I’ve been playin’ for like 6 years, but I wanna see if I can still pick up some new things. And Flea from the Chili Peppers, has been one of my favorite bassists forever (Favorite being Twiggy Remirez/Jeordie White), and from YouTube it looked good.
Anybody else know of that, or any other good bass playing resources?
What sorts of things are you wanting to pick up / get better at? Jazz (walking etc)? Thumping/Slapping? Tapping?
There are a million and one little videos on YouTube, including from famous names, that you can spend years on to improve your playing.
For example, this one which I first saw last year, and ran across again tonight by Victor Wooten. Practice this (you could do this for weeks of practice):
I have only been playing approx 2 years, (6-8 months 18 years ago and another 16-17 months since last year) and suck more or less, and I need to practice more, but slowly and surely am becoming ever so slightly better. (Working now on starting to learn to walk something other than blues)
Well, that one link I posted would be one place to start for the next thing to learn. That skill would be a good one to have. Something I am slowly working on too. That gives a more slap-type percussive sound and allows you to play lots of notes really fast.
There are a ton of other youtube videos from Flea and others full of good nuggets.
There are some slap type videos from a Victor Wooten camp where Anthony Wellington shows how to do a bunch of really fast slapping type playing using all sorts of actions together, and another where Anthony Wellington shows how to shift your riffs by a 1/16th note (and keep doing it) so that the same riff lands on different beats and sounds like something new and different. Those are skills for all styles of play.
Good luck! If you find some video segments that really excite you to technique, post them here so we can all learn from them!
(and learning how to do a good walking line is probably a skill that will help you and not just for “jazz”)
Anthony Wellington on the displacement technique of moving the bassline an 1/8th or 1/16th at a time to develop new basslines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asYfvMzjk7M
Second for Wooten… Haven’t heard much from Stanley Clark of recent, might be worth checking out. He was one of the first that I had heard tapping. Tal, that little girl that plays with Beck is interesting. A few of my old rock favorites are like Wetton, Squire, Ridley, Entwistle.
You basically buy tunes from them where the original records are broken out into parts. They sell bass versions of lots of tunes. Allows you to listen to the actual real bass lines from some of your favorite tunes.
Me too… Chris’s ‘Fish Out of Water’ is a fantastic composition. It doesn’t get good reviews. I guess you have to be a musician to appreciate. Topographic Oceans is about the top of the list for my Yes influence. I’ve been playing guitar since the 60s. Howe was a major influence. I played mood for a day and part of Topographic (can’t remember the piece) at folk festivals in the 70s. Also a Genesis fan until Gabriel left. Crimson up til Red. I’m showing my age now…
A thread I started for guitarists back a while. A few pics and clips…
Actually Frank Gambale is a really good guitar player. He doesn’t play Bass. The guy who has played with Chick Corea the most since the 80s as a bassist is John Patitucci.
He played with Chick Corea’s Acoustic Band and Electric Band from their formation until very recently. Wooten just toured with the Electric Band, but the studio stuff was still Patitucci IIRC.
In the old days, when Chick Corea was part of Return To Forever, they had Stanley Clark as bassist.
Looks like RTF is formed again (with Stanley Clark as bassist again)
Stanley Clark, Marcus Miller, and Victor Wooten made an album together and toured together. Lots of interesting videos on YT of these three bass maestros playing together