Natalie: Hello and welcome to the show. This is Gigajam the essential bass skills course part one. My name's Natalie Barrass and our tutor is Terry Gregory. Terry how are you today?
Terry: I'm fine. Thanks for asking. How are you Natalie?
N: I am very well, yes. Now, today is the start of a new dawn, a new day.
T: Mmm
N: The first episode on our road to bass success
T: Are you excited?
N: I'm very excited
T: Me too
N: What, how good are we gonna be at the end of this?
T: At the end of this we're gonna be grade one having gone through Gigajam's essential bass skills lessons one to ten.
N: Yes
T: We'll be grade one and we'll be good enough to play a rock groove and play in a band
N: Very good. Alright what's the plan for today then? What are our lesson objectives?
T: Yeah the way the Gigajam lessons work is there's a group of objectives as you said at the beginning, and each one of those has an outcome which, which we hope to achieve in order to move through, step through each lesson, on route to becoming a better bass player. And usually playing exercises to support that knowledge that we've learnt, and aid our understanding of it. Put it all into practice and then, at the end of the lesson, bit of a rock out, we'll play
N: I like it. Alright, so what're we gonna be doing? What are our objectives? Break them down for me
T: Yeah, good. Our objectives today. The first one is to understand quarter notes, so that's how musicians talk about rhythm, the values, the nominal values of rhythms. The next objective is to talk about root notes, which is what the bass does. It plays one note at a time usually to root the music. Give it a nice firm foundation
N: Mmm
T: So we're gonna learn a couple of notes. We're gonna learn A, and play that in two places using an open string and fretting that note, and the other note we'll learn today is G, and the next objective is to be able to play a rock groove. So to do that we'll use some exercises switching between those two notes back and forth to get that fluency and that flow that you need to be a bass player
N: Okay that's a lot to fit in, in a half-hour slot
T: Shall we get on with it?
N: Let's start. What shall we do first?
T: We should talk about the first objective which is quarter notes. So as I was saying it's the way musicians talk about the length of notes, each song is divided into bars, music's divided into bars, so each bar has a nominal length
N: Mmmhmm
T: And the most usual, the most common length for a bar is 4/4 and that means there's four beats in a bar, and it's so common that they call it common time. So what that would mean is they divide up a bar into four equal fragments, or sections. So that's like dividing one whole into four quarters
N: It's simple when you break it down like that
T: And it's supported by the text there so if we have a look at it
N: These are the Gigajam notes we've got here
T: Yep
N: So that at the bottom, that I'm assuming is a bar?
T: That's one bar. That's how they write music down. It's called notation, music notation. It's the bass clef, which is where the music for the bass is written, and then the C there represents common time, the most common time, which as we said is 4/4. And then those four notes there, each of those is a quarter note. Each of them lasts one beat, one quarter of the bar. So if we were going to play that, we'd count ourselves in. Do you wanna do that?
N: I can. One, two, three…
T: And I play
N: …four
T & N: One, two, three, four
T: I play one quarter note on each of those four beats in the bar so that each quarter note lasts one beat
N: Okay, and then what about when you come to the end of the bar. What happens then?
T: If you come to the end of the bar you could stop or more likely as a bass player you'd keep going, you'd keep the music happening for the rest of the guys in the band. So you would clone, or copy that bar into a whole load of other bars and just keep it rocking and rolling
N: I like it. Well let's keep rocking and rolling. What next?
T: Good. So that was quarter notes. What we should do now is have a look at how we might play some quarter notes on the bass using an open string
N: Mmmhmm
T: And we're gonna use an open string to play the note of A on the bass. So shall I grab my bass?
N: Grab your bass. Let's talk about open strings and sort of the different string notation values that we've got
T: Yeah, here's my bass which has four strings of course. The thickest one which we call the fourth string is the note E
N: Mmmhmm
T: The next one up is A and that's the one you want to keep your eye on cos that's the one we're gonna use today
N: Okay
T: D is the next one and G is the first one. So let's do that again. E
N: E
T: A
N: A
T: D
N: D
T: G. Got it?
N: E, A, D, G. What we should say, and what we should let these guys know, is that you're a left-handed bass player aren't you?
T: Good point, good point, good point. So this looks at bit strange. Maybe if you grab a bass?
