Natalie: Hello and welcome to Gigajam. We're up to lesson four already. I can't believe it. Terry Gregory, our tutor, can you believe it?
Terry: It's great isn't it?
N: It is
T: Going really well
N: We're steaming through it. We've learnt so much
T: We have
N: Yes, we've got our objectives, our lesson objectives as ever…
T: Mmmhmm
N: …at the beginning of Gigajam. Let's go through them
T: Let's do it, yeah. So there are four objectives. We can kind of subdivide those four because two of them really are development of stuff we learned earlier. So the first two, you know, developing our rhythmic understanding by mixing up quarter notes and eighth notes, combining quarter notes and eighth notes…
N: Mmm
T: …which we've been doing quite a lot. We certainly did that in the last lesson. So we're gonna continue that as we always do here at Gigajam, with this kind of progressive flow. We keep the stuff and then we renew it…
N: Mmmhmm
T: …and reinforce it in later lessons
N: Building blocks
T: Fantastic explanation
N: Starting low, building up high
T: You should do this for a living, you're great!
N: (Laughs)
T: And the second objective is again a development of something we learned earlier, that's the string crossing idea
N: Ah, that was when we were going from one to another, and having to sort of, yeah, work our fingers out there on the fret board
T: Do you remember that? Yeah. So those are the first two objectives. And the exercises that we'll play will help us to develop those objectives and put all that stuff, those skills, into practice
N: Okay
T: The second two objectives are left hand fingering technique, but we'll save that til the second half if that's alright with you and do that after the break
N: No problem. When you say left hand fingering technique do you mean my left hand or your left hand
T: I mean your left hand, normal yeah it's always back to front. So the fretting hand
N: The fretting hand
T: Fretting hand technique. So far we've only been using one finger. But in this lesson we'll look at how to use each of the fingers, and how to spread them out, to control all the strings and all the notes. Should be good
N: Okay, brilliant stuff. Let's get cracking
T: And the first objective that we're gonna look at today is about rhythm, so we're talking about developing rhythm for rock grooves
N: Yeah
T: And the way that musicians, they rhythms, and combine different rhythms, using quarter notes and eighth notes. And essentially we're gonna be learning a little bit about reading those rhythms, and how they look, how they sound, how they feel, and their subdivisions.
N: That's a lot
T: It is a lot so we'd better get on with it
N: We need to start, yeah
T: Yeah
N: Shall I scroll down for you?
T: Please. Thank you very much for being computer operator. You do it very well
N: (Laughs)
T: So this first of our objectives that we're gonna look at today, mixing up subdivisions. And really we need to talk a bit about reading, if you look at the first exercise, it doesn't look so different to what we've done before, and in fact we've played all of this stuff before. We've certainly played all of these notes before
N: Yeah
T: In the first bar, do you know which note it is in the first bar? It's in the first space of the bass clef?
N: That's C?
T: No, good guess. Try again. It's..
N: G?
T: A
N: A
(laughs)
T: A, that's…
N: I'll get there eventually
T: …that's A there in the first space
N: Yeah
T: So we've played A before
N: Yes
T: We've got no problem, we know where to play A. We play A on the fifth fret of the E string, the fourth string. So we know where that is. And that just reminds us, that's a good thing about reading, about notation, the way music is written down. It's really just like a shopping list, it tells you what to pick up next
N: Yeah
T: So what we have to do in that first bar is play A, and there are no other notes, so we just have to play a collection of A's
N: Mmmhmm
T: The other thing that bar tells us, the other thing that the notation tells us, is the rhythm. How many A's to play, how frequently to play them, how long each one lasts
N: Mmmhmm
T: So if you look at it you can see the rhythmic information. There are two stand alone notes at the beginning. And the viewers probably recognise those, if they've been paying attention, as quarter notes
N: Absolutely, so that'll be one and two on the beat there
T: Very good, you've been paying attention too. And that leaves us two beats left in the bar
N: Three and four
T: So that last group of notes, which is kind of bracketed together, with a beam, a thick beam across the top, that's gotta happen in the last two beats of the bar
N: Mmmhmm
T: So that's gotta be beats three and four, but that's subdivided as I'm sure you can recognise, into eighth notes. So we've…
N: Yeah, why? Just, sorry to jump in, but why when we've been looking at it previously we've just had two…
T: Pairs, yeah
N: …sort of eighth notes together, now we've joined it all into one string?
T: Yeah, it's very difficult isn't it? You know, in some of the bars, you can see later, there are separate pairs of eighth notes
N: Mmmhmm
T: It's a kind of convention, or protocol, that musicians use. And when you know, it's like anything else, when you know the system it's easy. But when you're on the outside looking in you think, what's going on?
