robot_pelican_chin Posted November 28, 2013 Share Posted November 28, 2013 (edited) Hi, Just joined the site, glad to be here! I'm studying electric bass popular music peformance degree (1st year) and as part of our assesments, we have to perform some old blues songs, 1-4-5 progression, you know the one. When it actually comes to performing these songs in a band in front of 50 or something people (I have plenty of performing exp outside music school with play bass in a metal band), I suddenly forget everything I know about the scales and progressions and I sieze up and go inside my 'box' (just playing the root note, or a couple of notes) and making sure I don't make any mistakes. Does anyone else have this problem in any other styles of music and know how to confidently perform a good improvised bassline without it getting too dull, boring or repetetive? I see so many bassists play fluid improvised lines that sound great but when I do it it just seems to sound like a bit of a car crash! Thanks! Edited November 28, 2013 by robot_pelican_chin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CamdenRob Posted November 28, 2013 Share Posted November 28, 2013 I'd play around the usual major for the[i] I[/i] the lydian for the[i] IV[/i] and a myxolidian for the [i]V[/i] ... usual stuff sounds OK if you hover around root, third and fifth, I just tend to use the other notes as passing notes. Different strokes for different folks... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myke Posted November 28, 2013 Share Posted November 28, 2013 Before you play come up with different lines you know off by heart, then you can just go to each one of these and just play between them. But about the nervous thing, just don't panic and relax, if you make mistakes, you make mistakes. It's how you react to these mistakes that makes the difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annoying Twit Posted November 28, 2013 Share Posted November 28, 2013 Can I add the question (which I think might be pertinent to the OP, but please ignore this if it isn't), but how do people improve their phrasing when improvising. I find that knowing which notes to use only gets me so far. Trying to avoid stepwise motion gets me a bit further, but improved phrasing is an important nut that I need to make progress in cracking. The reason I think this might be relevant to the OP is that I feel that working on phrasing is how I'm going to make progress in avoiding improvisations that are ".. too dull, boring or repetitive". Perhaps that might also apply to Robot_Pelican_Chin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myke Posted November 28, 2013 Share Posted November 28, 2013 [quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1385661478' post='2290873'] Can I add the question (which I think might be pertinent to the OP, but please ignore this if it isn't), but how do people improve their phrasing when improvising. I find that knowing which notes to use only gets me so far. Trying to avoid stepwise motion gets me a bit further, but improved phrasing is an important nut that I need to make progress in cracking. The reason I think this might be relevant to the OP is that I feel that working on phrasing is how I'm going to make progress in avoiding improvisations that are ".. too dull, boring or repetitive". Perhaps that might also apply to Robot_Pelican_Chin. [/quote] Now I'm not a pro at improvising at all but a tip is to play in 'sentences'. You only say so many words before you take a breath. Do the same thing with playing. You could try the play what you're singing thing. I'm not at this stage yet though. I'm sure there will be better people along like Urb or Hector etc. who I know are much better at the whole improv thing than I am. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveFry Posted November 28, 2013 Share Posted November 28, 2013 Hi Robot Pelican Chin ( and ) How to confidently perform a good improvised bassline without it getting too dull, boring or repetitive? Well we all would like to know that ! ( My ) Short answer ; Don't worry about it . Just relax , as Myke says , and just listen to what is going on . Long answer ; When we hit a block we tend to make it worse with our own self-criticism . The trick is to discourage the self-criticising , analytical internal dialogue part of oneself , whilst encouraging the spontaneous , creative part . The best way to discourage is to stop feeding , and ignore . The best way to encourage is to feed , or provide an inviting space for inspiration to visit, and trust your subconscious . This feels like a waste of time to the conscious mind , which makes it harder . It looks impossible at first , but the more you do it the easier it gets . ( Everyone says that , I bet ) These guys can explain better than I can , I'm just an autistic pianist : [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_uAhg6cy5s[/media] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK14GFUpZlY[/media] This is called the Effortless Mastery approach . I hope it helps . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo Posted November 29, 2013 Share Posted November 29, 2013 You are clearly not confortable with the form or with improvising in general. You just need to practice more. I have been working on this for 30 years and still feel like a beginner. The best approach to improvising is to sing what you want to play and play it (listen to George Benson playing his guitar/voice unison solos, you will get the gist). The important thing is not to sing what you are playing but to play what you are singing. The difference is massive. As for phrasing - listen to other players REALLY closely and learn their solos (by ear, in the first instance - playing them is easy after that). You need to find players who are in the ball-park idiomatically with what you want to do (a country player's phrasing would be different from a jazz player etc). That's about 20 years work. When you are done, let me know and I can give you another exercise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annoying Twit Posted November 29, 2013 