Paranoid - Practice Recording

[Spolodaface]

Hi,

I've been playing bass for a few months and thought "hey, I need a second opinion on my technique" as I haven't had lessons on bass before (though I have had a few guitar ones in the past). Anyway its obviously far from perfect - that's not the point otherwise I wouldn't have done it on a guitar amp and i'd probably try and look cool and stop resting my head lazily on the bass as I tend to do sitting down.

Any advice or anything would be appreciated as my judgement is hardly knowledgeable or objective.

Cheers!

[url="http://vimeo.com/11403442"]http://vimeo.com/11403442[/url]

Oh, and I meant to remove the fiddly bit at beginning but forgot... ignore it.

Edited May 2, 2010 by Spolodaface

[velvetkevorkian]

OK- These points are obviously all IMHO, and based on what I consider good technique and musicality. As ever, YMMV...

First thing is that posture you're sitting in will give you a lot of pain if you do it a lot- you don't really want to be hunched over like that if you can avoid it.

Left hand- are you aware you don't use your pinky on your left hand at all? I would try and rectify that. Also, I would recommend not letting the thumb come over the top of the neck- ideally you want it sitting in the middle of the neck roughly opposite your index finger.

Right hand- It looks like you're resting your thumb quite heavily on the strings- you want to be applying as little pressure as possible. I would recommend having a look at some floating thumb videos on youtube, or at least trying to ease off the pressure there.

Its hard to tell as the music is quite hard to make out, but your timing seemed a wee bit rocky in places- I would recommend some metronome or drum machine practice with single notes to get your fingers playing evenly and consistently, then maybe try the tune without all the fills and get it as tight as possible.

The other thing is that the strumming is way, way louder than the fingerstyle stuff- not really an issue here but something you would need to be aware of in a band situation, for example.

I'm assuming you're doing your own take on the bass line as the way you play it is quite different from the recorded version- which is obviously fine, as long as you're aware of it!

Hope that helps, and doesn't sound too patronising!

[Spolodaface]

Cheers, this is stuff I completely overlooked without having a teacher or anything. Pretty simple stuff - thanks. I'll get my timing down, should be having a jam sesh with some friends soon so i'm sure having a real drumkit there should help things along in that respect.

Also as for the hunching over, yeah that would be a major problem, largely cause i'd appear like some sort of crab-thing in the corner of the stage curled in a ball around my bass I usually play standing up, when i'm sitting down I do slouch and that effects my timing also with my wrist in a less natural position. I will work on these and try another song some time and get it

I can't help but not play the original version of the bass in any song. I don't know why, its too hard to do and I need to discipline myself a little more in that respect for band performances.

Thanks for the advice velvetkevorkian

Edited May 2, 2010 by Spolodaface