N: Yeah
T: That's why often people are very intimidated by reading. There's absolutely no need to be. We've played all this stuff before, we know the names of the notes, and if we play the rhythms people will go, 'oh is that all it is?'
N: Yeah
T: Somehow there seems to be this kind of great mystery about reading, but there's no need to be. If I can learn to read…
N: Mmmhmm
T: …anyone can learn to read
N: (Laughs)
T: So, to answer that question finally, the reason they're paired together is, I think that it shows you very comfortably, very conveniently, how the bar is broken in half, how the bar is subdivided
N: Yeah
T: You can see that that's two beats. And so it actually is a short cut. It means you don't have to worry about each beat. You can worry about a couple of beats
N: Mmm
T: Take them all in your stride. In the sense that when you're reading any other language, like English, you don't think about the letters in the words, you kind of take the chunks, bite-size pieces of information. Does that make any sense?
N: No it does, it makes absolute sense. Like when you equate it to reading, you know, these are our letters, but once you get good at reading you're not looking at the letters, you're just reading the words as a whole. Therefore it's making it easy for us
T: Sure and we tend to take those skills for granted, certainly as a musician, but even when we're reading English we tend to just read the paper or read a novel on holiday or whatever
N: But if it's a word that you don't know, break it down letter by letter so you know how it works. It's exactly the same in music
T: Yeah, and often even behind all that, there's another dimension to it, isn't there? In that you may not know exactly what the word means, but you get a sense of it from the flow of the other words
N: Okay well let's get a sense of this piece then
T: Yeah, that first bar as we've said is A. So no issues about the pitch, very easy, just one note to play
N: Mmmhmm
T: And we were talking about that fact that there are a mixture of different note values. Two quarter notes and four eighth notes. So if we've counted that bar, and I don't really even need my bass to do that, I could probably just clap it or tap it or click it or whatever. If I count it in it would go one, two, three and, four and
N: Mmmhmm
T: Do you want to try that with me?
N: So
T & N: One, two, three and, four and
T: That's…..so if I remember that rhythm, one, two, three and, four and, and I look at it on the text there, one, two, three and, four and. And I'm remembering, I'm just switching my bass on. I'm remembering that it's an A. It's in the first space of the bass clef, so, how did the rhythm go?
T & N: One, two, three and, four and
(Terry starts playing)
T & N: One, two, three and, four and, one, two, three and, four and, one, two, three and, four and, one, two, three and, four and
T: Great
N: You've got it Terry
T: Hey, thanks man
N: (Laughs)
T: So there's a lot going on. I'm trying to…what we did there was we read that first bar. So congratulations, you are reading music, well done. That first bar we broke it down, we kind of separated the two ingredients of music. We separated the pitch, which was pretty easy it was just an A
N: Yes
T: And we separated the rhythm, which looked a bit trickier. And that allowed us to just focus on this trickier side of things. And then we put it all back together again and played it as a piece of music. All we have to do now is do that for each of the other parts!
N: (Laughs) All we've gotta do! Alright so moving onto the second bar then
T: Yep the second bar is…
N: It's a different note
T: Different note and different rhythm. It's only one note again, it's very consistent, it's just a G
N: Mmmhmm
T: We know where G lives, it's on the third fret, so that's easy enough. And I'm sure you can read that rhythm
N: It's one and, two and, three and, four and
T: So we've got a lucky bar there and it goes one, two, three, four
(Terry starts playing)
T: One and, two and, three and, four and. And if I can still remember how the first bar went, one, two, three and, four and, and I can tie that to the second bar, and I'll try and do them together. One…
T & N: two, three, four. A, two, three and, four and, G and, two and, three and, four and
T: And there's my two bars
N: Ahhh
T: We're getting good at this
N: We're getting very good. Onto the third
T: Yeah. Third bar, different note
N: Again
T: Yeah
N: Which is this one?
T: Do you recognise that note? It's one of the notes we learned in the last lesson?
N: Is this a C?
T: It is! Very good Natalie. And we play C of course on the third fret of the third string…
N: Mmmhmm
T: …with the first finger. And the rhythm there, dunno if you can see it? It's quite a lot of quarter notes. There's a quarter note, and then two eighth notes, then two more quarter notes
N: Yeah, so it's…
T: So this bar goes
T & N: One, two and, three, four
T: Great, fantastic, and I bet you could read the next bar as well, couldn't you, the rhythm? Which goes..
N: Are you challenging me?
