about to have my first bass lesson on monday..

[Geek99]

There is a shop near me that focuses exclusively on tuition. Its five minutes walk from work and they're doing a £5 for 30 minute taster session. I simply dont have the time due to home commitments to take hours out to go to lessons evenings or weekends so lunchtime is my only viable option.

I told him I want help with subdividing the beat, I tend to get a bit lost as I'm concentrating on playing the right notes ( i've tried practicing myself aginst a metronome and I''m not getting there) - i have no trouble finding the 1 each time (theres an online tester somewhere(Korg?) and I averaged 6ms off). Any advice from those who take lessons regularly?

[stingrayPete1977]

Do you read? The biggest part of reading is the rhythm division. Count one and two and etc but only pluck on the ands and so on.

[neepheid]

Yep, that's what I'm doing with my tutor at the moment. Watch those tricky ones where it moves from (playing on the capital lettered words) one AND two AND three AND four AND ONE and TWO...

[Bilbo]

For me, it is about understanding how those subdivisions work. If you understand where each note shoudl be, you can focus you attention on the relationship between the notes you play and where they occur. If you focus on the notes simply as a sequence of noises, you will lose the momentum. If you think of it as a sequence of noises that have a relationship to a pulse, you will start to see where each note is in relation to that pulse. If I were you, I would spend some time worrying about the rhythm and not the notes. I recommend this as a start and endpoint for reading AND UNDERSTANDING rhythms.

[url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=reading+rhythms"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?u...reading+rhythms[/url]

[Geek99]

I can read rhythms with a little thought. Not so god at reading pitch but I can do it slowly

Andrew on here told me to count the smallest division in the bar and that helped - I see that as a kind of trellis to hang the notes on

[51m0n]

Clapping and Counting the 'right' way.

So for 16th notes (semi quavers) count:-

1-e-an-a 2-e-an-a 3-e-an-a 4-e-an-a | 1-e-an-a 2-e-an-a 3-e-an-a 4-e-an-a |

Really really slowly (metronome on about 40bpm).

Now clap the 1(2,3,4) and the an, whilst counting.

Now try just the an

Now the 1(2,3,4) and the a

Now just the a

Now the 1(2,3,4) and the e

Now just the e

Now the e and the an

Now the an and a

Now clap the e and the a (that is the killer-diller right there)

OK, do each of these for a couple of minutes, you do not want your bass in your hands for this at all, you need to be trying to get the sound of the qroove (such as it is) into your head.

Now try joining two of the subdivisions together, so 1-e you would clap once for.

It can help to vocalise these rather than clap them because you are starting to give the notes a duration, rather than just subdividing the beat. So 1-e becomes 'da-ah' as you join them together, whilst the an-a is 'diddy'

That gives you:-

da-ah diddy, say it intime to the beat, and clap on the d's

A bar is:-

da-ah diddy, da-ah diddy, da-ah diddy, da-ah diddy |

Swap them around:-

diddy da-ah, diddy da-ah, diddy da-ah, diddy da-ah |

Now join the middle to semiquavers together:-

da diddy da, da diddy da, da diddy da, da diddy da |

Right out the above rhythms in standard notation (it is not difficult!), this will really help make that link between reading and playing rhythms.

Take the tempo up over a few days to a medium-fast tempo, as you do this it will all click into place.

Right, now comes the really fun bit. Every single time you sit down and listen to music whatever style it is, break up the beats into the subdivisions, clapping or singing them through the whooe song, intentionally swap between them.

Finally write out on a single page every single variation changing from one to another. Now clap, sing, fart your way through that regularly.

Now pick up your bass.

And do it all on that

[Fat Rich]

[quote name='Geek99' post='1286567' date='Jun 29 2011, 04:05 PM'].......
I told him I want help with subdividing the beat, I tend to get a bit lost as I'm concentrating on playing the right notes ( i've tried practicing myself aginst a metronome and I''m not getting there) - i have no trouble finding the 1 each time (theres an online tester somewhere(Korg?) and I averaged 6ms off). Any advice from those who take lessons regularly?[/quote]

You could try setting a metronome going really slow and playing: (you don't need to play the notes on bass, you can tap your hands or sing them)

4 bars of whole notes
4 bars of half notes
4 bars of quarter notes
4 bars of quarter note triplets
4 bars of 8th notes
4 bars of 8th note triplets
4 bars of 16th notes
4 bars of 16th note triplets
4 bars of 16ths and back up the sequence to whole notes again

Try to play through the whole lot without stopping, it can be quite tricky switching into triplet mode but it'll soon become second nature.

