Upcoming Lesson - what to suggest

[Annoying Twit]

I've got a lesson next Monday. I don't think that with my non-bass responsibilities that I'm going to be able to do weekly lessons etc., but I want to give one a try.

It's only one hour (need to get back home on time). I'm to think of what to suggest should I be asked "so, what would you like to go over?"

The three things I think I'd get the most value from would be:

1] Basics of slap. Particularly for the pops, I don't think I'm physically doing the right thing, and when I try I either seem to get far too mellow a pop, or a way over the top string bounce off the frets. I've seen people doing all sorts of intermediate sounds, but I don't seem to have the physical control to do so. Yet? If I could make good progress towards a simple slap riff that sounds right, both the slap and the pop, that would be a win.

2] Basic tapping. I'd like to be able to tap, and have tried, but don't quite seem to 'get' the physical process of it quite right. Again, if I could progress to a very simple two handed tapping riff within an hour, that would be a win. But, is expecting to get to two hands within an hour unrealistic?

3] Triplets played against simple time signatures. Not quite getting this at the moment though I think it's simple a matter of actually getting around to playing the correct exercises along with examples on training CDs. Perhaps of these three this is the one that I should be able to progress on myself, if I stopped living up to my user name and just do the obvious things to solve the problem. But if I got to the point where I could incorporate triplets in riffs and soling, that would be a win. I *think* I'm hammering on chromatic triplets (?) OK, but think I could do with properly examining whether what I'm playing otherwise as triplets are actually good triplets.

Or, should I:

4] Shut up, and simply place myself at the mercy of the teacher and see what happens.

I wouldn't want to do more than one of these, as it's only an hour. And knowing myself even if the teacher agreed to split the lesson, I probably won't take enough of anything in/wouldn't remember enough, and it wouldn't work.

The problem is: if I'm asked, which of the above options? I'm utterly stumped myself, so the obvious answer of 'whichever you think will benefit your playing the most' won't help. So, any comments/advice would be appreciated. All of the above are skills that I am set on acquiring/refining at some point.

Note: The teacher I'm booked with is on this forum, but appears to be a very busy person so quite possibly won't see this.

[Grangur]

FWIW I'm in a similar postion. I have 1 hour lessons on an ad-hoc basis. I use them to answer questions, make sure my practice is on-track and he takes me over theory stuff. I think it works. Mind you it is about 3-4 months since I had one.

As a mature guy who practices almost every day, I think there's a lot of ground we can cover on our own without a teacher as one key thing we need to do is practice fluency as finding the notes when we need them, reading, playing to a rhythm.

I think I would do well to go back just to check things over.

I do tend to do Item 4 - leave it to the teacher. Or maybe I'm totally wrong on all scores. (It has happened once before)

[Bilbo]

Let the teacher watch you play and see what your strengths ans weaknesses are. You list looks like fluff to me. If you have never had a lesson, you may find you work on basics.

Ron Carter started his first double-bass lesson with Victor Bailey with 'play an F in first position'.

[Annoying Twit]

What do you mean by my list looking like 'fluff'? I don't quite understand what you mean there.

One concern that I do have is that it would be 'start from scratch'. I heard a comment from Andrew Levy of The Brand New Heavies. He described someone standing in front of him in a concert staring at him, then the next day there was a potentially linked forum post where someone said that 'Andrew Levy's technique is AWFUL'.

One parameter I have to work within is that I've had a life of failing to learn to play real musical instruments. Certain things that are the 'right way' to do things aren't going to work with me as they'd just lead to the same old pattern of not practicing for a day, then it becomes two, then it becomes three, and then so on, until I'm an ex-bassist. (A big gap in my postings here reflects one instance of that). Fundamentally, my choice, being I am who I am, MIGHT be to progress towards being an Andrew Levy who does things wrong, but has learnt to do what he does fluently enough that he functions very well as a bass player, or to repeat the same pattern. I've had bass lessons. When I was 14-15. In hindsight, knowing what I know now, those weren't very good lessons. I had two teachers. One had me sight-reading from music, but nothing else. The other had low expectations, and was shocked one day when at a group lesson I played a major scale fill to that song that goes 'green green, it's green they say on the far side of the hill'. When I said 'that's what they do on the record' (one of my mother's records), he replied 'but I didn't expect to hear it here'. I'm booked in with someone (he may read this) who appears to be a very well known and reputable teacher, so I'll see how it goes.

One of my bad learning habits is having loads of books, and sampling them, rather than working through methodically. I'm fine at working methodically in other areas, doesn't seem to work with musical instruments. I don't know how a lesson or lessons now as an adult would work so I'd like to try.

Personally I think I've had much of the value of the lesson already, as knowing that it is coming up, I've been practicing every day. Perhaps I've been internalising some bad technique, but this is what I need to be doing.

Edited December 3, 2013 by Annoying Twit

[Grangur]

Why not go along, play a few familiar riffs and see what the teacher thinks wrt technique. Also tell him what you want to achieve in the medium-long term and ask him to suggest how he can best get you to move on.

I'm a learner too. But I had a lesson where the guy tried to teach me to slap. It's no magic wand. It's the same as watching Flea's lesson on slap on Youtube. (and lots of practice)

What Flea wont tell you is how you can use Modes to get a good bass line and which Mode to use.