Share Posted November 29, 2013 (edited) I've just had a big improvisation practice. Certainly, thinking about singing length phrases worked. What also worked and helped was to think 'Phil Manzanera'. I appreciate some of his 'less is more' solos and accompaniments with Roxy Music, and when I found a nice tremolo sound in my Zoom B2, that really helped. I was using my own looper and my Shine SB26 bass. Another slightly off-topic conclusion I made tonight is that loopers and six-string basses go together like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong. [I hope I'm not taking over the thread, this is RBC's thread, but improvisation issues are also something I've been thinking about a lot recently. Edited November 29, 2013 by Annoying Twit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hector Posted November 29, 2013 Share Posted November 29, 2013 [quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1385758770' post='2292010'] Another slightly off-topic conclusion I made tonight is that loopers and six-string basses go together like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong. [/quote] My 6 string and my looper agree that you know what's up! Seriously though, best practising is looping my own chord sequences and soloing over them - helps my harmonic understanding and phrasing no doubt, but I get the benefits of learning how to comp with nice voice leading and learning how the lines I'm playing interact with the accompaniment. That and transcribing/analysing the players I want to sound like - learning to sing the solos is painful (and if other people are in the house embarrssing) but starts to pay off eventually! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassist_lewis Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 If roots is what your comfortable with do that for the time being. From what I can tell an examiner isn't necessarily looking for you to tap out altered scales in quintuplets (not on every performance anyway) they're after a strong MUSICAL performance. Keep shedding all your arpeggios and scales and eventually they'll start to feel 'right'. As Bilbo says improvising, and music generally, is a lifetime's work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enricogaletta Posted December 6, 2013 Share Posted December 6, 2013 (edited) Well this is a nice question :-) So first, the final goal to reach with your instrument, after hours and hours by studying and practising, it's just have all your knowledges turn in a more instinct way to play. Off course you need to think about what you're going to play, but in a more automatic way and less deep than when you're at home focusing on the things you're studying; to make an example when you're learning a language, you study all the alphabet, the rules, the dictionary and, the first times you apply it in a real situation, you really think a lot and your mind is so busy ;-) but than, time after time, everything become automatic.. The other thing, once I heard this speech from Mike Stern answering on the same question and he said: "I don't fu@*§ç# care about what other people thinking about me while I playing.." well if you get it, that will help your problem :-), just take a big breath, relax and enjoy your passion for bass and music and think just to how express your emotions ;-) Cheers! Edited December 6, 2013 by enricogaletta Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashwood1985 Posted December 14, 2013 Share Posted December 14, 2013 Good thread guys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robot_pelican_chin Posted January 15, 2014 Author Share Posted January 15, 2014 (edited) Thanks for all your feedback guys! Listening to the feedback and going on the information about scales and arpeggios and styles, the best thing would be to get out there and put what I already know into practise and not worry too much about who is better, or what people are thinking etc as enricogaletta rightly says. It's daunting at first, but hopefully with experience, the theory will take care of itself and feel a bit more natural. Edited February 19, 2014 by robot_pelican_chin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XB26354 Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 Music is a language and if you treat it like that it puts a lot of things in perspective. The answer to your question isn't really about scales and arpeggios. It's about getting a basic vocabulary, an understanding of grammar, and eventually sentences and conversation. Children learn by listening and imitating for a few years, then go to school and learn the way their "first" language is put together. This all seems very obvious, but what often gets missed out in music learning situations is familiarisation by imitation and repetition. Musicians often worry that if they copy other people's licks they end up sounding like a clone, but this is an essential part of learning. No-one suddenly produces beautiful music having never listened to any! When you play, the sum of your experiences and learning are what come out. If you haven't had much experience of a style, then you may come across as a "tourist trying to find the Tower of London" There is lots of good advice above but rather than learning the scales and arpeggios for a "given style" (there aren't any, by the way, a good player can make almost anything fit over almost any style), it is my experience that listening to and taking in plenty of examples of the style is a better first step. The language of music then becomes something you can hang on that experience. This is purely about the music, and doesn't take into account learning the technical aspects of playing an instrument, which is probably another topic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matejj53 Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 I have this feeling too when I am new to something....try to practice improvisation for it every day for 30 minutes (concentrated) without stoping and in a-little while you will be ok Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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