T: I am
T & N: One, two and
N: Three, four and
T: Fantastic, and what note is that last bar do you recon?
N: I recon that's, if that one was a C, this is one a little bit further up, so therefore that's a D!
T: Yeah, I mean it's interesting isn't it? We were talking about reading earlier, you kinda work things out by a process of deduction. You think that notes not that note
N: Yeah, it's gotta be the one above
T: So that C bar, bar three, goes one, two and, three, four. And the fourth bar which is D goes, one, two and, three, four and. So what I'm gonna try and do now is play the whole of the first four bars
N: That whole top line
T: Yeah here it goes
N: Bars one to four
T: One
T & N: two, three and, four. A, two, three and, four and, G and, two and, three and, four and, C, two and, three, four, D, two and, three, four and
N: I'm amazing myself there
T: You did very well then, yeah. Yeah, and it's interesting isn't it that if you can read it….?
N: Yeah
T: …and process the information, then you're most of the way there. Then you would just, given time to practise at home every evening, you'd pick up the bass, now your brain can send the messages…
N: Yeah
T: …you've just got to wait for your fingers to receive those messages. Put it all into practice
N: Alright let's carry on. Let's go to the next line, the fifth bar
T: Okay, fifth bar, which looks to me like an A. And I can see that it is an A cos it's in the first space
N: Mmmhmm
T: And also if I look back at the first bar, I review the earlier information, I can see that that was an A…
N: Absolutely
T: ….so that's confirmed it. And I just have to read the rhythm which is of course one and, two
T & N: three and, four and
T: And if I play that rhythm using an A it goes. One and, two, three and, four and. So here I am again, applying exactly the same principles…
N: Yeah
T: …that we did very carefully in the beginning. Separating the pitch and the rhythm. The pitch in bar six is G
N: Mmmhmm
T: And the rhythm is one, two and
T & N: Three and, four.
T: G, two and, three and, four
N: Onto seven
T: Thank you
N: That's a C
T: Very good, thanks for reminding me. And the rhythm is C, two and, three and, four. In fact it's the same rhythm in bar seven…
N: Yeah
T: …as was in bar six. And finally…
N: Eight
T: …on D. Two, three, four. One and, two, three and, four. What should I do now? Play the whole thing, yeah
N: Play it all together
(laughs)
T: Wish me luck!
T & N: One, two, three, four. A, two, three and, four and, G and, two and, three and, four and, C, two and , three, four, D, two and, three, four and, A and two, three and, four and, G
T: Two and, three….
N: I'm gonna leave Terry to carry on with that and…
N: Hello and welcome back to part two of episode four. This is the essential bass skills course. I'm Natalie, this is Terry. Terry, as always, let's do a quick recap of what we were doing before the break in part one
T: Mmm we spent a lot of time on that one exercise
N: Mmmhmm
T: It was only eight bars but we really took it apart. Looked at the rhythm, separately from the pitch. And I think it's a good idea when you work through the other exercises, all those exercises which are there to help you create interesting rhythms using, mixing different subdivisions
N: Mmmhmm
T: So take your time. Separate the pitch and the rhythm. Look at each bar separately and then try and then link them all up and create
N: Exactly, break it down , practise it, perform it
T: Put it all back together, yeah, good
N: I like it. What are we doing in this half?
T: What we're gonna do in this half is pick up that last lesson objective, which is…
N: What's that?
T: Fingers, that's your first finger of your left hand
N: It is
T: That's all you've used so far on your fretting hand, when you've been playing notes, whether that's an A or a G or a C or a D. What we need to do is develop your left hand, our left hand finger technique now. So that as we progress through the lessons on the Gigajam essential bass skills course, we'll get more interesting rock grooves to pay, and the notes will move around more
N: Yeah
T: So, sooner or later, one finger is never gonna be enough. We need to develop our control and technique, get all these other digits into action
N: Mmmhmm
T: Improve our dexterity
N: We've got four of them, we might as well use them
T: We do. If we give them a number, we'll call this one number one, and so one
N: Two, three, four
T: So, so far that's all we've done. We've played, for example, an A on the fifth fret of the E string, the fourth string, the thickest string
N: Mmmhmm
T: Using the first finger, but of course we're talking about how we need to get these other fingers happening. So let's just pick one at random. Let's pick the third finger. Actually it's not quite at random, because that's a very important finger in bass playing, not that any of them are unimportant
N: (Laughs)
T: But there are certain patterns and shapes for things that come up time and again, so developing our third finger is really handy to be ready for when that all kicks in later. So we're…
N: Okay, so the third finger is the best, a bass player's best friend
T: Well you can say that yeah, and so we're just gonna play the same note A, and we're just gonna play the same rhythm, which is back to dear old quarter notes
N: Mmmhmm
T: But instead of using the first finger, which we're very comfortable with now, very familiar with using, we're gonna use the third finger
N: Right
T: So it shouldn't be too difficult. So here it is
(Terry plays A with third finger)
N: And obviously there's no change in the sound there is there? Depending on the fingers you're using?