N: Mmmhmm
T: You can demonstrate how a normal right-handed person would look playing bass guitar
N: I'm not saying you're abnormal
T: Thank you
N: (Laughs) So we've got E, A, D, G
T: Very good, and which one are we gonna use today?
N: A
T: Very good. So in terms of picking technique, right-hand technique, we just rest that thumb on the pick-up
N: Yeah
T: Very good. And then whatever you're comfortable, probably first finger striking that A string
N: Pulling it up, is that how you do it?
T: Yeah, just giving it a little
(Terry demonstrates striking the A string)
T: Great you don't need to use your left hand at all for this.
N: Mmmhmm
T: Except maybe to support the bass, or control the other strings, maybe stop them from ringing. So if you see any activity here it'll simply be that. I'll try not to use this hand, but its got years of habit of…
N: (Laughs)
T: So let's play four A quarter notes using that open string
N: Alright
T: You can count us in again. You were good at that
N: One, two, three, four
(Natalie and Terry play as Terry counts)
T: One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Good so that was a couple of bars of open A strings. How are you doing?
N: I'm feeling good
T: Yeah, you're looking good
N: I'm feeling the vibe. Have I got it right? Have I got the technique?
T: You look great, you look like a bass player. You look like you're playing open A string chords and notes
N: Lovely
T: Very good
N: Thank you
T: So what we should do next is use the Gigajam software…
N: Mmmhmm
T: …to reinforce our learning. Very good you're scrolling down there so everyone can see the layout of the lesson. And if you go down to lesson one
N: Yeah
T: There are some icons there
N: Okay this is exercise one. We've got three icons
T: Exercise one, yeah
N: Push the one on the left?
T: Yeah that's gonna dial up a video clip from the Gigajam software. There it is, so we'll see somebody demonstrating exercise one. And here he comes, and he's gonna be playing four quarter note open A's.
(Video clip starts with demonstration of quarter notes)
T: As you can see he's not using his left hand
N: No
T: Only using his right hand. Playing four quarter open A string quarter notes, one on each beat of the bar. So now I could loop that video example, watch it again. Focus on it. You know we learn a lot by watching other people, and just getting a special angle on it. And then I might copy that and play along to it. When I feel comfortable and ready to have a go…
N: Mmmhmm
T: …I'll click onto the next, you can do that thank you very much. Click onto the next icon and that's the Gigajam bass Xtractor, which is a very important part of the software. Very high tech. It allows us to play the track and record our performance
N: Right. Okay
T: So that afterwards, I can look at it and listen to it and analyse it and see how I did. See where I went wrong. Address that, maybe correct it
N: Mmmhmm. Alright
T: So if you want to…
N: Let's..
T: …tidy up the screen
N: Open this up here
T: Yep
N: And then pull that down, and then obviously we can see all the different other instruments that are in our backing track there
T: That's right
N: Do you want me to play it, or do you like me to record?
T: Let's record. Let's go for it. We've done a bit of rehearsal, we're ready to go. This is exercise one, we're playing the open A string. Four quarter notes
(Backing track starts to play)
T: Good luck
(Natalie and Terry start to play)
N: You're doing it, not me.
(Laughs)
T: So there we go. We're playing an open A string
N: Yeah
T: Only using one hand. I'm playing four quarter notes and doing my best to put in a good performance on exercise one
N: Yeah. Keeping in time with the music
T: Yeah. Trying to get that continuity and that flow of energy. To keep the band moving
N: Yeah
T: So yeah we'll probably stop there. Thanks for that Natalie.
(Backing track stops playing)
T: If I was doing this for real I'd obviously play right to the end of the track
N: Mmmhmm. Right I've just pushed the A button there, which is A for analyse
T: Good so the Analyser will come up, and that will allow us to look at that performance that we've just recorded and see how well we, how well I did. It's a colour-coded thing so it's a very easy way to see how close you were to perfection.
N: Mmmhmm
T: Did you press on Analyser? Yes is it gonna come up? There it is
N: I think I was being too delicate
T: So, not all that good as you can see. The top line, the top line of notation with the bass clef and the C for common time. That's the computers perfect version
N: Mmmhmm
T: So in an ideal world that's what I'd do. Black notes and then the grey area is for the note length
N: Right and then underneath it is your performance Terry
(Laughs)
T: Mmmm. Maybe I shouldn't have recorded that one. So it's very colourful
N: Yeah
T: But I was hoping for a little more black
N: Mmmhmm
T: So I need to do more practise.
