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Dodgy YouTube bass covers or "lessons" !


musicbassman

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I posted this bass cover of "Never Gonna Give You Up" the other day in the thread about  80's synth style basslines. It's not actually out of tune, but it really bears no resemblance to the actual line whatsoever.

Anyone else got some fine examples of "instructional" videos, bass "lessons" or covers proudly posted on YouTube by their possibly slightly misguided creators?

 

 

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The other YT vid's I enjoy are those where A N Other "reviews" an amp or an instrument. Typically, the "review" will be conducted in A N's living room, which is strewn with old socks and empty pizza boxes. A N usually begins with the words "What's up, guys" and delivers the entire thing in a hyper, over-excited manner, whilst attempting to slap the bass to within an inch of its life. All you can hear, because A N has dropped the action to nothing, is fret rattle and tuneless twanging. Hilarious. I won't be mean to anyone by posting links here, but you can find plenty of examples on YT if you fancy a few minutes amusement.

Edited by Dan Dare
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I always think of "covers" as being the player's version of the song and not the "original" (if there is such a thing) public known version. Lesson or instructional videos, IMHO, should very closely reflect the public known version. 

If I am looking to learn a song from You tube, I would pretty much avoid a "cover" version unless it is very close to (to my ears) the "original" (again, whatever that means). 

I do agree with Mykesbass' post above though.

 

PS Having watched a little more of the video, it is awful!

 

Edited by Bobthedog
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I've got to stand up here and say at least two good words for YouTube cover videos. Of course, you have to be selective with them but there are a couple of guys who put out consistently decent output. As we tend to play a lot of 70s stuff in one of my bands, I always see if a guy called Infusion26 has done a cover of something I'm learning. He never slavishly copies the original but always comes up with a melodic interpretation in his own style. His version of Nights in White Satin was one of the first songs I ever learned with this band and got a lot of compliments when I played it.

I've also been learning While my Guitar Gently Weeps today and found a couple of quite helpful videos. Again, someone's interpretation. But I'll never play like Macca so it will, ultimately, be my interpretation of an interpretation. 

And when Lush, one of my favourite bands, reformed in 2016 Miki, the guitarist, said she re-learned a lot of her parts from watching cover videos on YouTube. So even the original artists sometimes use them!

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If I'm interested in a song I'll seek out the original for sure, and maybe if I'm arranging it for a different kind of group I'll have a look around for some covers too. I'll deliberately avoid "tutorial" or "instructional" style videos, just look for covers. I'd say about 30% of the time, the cover is as good (just different) or improves on an original, but it depends a lot on the song. For example, VERY few people have successfully covered Wuthering Heights, it is a very hard song to do.

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7 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

The other YT vid's I enjoy are those where A N Other "reviews" an amp or an instrument. Typically, the "review" will be conducted in A N's living room, which is strewn with old socks and empty pizza boxes. A N usually begins with the words "What's up, guys" and delivers the entire thing in a hyper, over-excited manner, whilst attempting to slap the bass to within an inch of its life. All you can hear, because A N has dropped the action to nothing, is fret rattle and tuneless twanging. Hilarious. I won't be mean to anyone by posting links here, but you can find plenty of examples on YT if you fancy a few minutes amusement.

You forgot the 'unboxing' part!:D

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Some videos are very good as learning aids, others are just folk enjoying playing the bass. I don't laugh at someone who is clearly inexperienced and just having fun, plenty out there who could laugh at me if they wanted to. I prefer love and support to criticism and sarcasm - but then I'm a bit soft.

Learning someone's interpretation can be a great starting point, assuming the ultimate goal is to improve one's ability to 'hear' a bassline and produce our own interpretation. If the cover deviates from the original that should be the first thing to stand out to us. We can then find where it should go and thus our skills improve.

So any video ultimately can be a learning tool. Even one we might deem as 'wrong', assuming that term can actually be applied to music.

 

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3 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Does he do covers? If it’s the same bloke I’m thinking of.

Who is the bad bloke referred to? I feel I’m missing out.

I just googled and it came up with Ed Friedland

I’m sure I borrowed one of his instructional books once 

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I feel that this balding American player needs to be called out, we wouldn't want an innocent BC'er stumbling upon his videos and being led astray .  I really have no clue who it is!! if it was a Balding English Fella with a Penchant for hats, well that would be easy but I'm less clued up with our Brethren from across the pond.

 

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On 22/04/2019 at 10:40, musicbassman said:

I posted this bass cover of "Never Gonna Give You Up" the other day in the thread about  80's synth style basslines. It's not actually out of tune, but it really bears no resemblance to the actual line whatsoever.

Anyone else got some fine examples of "instructional" videos, bass "lessons" or covers proudly posted on YouTube by their possibly slightly misguided creators?

 

 

He’s not very good but it’s pretty harmless, isn’t it? He’s not purporting to be an expert or offering a transcription, he’s just having a bit of fun. If he’s happy then good luck.

Worse are the snake oil salesman peddling courses that will give you mega chops in seconds that will help you get all the gigs and girls.

Everyone knows that if you want to warm money and gig every night then play DB.

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I too want to know who the bald American is. Walter White?

Notice the guy in vid is playing a 6er and has 3 guitars on the wall, and a left-hand technique to match. So I'm thinking this bass mullarky is not his main thing in life.

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On 22/04/2019 at 10:50, Dan Dare said:

slap the bass to within an inch of its life

and another thing. Just how many slap vids do we need? Scott makes a good point on one of his vids. Just say to the guy 'this one's in C'... ;)

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2 hours ago, Soledad said:

and another thing. Just how many slap vids do we need? Scott makes a good point on one of his vids. Just say to the guy 'this one's in C'... ;)

Slap bass has no practical application in life or good music. It’s like learning to rap in Latin - technically impressive but entirely pointless.

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