone lower down the neck

slacker

And if you need to check that those tips work, just go to the nearest hotel elevator.

Bridgehouse

slacker said:

And if you need to check that those tips work, just go to the nearest hotel elevator.

That’s a really good point..

axisus

1 only use the first 5 frets
2 just play root notes
3 never play more than two notes per second
4 only listen to the drummer
5 only use the first 5 frets

Funkfingers

Some of the tips should be dependent on the musical situation. For example, how do you reliably land the one if the drummer is a Keith Moon clone?

It might help to know what style(s) of music the presenter lady usually plays? I figure that it is not Jazz, Fusion, Prog or even a Joni Mitchell tribute. 

octatonic

Actually more is more.

pmbomb

Since I started to learn guitar I understood how cool bass is.

Teetonetal

Tip 1 is wrong. It should be, if you use open strings, mute correctly.
Tip 2 is wrong. It should be make the bass line appropriate to the music.
Tip 3 is wrong. It should be make the bass line appropriate to the music.
Tip 4 is a great way to make very bland music.A rule made to be broken
Tip 5 I broadly agree with, but again not hard and fast and the bass line should be appropriate to the music.

The biggest tip I think any musician should take on board is listen to the music, go where it's taking you. If it requires power and simplicity, do that, if it requires ethereal high fills and FX, do that. Just listen and decide is what I am doing adding to the song, or taking away from it, then adjust accordingly.

PolarityMan

Tip one should be bass slides are awesome.

Freebird

Rocker said:

I think the 5 tips can be distilled down to 1: Less is more

Kim Deal on real bass players

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ox22j

PolarityMan

In the thumbnail the positioning of the play icon totally makes it look like it says "better ass player"