Edited December 3, 2013 by Grangur

[Annoying Twit]

I think my theory is OK, but what I'm not used to so much is applying theory in a convincing way in real time. E.g. knowing how chords are constructed and what arpeggios are, I was listening along to AllThumbs' video while working. What I really gained from that video was hearing him switch from playing the notes singly to show the notes of a chord to a plausible bass riff based on them.

I think that physical dexterity is the biggest thing holding me back. But, on Monday that might be exposed as a misconception

[Bilbo]

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1386067912' post='2295152']
What do you mean by my list looking like 'fluff'? I don't quite understand what you mean there.
[/quote]

Basics of slap and tapping. Both are universally applauded but fundamentally peripheral to the business of bass playing. Hence 'fluff'. My point is simply that most people would be better served working on stuff that is useful not whizzy

Ref: triplets. The secret is not concentrate on the pulse, not the triplet. If you make sure you play the notes that are on the beat, the rest takes care of itself.

[Annoying Twit]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1386163090' post='2296556']
Basics of slap and tapping. Both are universally applauded but fundamentally peripheral to the business of bass playing. Hence 'fluff'. My point is simply that most people would be better served working on stuff that is useful not whizzy

Ref: triplets. The secret is not concentrate on the pulse, not the triplet. If you make sure you play the notes that are on the beat, the rest takes care of itself.
[/quote]

Thanks.

I'm not planning to become a professional bassist, bit late for that I think that being able to play slap and particularly tap would significantly increase my personal enjoyment of bass playing.

With triplets over simple time signatures, I seem to have an inbuilt avoidance mechanism. The other day I was trying it, and I found that I was playing triplet eighths at the end of the bar as sixteenth notes, and then pushing (and lengthening) the downbeat of the bar forward by one sixteenth. An interesting rhythm, but not what I was aiming for. Perhaps this was a case where using a metronome, rather than a drum pattern as a metronome, would help, giving less opportunity to play the 'wrong' thing that still fits in some way.

Edited December 4, 2013 by Annoying Twit

[enricogaletta]

It depends from how your teacher is going to plan your studying schedule and off course, for the 60%, it should be made on your needs.
The studying plan, in my opinion, doesn't depend from the fact you want to be professional, free time player, or just bass lover. It's a consequence from how far you wanna go with your bass (and not only..) knowledges.
Just two examples to make clear what I trying to say.. in my teaching experience, I have bass students that want to be professional or they already are and, they want just sharp their skills, but I also have students that play bass as non/professional or just for the love to the bass. Well in both cases, believe or not the schedule I prepare for them, it's the same. Why? because it's the same reason of people took a degree late in the years, is the passion to do something.
I have an old surgery doctor that is simply amazing how he's improving his bass skill, not less than a professional…
So my suggestion is, explain to your teacher, which goals do you wanna reach and give him the time to start and show you the path.. If he is a good teacher and turn on the curiosity and the passion to improve your bass skills and having fun during the lesson (important thing to always keep in mind), you are on the right ship, otherwise you soon find out that something doesn't work good ;-)

[Annoying Twit]

It was a very interesting experience, and not what I expected. The teacher (I don't know if I should say whom) said that my technique is fine, and in fact that I should relax a bit concerning one-finger-per-fret and other techniques. He covered things such as a two finger and thumb plucking technique for triplets that I've been practicing today and will be into the future.

The main theme of the lesson was improvisation and creativity, real time composition, with the main aim identified (* I hope I've remembered this right) being to not rely on muscle memory (playing more or less automatically) but to be able to think ahead concerning what I'm going to play, and with an aim of being able to visualise two different things I might play, and be able to chose one of them. In writing that looks like a small thing, but it's a fundamental change to how I play, and having spent an hour on this already post-lesson (stuck at a railway station with a bass, cable, headphones and a Zoom B2 with batteries ), I can see that there's a lot of work to be done. If I'm using the scales I'm most used to, Ionian, Aeollian, the 'standard' minor and major pentatonic scales, I can visualise the note I'll get with stepwise moves, and obvious intervals to/from the root, but I'm not so good at visualising, and therefore choosing, more adventurous intervals. This is a bigger change to how I do things that it would seem as in hindsight I've realised that my head has been full of ... nothing really when I've been playing.

There was one minor comment made by the teacher that had more import than I thought. I mentioned above that I couldn't get the idea of how slap works. He said that due to the high action on the bass I bought with me, that slap would be tricky. Today I extracted my Rockbass 5-er, and lowered the action until it buzzed like a mad thing, then raised it a bit. Normal fingerstyle on that was awful, but I could actually slap on it! It was a slap 101 ultra-simple riff badly played (must make the thumb play a richer note and not accidentally choke it), but at least it was slap. Of my three basses, the Rockbass was the one I liked least, but now I want to play it. I tried adjusting the action on my Shine to see if it would work as well, but still prefer the Rockbass. The Rockbass even produces a better sound slapped than the slightly insipid (*) fingerstyle sound I get from it. Problem: it's not here, it's at work as a 'if there's a few spare minutes' bass. Now I'll have to bring it home

(*) I liked the sound until I bought my Cimar, but the Rockbass pales in comparison IMHO.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Annoying Twit