Natalie: Hello, this is Gigajam, welcome to lesson six. It is the essential bass skills course. My name is Natalie and this is our tutor Terry, Terry how be you today?
Terry: I be fine, how are you be?
N: I be tres bon. French, many skills
T: I'm impressed…
N: I know
T: …not only a bass player, a linguist
N: Exactly, exactly
T: (Laughs)
N: Now it's Gigajam, it means lesson objectives…
T: Yeah
N: …it means lots of playing as well
T: Yeah
N: But let's just talk through the theory side of it. What are we gonna be attaining in this lesson?
T: Yeah, three objectives in today's lesson. The first one is, as ever, the continuation of the studies we've been doing up to now. Have you been practising?
N: Oh, yes!
T: Good, okay
N: You don't even need to ask me that question Terry
T: I just thought I'd check. So, developing further our understanding of quarter notes and eighth notes…
N: Yes
T: …and using them to build rock grooves. So that's the rhythmic side of it. We're gonna learn some new notes today
N: Excellent, new notes. We've got four notes in our, in our bag already
T: Yeah and so far we've learnt to play a lot, and we've only been using two strings, so the objective, the second objective in today's lesson, lesson six, is introducing the D string and the G string
N: Excellent, excellent. What else?
T: The final objective in today's lesson, although I might have a little secret one saved up for the second half of the lesson…
N: Something tucked up your sleeve
T: …which I'm not gonna tell anyone about, big surprise, is developing our control of string crossing. So in the past, in earlier lessons, we crossed from the fourth string, the E string, to the third string, the A string
N: Yes
T: Now we're gonna extend that and develop that even further by crossing to the new strings…
N: Ahhh
T: …that we're learning. So, today big issue is learning D and G strings, and notes on those strings
N: So we're, inevitably we're gonna be crossing from the fourth to the first
T: Yes, from the fourth to the third certainly. See how far we get
N: It's a jump
T: It's a big jump…
N: Let's jump…
T: …string crossing
N: …let's dive in
T: It's good. Yeah, let's just remind everybody of what we've done so far
N: Okay
T: Briefly
N: I'll pick up the guitar
T: And remind everyone of the techniques and the control that we've got. We've got first finger of the picking hand, second finger of the picking hand…
N: Yeah
T: …and we use that for alternating when we're playing eighth notes. In the left hand, in the fretting hand, so far we've been using the fourth finger
N: Mmmhmm
T: …and the first finger. And the fourth finger's been playing on the fifth fret, and the first finger's been playing on the third fret
N: Yeah
T: None of that is gonna change. That's all gonna be the same
N: Right
T: Except we're gonna cross to these new strings
N: Okay, so we're staying in this area of the neck
T: Staying in the same position, which we talked about a lot in the latter part of lesson five, being secure and grounded and anchored here, and then just playing across the bass, across the strings…
N: Mmm
T: …crossing the strings and trying to use a mixture of notes and rhythms to create some interesting bass grooves
N: Excellent. Lovely, crack on…
T: Yeah…
N: …come on…
T: …okay
N: …I can't wait!
T: You're excited
N: (Laughs) I am!
T: Often when you buy a book, you know, they show you about the E string, then they show you about the A string, and then they show you about the D and the G string. And there's quite a lot of information to absorb before you can actually get playing anything. What we're trying to do here at Gigajam is cut to the chase, and say of course you need to know that stuff, but we'll pick a lot of that up as we go along
N: Yeah
T: The main thing is to get playing, having some fun, making some music, jamming with the Gigajam virtual band, maybe jamming with your friends
N: I love it…
T: So..
N: …I love it
T: …we've already learned, which notes have we learned? We've learned A
N: A and G
T: And G and D
N: And C
T: And C, so we're gonna learn another G
N: Another G?
T: Yeah, the G we learnt to play was at the third fret of the fourth string. The third fret of the E string
N: Yeah
T: There's a G, in fact there are lots of G's on this bass. The one we're gonna look at now is one on the D string
N: Okay
T: So there's the D string
N: D string is not the thinnest one, but the one next to the thinnest one
T: Yeah, it's called the second string, it's…
N: The second string, yeah
T: …the D string. So if you use your fourth finger
N: My little finger yeah
T: On that string
N: Yeah
T: Guess which fret?
N: Fifth
T: Fifth fret, you knew that was coming. So…
N: I knew it
T: …it's as easy as that. And that is another G. That's a G, it's got the same name, but it's probably got a slightly different sound, because obviously we've crossed two strings, it's higher
N: Can I hear the difference?
T: Yeah, here comes our old, favourite G
N: Yeah
N: That was on the third, on the first string
T: Thank you, and we're using the first finger
N: Fourth string, my apologies
T: Now if I use my fourth finger…
N: Yeah
T: …on this new string to us…
N: Yeah
T: …this D string.