N: Yeah
T: The software is showing me that I didn't always hit an A…
N: Okay
T: …open A string cleanly enough. I've kind of been careless and clipped another string or something. So I can address that the next time I do it. I'll think okay well I'll try and avoid that immediately
N: Yeah. Well I mean to me, to my ear, that sounded perfect
T: It's interesting isn't it, how accurate the technology is?
N: Yeah
T: I mean it's really pretty unforgiving. It's like the recording process in the real world, if you're making CDs or something. It hears everything, so it's a really good indication of how well you're doing, or in my case, not doing
N: (Laughs) Alright, what shall we move on to next?
T: Yeah, well that was playing the exercise one of lesson one which was open A string four quarter notes. What the next exercise allows us to do is to play an A, the same A at the same pitch, but in a different place on the bass. Instead of playing the A string, we're gonna use the E string and play an A
N: Ahhh
T: But we can't play the open string so we'll have to bring our other hand into play. So you can demonstrate
N: I will do
T: For the normal right-handed people
N: (Laughs). For the normal people?
T: Yeah. The neck is subdivided with these frets
N: Yes
T: The lines you've got and the frets I've got. So we need to go to the fifth fret. One, two,
T & N: Three, four, five
T: And put our first finger on there
N: On the E
T: And that's gonna produce the note of A for us. So this is a fretted note because we're fretting the instrument. It's a fretted A
N: Alright. Can I hear that on yours?
T: Yeah. It'll sound pretty similar I would think. The pitch is the same. It sounds like this. Count me in
(Terry plays fretted A)
T: So that's a fretted A
N: That's a fretted A
T: On the fifth string of the E string
N: Alright so then if we were following these notes at home we could click on the video, have a look, see how it happens. We could also maybe load up the Xtractor, play along with the drum beat, and even record ourselves like we did in the first part
T: Exactly as we did before
N: Alright, lovely. Well coming up in part two, lots more things to learn. I'll be playing along with the Xtractor in the break and we'll see you back here in part two
N: Hello and welcome back to part two of episode one. Now before the break in part one, we were talking about open and fretted notes of A
T: That's right
N: Are we doing some more notes now?
T: We're gonna do some more notes
N: Excellent
T: Yeah we were playing open A string, and we were playing the A on the fifth fret of the E string. We were using quarter notes
N: Mmmhmm
T: So, since we've learned how to fret notes, let's learn how to fret some more notes
N: Excellent
T: So we were fretting an A on the fifth fret
N: Mmmhmm
T: You gonna demonstrate for the right-handed?
N: Okay so the fifth, one, two, three, four, five
T: Perfect
N: And the first finger we use to push it down
T: Yep, that's right. What we're gonna do know is keep the same finger
N: Mmmhmm
T: And move our hand down a little bit, down two frets
N: One, two
T: To the third fret, and this note is called G
N: G, how does G sound?
T: G sounds like this
(Terry plays G)
T: So here was A
(Terry plays A)
T: And here's G
(Terry plays G)
T: So we were playing four quarter notes in the last exercise we played which was exercise two
N: Mmmhmm
T: Which went like this. One
T & N: Two, three, four
(Play four quarter notes)
T: And we repeated that over and over and we played it with the Analyser, the Xtractor. We watched the video. So we're gonna now play four quarter notes on G, which is on the same string, the thickest string, the fourth string the E string
N: Yeah
T: And we're gonna play using our first finger on the third fret
N: Yeah
T: Which will produce the note of G. And again we'll use quarter notes to demonstrate that
N: Right
T: So it'll sound like this. Two, three, four
(Terry plays quarter notes on G)
T: Questions? Are you okay?
N: I was just wondering what you were doing with your right hand. Doing a little bit of vibrating
(Terry plays quarter notes)
T: Yeah, I'm just trying to make sure that when I play, this comes from quite a few years of practice…
N: Oh
T: …that I'm not just pushing buttons. I'm actually thinking about the sound of the note I produce. I'm trying to make sure that there's good contact. I'm not getting too much tension in my hand, but I'm just making sure that it's nicely secure and seated and I'm getting a nice tone out of it
N: Mmmhmm. But I don't need to worry about that
T: You don't need to worry too much
N:
(Laughs)
T: What you need to worry about, maybe, is opening the software again if you don't mind?