T: You'd hope not. Let's see if there is
(Terry alternates between first and third finger)
N: No, you're in luck
T: I think we got away with it. Good. So that's just using the third finger to play the same A we've been playing all along up to now
N: Mmmhmm
T: And if you look at the material there, in the Gigajam lesson four, that's exercise
T & N: Three
N: Okay, so exercise three is just that bar of quarter notes, playing the A…
T: Yeah
N: …on the third finger
T: Third finger, left hand, A
N: And what, have we got to look out for with that, because obviously I would imagine playing it, your first finger is gonna be a lot stronger because that's your index finger, that's one you're gonna use more than your third finger
T: Yeah, much more dependable, much more reliable, the gripping, the opposable thumb, all that stuff
N: Oh of course, that's true, yes. The sort of pincer movement you've got there, the pressure
T: Yeah, so that finger is naturally going to take a while to find the same kind of comfort and control that you had with the other one. So we need to be realistic about our expectations. It's never probably gonna be exactly the same as that. We'd just need to get it up to some reasonable standard
N: Mmmhmm
T: So that we can depend on it and rely on it, so that when we get into playing more elaborate rock grooves later on, it's gonna be there for us. You know, all the, all the weapons are firing properly
N: Okay so how should we practise the other fingers?
T: Yeah we've got exercises here in our Gigajam lesson which will help us do that. And I believe we've got a video clip which will show exactly that. So if you can kindly operate that for me? Thank you, Natalie. That should come up and we'll see someone demonstrating exactly what you were talking about, using different fingers
(Video starts)
N: Alright, so that's moving from the different bar to the different fingering
T: There you go
N: That's the third finger, and that's our little baby finger there
T: That's very good
N: Fourth finger, back to the one
T: And back to the beginning again. Yeah, so there's an exercise which is carefully written to make it simple by keeping just an A
N: Mmmhmm
T: But actually make sure that each of these fingers gets a good work out
N: Okay
T: As you saw there
N: Well let's do it in the studio, I mean, cos that was quite small
T: Okay
N: Let's do it close up
T: Let's try it now, yeah. So I would start with my old friend, first finger on the fifth fret of the E string, playing the A
N: Yeah
T: And we'd get the four quarter notes as follows, two, three, four. Now what you saw on the video clip was Dave just going straight on, but probably there's an earlier stage of practise. Before that I just wanna check out, for example, that my third finger was working like I did just now
N: Yeah
T: Or my second finger
N: And do them all separately, get a feel for it
T: Yeah, I just make sure they're all there and the message is getting through
N: (Laughs)
T: And get an idea of how it feels, you know, when you use your pinky, can I depend on it? Is it actually gonna work for me? Is it gonna be able to push and hold down the string?
N: Cause there is a level of pressure that you do have to apply, isn't there, to get a good clean note?
T: There is, isn't there? You know, there's a big chunk of metal here, this E string, so it does take a little bit of effort to push it down. We're not talking about, you know, Mr Universe here…
N: (Laughs)
T: …and we don't wanna get unnecessary tension in our hand or anything. So you just wanna kind of press the string rather than stress about it. But it is a factor, isn't it, this physical thing?
N: Yeah
T: So let me try that exercise that we just saw Dave do now.
N:So starting on our faithful one, our first finger, moving onto the second
T: Did you hear a difference there? I didn't do that very well. There's a kind of a bit of a squeak there or…
N: Was that the vibration of the spring, the string rather, sort of hitting the fret?
T: Yeah that was me not really queuing properly, so I made a big effort that time
N: What do you mean by queuing?
T: Queuing, yeah that's just a word I used then, which meant I didn't really hit the string at the right time, and in exactly the right way. And I think they're the key points when you're changing from one finger to another. That's always a dodgy, potentially dodgy moment isn't it, where you might have a little gremlin, you might get a little bump or a squeak, you're not quite…did you hear that then?