T: There's a G
N: The second string, yeah
T: So there's the low one, and here's the high one. So I'm just gonna practise that a bit, cos that's quite hard
N: Yeah, going from the fourth string up to the second string
T: Yeah, I'm not worried about any rhythm or any kind of action like that, I'm not worried about a groove. I'm just locating the notes, just finding the notes, making sure I've played the right notes. Make sure I can actually execute them comfortably with good left hand…
N: Mmm
T: …finger control. Good, that looks great Natalie
N: Is that a…I'm just, sort of demonstrating for the right handed…
T: That looks good
N: …viewers
T: Yeah. That looks great
N: Okay. I mean, this finger control is essential, isn't it? And it's building on…
T: Yeah
N: …from the lessons we were doing in four and five
T: And we're stepping through it, very carefully, you know we did finger control with one finger
N: Yeah
T: And then we did finger, in earlier lessons, and then we did finger control with two fingers. And then we did some string crossing, and we're just expanding and extending and developing that further each time we show up for Gigajam lessons
N: Yeah exactly, little steps all the way
T: Yeah it's good
N: All right…
T: So…
N: …let's move…
T: …there's our G…
N: Yeah
T: …if you scroll down, as ever the Gigajam stuff's very carefully written, there's the neck
N: Mmmhmm
T: There's an explanation, and if you keep going, there that's what I wanted to look at. There's a nice picture there of the neck
N: Ahh, with the dot
T: With a dot on so you couldn't possibly make a mistake. You can see that little red dot there, which you're flagging up for everybody, thank you very much
N: Lovely, so I imagine, it being Gigajam, we've got an exercise to show…
T: We've got an exercise…
N: …next, haven't we?
T: …we've got a video clip, so perhaps if you could dial that up, if you're not too busy?
N: Ahhh, never too busy for you Terry
T: Thank you
N: Pushing there on the first icon, coming into the Gigajam video clip
T: There it comes, so he will show us, playing this high G on its own
N: This is the high, just on it's own?
T: Yeah (Video starts playing)
N: Alright, so we're showing…positioning there, of where it is, and talk us through the positioning
T: He's using his fourth finger
N: Yeah
T: His little finger, on the fifth fret of the D string (Video stops playing)
N: The second string
T: So he plays…
N: Yeah that's excellent
T: …one bar of quarter notes
N: Mmmhmm
T: And then one bar of eighth notes
N: Okay, and obviously important, as we've learnt in the other exercises, the little finger mightn't have as much strength it in, but you've really gotta push that string down
T: Yeah, good observation, really good. I forgot to play eighth notes then. So what I'll probably do is keep my other fingers around. If you look at my other fingers they're all there…
N: Ahh, yes
T: …supporting my little finger
N: I remember us mentioning that, cos that doesn't affect the sound of the string, it just keeps them, and also I suppose another good point to note is that it's not touching the other strings cos then we'd get unwanted noise
T: Yeah, we're just concentrating on this second string, the D string. We're playing a G note, mustn't get confused about our musical alphabet here…
N: No
T: …we're playing the D string, but we're playing the G note
N: Okay. Alright well let's play along
T: Yeah
N: With the Gigajam band. This is exercise one
T: Thank you. I'm kind of already going, maybe they'll catch me up!
N: (Laughs) And this is the high G. We know another G
T: We know a low one, but…
N: Yeah
T: …at the moment we're just focusing on this new knowledge we've acquired…
N: Mmmhmm
T: …which is this high G, on the fifth fret of the second string, the fifth fret of the D string. Here it comes (Xtractor starts playing)
N: So starting with your quarter notes first of all
T: So no change for the picking hand
N: No
T: Quarter notes, and then…
N: And when you're doing this exercise, it doesn't matter on the quarter notes, if you're doing the alternate fingers or just the…
T: I'll play it…
N: …first finger
T: …a variety of ways maybe
N: How you want to play it
T: Yeah, and what I might do, in order to develop my control, is deliberately change it
N: Ah, that's an interesting cos…
T: Just to give…
N: …that's not what…
T: …myself a workout
N: Yeah, that's not what this exercise is about, but you can exercise other bits of your fingers and your brain
T: Yeah get more mileage out of it
N: Yeah
T: So I'm leading with two there. Just for fun
N: Yeah, I mean we've got these skills here, we can adapt them. We can use them in all the other exercises and really, yeah like, get your mileage out of them I suppose
T: Get some mileage out of it, so whilst I know that this is nice and comfortable here, I'm maybe gonna go…and work on my right hand finger technique
N: Mmmhmm. Fantastic, good job there Terry (Xtractor stops playing)
T: So we're just playing exercise one, which is G
N: Yeah
T: On the D string, which is the second string. So that's the new activity today, the new knowledge for us to focus on
N: Yeah, I've got that one
T: Good
N: Alright, so you talked about string crossing earlier on
T: Yeah, we got to this point because we said that so far we'd only, in the lessons of Gigajam essential bass skills, we'd only used the two strings. The fir…the E string, the fourth string, and the A string, the third string. So we need to extend that and develop our knowledge even further
N: Mmm
T: So we knew that there was a G there, and we found that there was also a G there
N: Yes
T: So the next exercise helps us to practise that, and develop our technique and our finger control and fluency even further, by putting both those G's, the low G and the high G, together in one exercise
N: Fab, okay, so we can also compare the sound on this as well?