N: Okay
T: Thanks Natalie
N: I shall do my best. So would you like to watch it first?
T: Yeah let's have a look at exercise three if you click on the video icon
N: Yeah so this is exercise three. Natalie Barrass at the controls, everything seams to be working
(Laughs)
T: Playing G on the third fret using the first finger of your left hand. Here comes the video. Three, four.
(Video starts playing)
T: So you can see he's using both hands now
N: Yeah
T: And the first finger of his left hand is on the third fret of the E string. Nothings changed in the right hand. Still resting the thumb on the pick-up
N: Yeah
T: And using the first finger. So I'm gonna now practise that. Would you like to practise with me, yeah?
N: I'll practise along with you. Good job they can't hear me though, in case I go wrong.
T:
(Laughs)
N: So I'll load up the software
T: Okay
N: And this will have the backing track on there
T: That's right. Open the Xtractor and the bands, the virtual band is all ready to rock with us
N: Mmmhmm
T: And here it comes, and we're gonna be playing four quarter notes on G, on the third fret of the E string using the first finger on our left hand
N: Okay, pushing it on there now
(Terry and Natalie play with the backing)
T: There we go. So I keep doing that
N: Yeah
T: Try and get in the groove. Try and get some consistency
N: And these are quite long pieces of music aren't they
T: They are yeah
N: So you've got time to get into the groove
T: Yeah. Enjoy it
N: If you make a few mistakes just keep going.
T: That's right. That's an important thing isn't it when you play in a band. They don't want you stopping all the time
N:
(Laughs)
T: Even if you make a few mistakes, just try and keep going. Support everybody. It's a team activity.
N: Yeah
T: Just hang in there. Okay
N: Do you feel you wish to stop now?
T: Yeah that's good
N: The rest of the band says it's okay for you to stop now
(Backing stops)
T: That's right. That's enough. And then we could analyse it and see where I went wrong, if I went wrong. Did I go wrong?
N: I don't think you went wrong at all
T: I probably wasn't perfect but anyway
N: But I wasn't recording you but if this was for real…
T: Yeah
N: …then I'd be recording you and checking your every move
T: So that was playing four quarter notes on G on the third fret of the E string
N: Mmmhmm
T: What I need to do next. It's getting really serious now. Moving along, getting ready to perform and play in a band, is to be able to switch between two different notes.
N: Okay
T: So the next exercise is exercise four, and that involves playing both the fretted A and a fretted G. So switching between the two. You up for that?
N: Alright
T: Only quarter notes are involved
N: Yeah
T: We talked earlier about bars
N: Yes
T: So we'll play one bar of A
N: Mmmhmm
T: And then one bar of G. So that'll be four quarter notes on A
N: Mmmhmm
T: And then, on the fifth fret, and then changing down to the third fret and playing four quarter notes on G. So the two notes that we had to learn in our lesson objectives, A and G
N: But in the first half, we played A on the open string
T: That's right
N: Can't I just do that, cos isn't that a bit easier
T: Yeah you could do that, the open string does seem easier cos you only need to use one hand, and you can do something else with the other hand
N:
(Laughs)
T: Like control the other strings. And that would be fine. I find that sometimes it's better to use this A, the fretted A, because it gives me better control of the bass. It means I've only got to control this one string, and I can just go back and forth on that. Crossing strings is a more difficult technique which we'll learn later in one of the essential bass skills lessons
N: Okay
T: So for the moment my advice would be just stick to that one string, the E string
N: Okay, now that you explain it, it seems…
T: That make sense?
N: …it seems more obvious to me now
T: You convinced?
N: Yeah I like the easiest route possible
T: Yeah me too. So we're gonna try exercise four
N: Mmmhmm
T: Which is playing one bar of fretted A quarter notes
N: Mmm
T: And then a second bar of fretted G quarter notes
N: Okay
T: And I'll try and loop that around and around so that we're ready to play the other exercises in this first lesson. There are a few more exercises, all of which would get us ready to be ready to rock out and play in the band
N: I'm just gonna watch the video
T: Good idea
N: Just to kind of get into the groove and see where I'm going with this
T: Yeah
N: So it's just A and G
(Video starts playing)
N: That's the A
T: And there you can see, so you're right it's really good. I learned a lot in the early days from watching other people play and copying or mimicking their moves. That was quite short, so you could loop that…
N: Yeah
T: …video clip, or you could just repeat it over and over. You could play along with it and try it out. You could just kind of use it for guidance, you might not wanna play all the notes, you just might wanna work out the locations of the notes, get your bearings you know, try that move out a few times
N: Alright well let's have a go at the exercise. We've watched it. Now let's look at the Xtractor
T: Good. And…
N: And you know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna record this one
T: Okay. You're gonna record
N: If that's alright with you?