N: Yeah
T: Just those sort of things. It's not exactly a wrong note
N: No
T: But obviously the recording process, being pretty unforgiving, any little things like that is gonna be picked up. If you're playing in a band, I mean it's not that they don't matter, but you wouldn't worry about it so much. The main thing, as we spoke about in one of the earlier lessons, is you keep going, keep the vibe happening, keep grooving
N: Mmmhmm
T: And a little thing like that, as you saw then, if you're not paying attention you could easily miss it so you might get away with it
N: Okay, well lets
T: So that's, yeah. That's exercise….
N: That was four
T: That was exercise four. The next exercise is, again playing with all the fingers. We've done it for the letter note A
N: Yes
T: Let's try it for another one
N: Oh right, okay
T: So in previous lessons we learned the note G
N: Mmmhmm
T: Which is on the third fret of the E string. Exactly the same principle, exactly the same process. I'll play it with my first finger first, because I always do
N: Yes
T: To make sure I know how it works. And then I'm gonna try and change to my second finger
N: Mmmhmm
T: And then my third finger
N: Okay. So let's, obviously we've got to remind again, that although this is the left-handed fingering, you are a left-handed player, so therefore it's your right hand
T: Yes
N: So we should probably call it your fretting finger
T: Maybe call it the fretting hand. That's a good idea Natalie, yeah. So I'm trying all the different fingers of my fretting hand, individually, one at a time. To make sure they're all there for me
N: This is quite a steady, comfortable pace that we're going at. Would an idea be to speed it up, maybe?
T: Yeah, you can try all sorts of things. I think that's a good idea to use your common sense and your creative imagination. Different things you could try, so I could try this, I could try instead of going back through one, two, three, I'm counting my fretting hand fingers
N: Yes
T: I could go back down through…
N: Ah, that's an idea
T: …three, and just try that out. So it's a good idea I think to try and get more…
N: Two
T: …mileage out of the exercises
N: Mmmhmm
T: And what you were just suggesting then is, if I'm playing along with the Xtractor, with the Gigajam virtual band, you can of course change the tempo. So if you feel like you're getting on with it, and you wanna pump up the tempo…
N: Mmmhmm
T: ...Just test yourself a bit, try and get it...like when you're playing video games, when you feel good enough to get through, to win through to the next level
N: Exactly
T: Something like that
N: You go on, it gets a little bit harder but then you get better at that, then you go on to the next level
T: Yeah
N: Talking of that, let's talk on, let's go to the next note
T: The next note is playing C, the next exercise. So again exactly the same stuff, but of course as we always do with the Gigajam lessons, we're trying to combine everything we've learned before. So what we're learning right now in the second half of lesson four is this fretting hand, left hand, fretting hand, finger technique
N: Mmmhmm
T: And we're now moving it around to all the notes we've played, learned. So far we've learned and played A and G. We're now going up onto the third string, the A string. And again, four quarter notes, C, first finger, second finger, third finger, and fourth finger
N: And is, is there a degree of different pressure? Because obviously the strings are different thicknesses
T: Yeah I think that's true actually, you know, anyone that's ever played guitar will be immediately aware of the difference between the thickness, the gauge they call it, of the strings. So I think there's a little more energy and control required to play the E string. And as you've seen so far we've kind of started on that first, so that it's a pleasant surprise when you come to control the other strings…
N: Yeah
T: …that are actually lighter. So we're going heavy to light, rather than the other way around
N: Alright, well we've done C, let's go on to D
T: Yeah, the only other note we know at the moment, thus far in the Gigajam essential bass skills lesson four is D. And there it is, the last exercise there, in this lesson
N: Mmmhmm. Exercise seven if you're following along with your course notes
T: And so I do exactly the same thing, four quarter notes with the first finger on the D, four quarter notes with the second finger
N: On another angle, although this is helping us with our fretting hand, our left hand, and right hand in your case, it's also helping us learn where the notes are, and the position on the stave
T: Yeah that's good to…
N: Cos it's breaking it down really easily for us
T: We spoke about that a lot, didn't we, in the first half of the lesson about reading, and I think it's a very good point that you make, that it's really only familiarity
N: Yeah
T: That's all it is, you know. You've spent a little bit of time here with us and already your reading has improved immeasurably. Just from familiarity, just being exposed to it
N: Mmmhmm. All it is, I suppose is, the key thing to the whole of Gigajam, the whole of learning music, is just practice
T: Yeah
N: Is just familiarising yourself with it. Keep going back to it. Get yourself to a comfortable stage and then move on
T: Yeah, and use all the media files to help you practice that and record what you do, and then go…
N: Yep
T: …go back and check it, and listen to it without playing, so that you can see exactly what you did
N: Thanks Terry. That's all we've got time for on lesson four. You need to keep practising those exercises and techniques because they will become crucial when we're back next time for lesson five. See you again soon