T: Yeah, we did that just now. Here it comes again, there's the low G
N: Yeah
T: Which is the first finger on the third fret of the E string. And there's the higher G, with the fourth finger on the fifth fret, a lot of numbers here, on the…
N: Yeah
T: …second string, G…
N: Alright
T: …G
N: If you just move your fingers down then, we can get a shot of that on your guitar
T: Yeah just move my fingers out of the way. That's not how my hand usually looks…
N: (Laughs)
T: …honest. But just for demonstration purposes
N: I can't even do that with my hand, but then…
T: Happy to see that, well…
N: There we go, I've got our new G there, with my little finger
T: Yeah. So this exercise is a low G, followed by a high G. A low G, followed by a high G
N: Alright
T: First finger, again, followed by the fourth finger. The difficulty is crossing strings…
N: Mmm
T: …so we're not using that A string, the third string at all. It's just the fourth string and the second string. So if I play that, are you gonna put the Xtractor on?
N: I'm…
T: You were there…
N: …pushing it now
T: …I didn't even need to ask (Xtractor starts playing)
N: Alright Terry, talk me through that
T: So I'm playing G
N: You're alternating on each quarter note there
T: I'm playing G again. So it's this kind of rocking motion, yeah?
N: Crossing over those strings, and then also you've got your control with your picking hand as well
T: Yeah, so you've gotta actually separate those two fingers and get a bit of space between them
N: Alright, lovely. Terry, keep going
T: Thank you
N: Join us back here for p…
N: Hello, welcome back to part two of episode six. This is Gigajam, the essential bass skills course part one. I'm Natalie, that's Terry. Now Terry
T: Yeah
N: Before the break
T: Mmmhmm
N: We had part one. Right at the top, as we always do with Gigajam, we have our lesson objectives. You alluded to something, you said you had a little lesson objective up your sleeve. Are you gonna roll your sleeves up now and tell us what it is?
T: (Laughs) Well I can tell you what it is, yeah
N: (Laughs)
T: Yeah we kinda saved it because it's a really important one. We had quite a lot going on so we just dealt with those other three objectives. This one's a really special one, we kinda discovered it as if by magic. We were talking about introducing the D and the G string now, so that we're developing further our understanding of the bass and the fret board and learning about all the strings. Previously to that we'd only worked on the E string and the A string
N: Mmmhmm
T: So this new objective, we discovered it as if by magic really. We are talking about the G down there
N: Yeah
T: And the G up here. And we didn't worry, it's the low G, which is on the third fret…
N: Yeah
T: …of the E string, and then the high G is on the fifth fret of the D string
N: Mmmhmm
T: So we just dealt with that. We didn't worry about any other notes in between. Of course there are other notes in between. So what we've discovered here is that if you were, we're not gonna do that right now, we'll do that later
N: Mmmhmm
T: If you were to work out the notes in between using the musical alphabet, we started with G. After that…
N: Yeah
T: …would be A, followed by B, followed by C, D, E, F and back to G. So what that's called in music speak is an octave, or one octave
N: Oh right
T: Cos we're playing a low G and a high G, and that's an octave. And the important thing about this, and that's why I kept it as a secret objective, is this shape, this first finger there
N: Yeah
T: Fourth finger there. So if I take that away, can you still see where the notes live?
N: Yes, yes
T: If you can't, you can check on the Gigajam material because there's…
N: Ah you've got that picture there
T: …a funky little diagram, which shows you the low G, and the high G, and connects them to really illustrate clearly that octave shape
N: So the notes in between the G and the other G?
T: Mmmhmm
N: Are they all found within that shape?
T: Yes, yeah, I mean again later on as we develop, and we start to learn more fancy stuff….
N: Yeah
T: …like scales and chords and so on, we'll be looking at those other notes in more detail. At the moment we've just been finding our way around in this position
N: Mmmhmm
T: And trying to use the notes we've learned to find some interesting bass grooves. But those other notes could all be accessed, yeah, between the octave shape, the low G and the high G
N: That's amazing. Does that, I mean, does that just work for G? Does that work for all the notes?