Good luck!

[Doddy]

[quote name='51m0n' post='1287348' date='Jun 30 2011, 09:37 AM']Now join the middle to semiquavers together:-

da diddy da, da diddy da, da diddy da, da diddy da |[/quote]

This is why I recommend counting over vocalising...When I read out this particular example the natural rhythm I would say it in would be- quaver,2 semi quavers,quaver (x4),which would result in the bar being in 6/4.

If you count and want to tie the middle semi quavers together,you would count 1 e (&) a, etc. and there is then no room for confusion.

[stingrayPete1977]

[quote name='Fat Rich' post='1287352' date='Jun 30 2011, 09:41 AM']You could try setting a metronome going really slow and playing: (you don't need to play the notes on bass, you can tap your hands or sing them)

4 bars of whole notes
4 bars of half notes
4 bars of quarter notes
4 bars of quarter note triplets
4 bars of 8th notes
4 bars of 8th note triplets
4 bars of 16th notes
4 bars of 16th note triplets
4 bars of 16ths and back up the sequence to whole notes again

Try to play through the whole lot without stopping, it can be quite tricky switching into triplet mode but it'll soon become second nature.

Good luck![/quote]

I like that I will try it when I get time, Cool!

[4 candles]

[quote name='51m0n' post='1287348' date='Jun 30 2011, 09:37 AM']Clapping and Counting the 'right' way.

So for 16th notes (semi quavers) count:-

1-e-an-a 2-e-an-a 3-e-an-a 4-e-an-a | 1-e-an-a 2-e-an-a 3-e-an-a 4-e-an-a |

Really really slowly (metronome on about 40bpm).

Now clap the 1(2,3,4) and the an, whilst counting.

Now try just the an

Now the 1(2,3,4) and the a

Now just the a

Now the 1(2,3,4) and the e

Now just the e

Now the e and the an

Now the an and a

Now clap the e and the a (that is the killer-diller right there)

OK, do each of these for a couple of minutes, you do not want your bass in your hands for this at all, you need to be trying to get the sound of the qroove (such as it is) into your head.

Now try joining two of the subdivisions together, so 1-e you would clap once for.

It can help to vocalise these rather than clap them because you are starting to give the notes a duration, rather than just subdividing the beat. So 1-e becomes 'da-ah' as you join them together, whilst the an-a is 'diddy'

That gives you:-

da-ah diddy, say it intime to the beat, and clap on the d's

A bar is:-

da-ah diddy, da-ah diddy, da-ah diddy, da-ah diddy |

Swap them around:-

diddy da-ah, diddy da-ah, diddy da-ah, diddy da-ah |

Now join the middle to semiquavers together:-

da diddy da, da diddy da, da diddy da, da diddy da |

Right out the above rhythms in standard notation (it is not difficult!), this will really help make that link between reading and playing rhythms.

Take the tempo up over a few days to a medium-fast tempo, as you do this it will all click into place.

Right, now comes the really fun bit. Every single time you sit down and listen to music whatever style it is, break up the beats into the subdivisions, clapping or singing them through the whooe song, intentionally swap between them.

Finally write out on a single page every single variation changing from one to another. Now clap, sing, fart your way through that regularly.

Now pick up your bass.

And do it all on that [/quote]


A Perfect and easy to understand description my friend.... you could make money from this!

Regards

Mark

[Fat Rich]

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' post='1288284' date='Jun 30 2011, 10:00 PM']I like that I will try it when I get time, Cool![/quote]

It's something I used to do to anything with a constant tempo, the indicator click on my car.

Or in time with my footsteps, the better you get at subdividing the faster you get where you're going!

[Faithless]

Seems like you're trying to do too much at one time - if you're working on rhythm, don't mess with the notes - just pick one note, and focus on rhythmic stuff.
And forget the metronome, when learning new stuff like that - do this 'out of time', so that you can come back and correct any mistakes you make eventually.