T: It's fine. I'm ready to play exercise four which is four quarter notes on A and I'm playing that A with my first finger on the fifth fret of the E string
N: Yeah
T: That's the fourth string, the thickest one. So that's four quarter note fretted A's in the first bar followed by four quarter note fretted G's. Good, yeah you've moved to it already, well done Natalie, that's G there. So it's the fifth fret moving to the third fret. And I'm gonna take my time with this because it's a difficult exercise, changing from one note to another note. Lot of issues, lot of technical issues involved, and I'm gonna take my time, p'raps let the Xtractor run for a while
N: Okay
T: And really get into it
N: As a technical point
T: Yes?
N: Do I need to be lifting my finger off and placing it back down, or sliding along?
T: Yeah it's an interesting one that isn't it? It's a case of trial and error really. If you slide, that probably feels more comfortable and sounds ok. It doesn't sound bad. The difficulty will be, with the Analyser, that it will not get separate note events.
N: Right
T: You were talking about technology and how unforgiving it is. So you're gonna hear and it's gonna track those notes and it's gonna think, oh you're playing all sorts of other notes. For example, you know, there might be another note in between A and G
N: That bit in between
T: So if we could re-queue those notes…
N: Yeah
T: So you need to take just a little breath and dash from one to the other. It's a good point, good question
N: Thank you
T: You're good at this aren't you?
N: And it's a good answer. And you're good at that
(laughs)
T: So this is exercise four. One bar of fretted A quarter notes
N: Yeah
T: And one bar of fretted G quarter notes
(Backing track starts)
N: Terry.
T: Wish me luck
N: I wish you luck
(Terry starts playing)
T: So that's A, two
T & N: Three, four
T: G
T & N: Two, three, four
N: A, two, three, four. G, two, I'm finding it hard not to hit, maybe the string below it with my finger
T: Sure, and that's what I was doing on one of the earlier exercises, and that's why I didn't get a very good score with the Analyser
N: Mmmhmm
T: So we need to keep going
N: Yeah, and keep practising
T: Yeah.
N: Oh I've lost my, I've lost my rhythm
T: Well that's all right, just jump back in. There you go
N: Yeah
T: And back up to A
N: It is so tough this isn't it? I mean, you're obviously better at talking and playing than I am
T: Well I wouldn't say that but, yeah there's a lot going on isn't there?
N: Yeah
T: And there's quite a physical dimension to it, to actually keep going
N: Mmmhmm
T: Keep the string pressed down
N: Is that important, to sort of keep it close, like, on the fret
T: It is yeah. And there's a lot going on. Your right hand is also working quite hard. And as you said earlier, these tracks do go on for quite a while
N: They do, so I'm gonna stop it
T: Okay. That's fine, we've heard enough
N: Before we run out of show
(laughs)
T: (Laughs)
N: Alright so I'm gonna hit the Analyser button
T: We could have a quick look at it
N: I'm wishing you lots of luck for your percentage now Terry
T: Well, don't hold your breath
N: I've got little dents in my finger, is that normal?
T: Yeah that's very normal. Welcome to the world of bass playing
N: (Laughs)
T: There's always a price to pay for creating great art.
N: Alright, here we go. Here is your score
T: So this…
N: 46.84% which is good
T: That's not bad
N: Because we didn't do all of it
T: That's right. Almost halfway. So, and you can look at the colour coding
N: Yeah
T: And I need a few more black notes. So my timing was slightly off I think. And the pitch of it. But not bad for a first attempt. I would definitely do that again
N: No, definitely. I mean keep practising is what we're gonna say at the end of all these episodes isn't it?
T: Yeah
N: It's a real notion of Gigajam
T: Cos we wizz through these in, you know, in half an hour
N: Yeah
T: But actually at home you could take plenty of time
N: That's it. Very wise words. Terry, this was lesson one. We've got nine more to go. We're going right up to ten and by that time we're gonna be grade one bass players. Join us again here for episode two, see you next time