T: That's the cool thing about the bass, and we'll be talking about that in detail in lesson seven, is the symmetry of the bass and the fact that you can transfer, you can move things, from one place to another. So we happen to be working, in this lesson six, on the notes of G
N: Yeah
T: But you're right, absolutely, if we were working on other notes, X or Y or Z, if such notes existed, we could go to those and transfer exactly the same concepts and find an octave for the note X or whatever
N: I mean this makes, this opens up everything on the neck, doesn't it? This makes it so easy for us to find all the other notes around those notes?
T: Yeah it's a good way of thinking about the neck and, as I say, we'll be getting into that in detail in lesson seven. Visualisation of the fingerboard which is an important thing…
N: Alright
T: …cos otherwise it can seem very confusing and very difficult to penetrate the information on the fingerboard
N: Well, I mean, the thing I've sort of always realised, it's so different from a piano where you can see the notes just following in order all the way up. You look at a bass and, you know, a guitar, there's no markers there, there's no notation written on the neck for you
T: Yeah, the piano's got this kind of monochrome colour-coding where you go white, black, white, black, and you think, hey I kind of know where I…
N: Mmm
T: …am, it gives me…
N: There's C, there's D, there's B
T: It's easy to get your bearings, so we've got to find a way of recognising landmarks like that on the bass. So that's why we've been talking about fingering…
N: Mmmhmm
T: …we've been talking about staying in position, so we can get our bearings. We're talking about the fret numbers, and the dots, and the note names, so slowly we build up this kind of database of information on the fingerboard
N: Absolutely, I mean the octave shape is our map on the neck
T: That's a really key one for bass players, and in fact what we're gonna do now, if you don't mind, thank you….
N: No problem
T: …you're right on cue as ever, is scroll down, there's the low and the high G
N: Yeah
T: There's the octave shape, and how it looks in notation on the bass clef on the stave
N: Mmmhmm
T: And the next exercise will give us a chance to put this into practice. It shows us low G, let me just turn the bass up, and high G
N: Ah okay
T: And as you can see I'm sure, reading the rhythm, the first bar is quarter notes
N: Mmmhmm
T: And the second bar is eighth notes. And it gives, just gives us a chance to practise carefully, string crossing from that low G to that high G
N: Yeah
T: Low G is the first finger, high G is the fourth finger
N: Okay, so we've got two bars there. Could you just run through for my benefit, and for the guys benefit, the first bar? We'll break it down
T: The first bar is low G
N: Yeah
T: I'm not gonna worry about the timing or the rhythm of the quarter notes here…
N: No problem
T: …I'm just gonna locate the notes. The low G, followed by the high G, yeah good you're copying me, and then the low G again, and then the high G
N: And the second bar?
T: And the second bar is eighth notes, so it's two strikes, so I'll probably alternate with my picking hand
N: One and two, yeah
T: And then, gotta get your fingers from your picking hand, from that fourth string, the E string, across, string cross, to the D string
N: Mmm
T: So that whole exercise, if I play it for you, would go, first bar is low G, high G, low G, high G
N: Then our eighth notes
T: Low, low, high, high, low, high. Maybe if we put the video clip on and give everyone a chance to see it again
N: Okay, let's see it in action on the video clip
T: So this is string crossing using the octave shape G, here it comes. I'm gonna just trace it (Video starts playing)
N: Yeah, let's try and play along with this. So we're developing our speed, our tempo again, our reading of the notes. We've got string crossing, we've got this extra idea of the octave shape
T: There's a lot going on isn't there? (Video stops playing)
N: Yeah, finger technique, the alternate picking
T: Yeah, and this alternate picking, you're gonna have to, you're actually kind of, I wouldn't say moving the hand…
N: Mmm
T: … but rotating the hand and that's why we concentrated earlier on keeping that thumb anchored either on the string or on the thumb…
N: Yeah
T: …so that the hand can move rather having to do all this kind of dancing around, does…
N: Okay…
T: …that make sense?
N: …just to note when you were doing, when you were playing your quarter notes with the low G and the high G…
T: Yeah
N: …were you just always using number one of your picking fingers?
T: No, I was using, I was kinda getting into these old habits that I know what's coming. I've looked at this exercise a couple of times now with you…
N: Right
T: …I've identified the pitch of the notes, the low G and the high G, so I'm kind of on automatic pilot and I'm thinking, well I need to play that and I need to play that…
N: Yes
T: …so why don't I just leave that finger there, so it's ready and handy to play the low G…
N: Yeah
T: …and I'll keep this finger, the first finger here, ready to play the high G. So I've kind of separated those two fingers a bit more than I've done previously to this lesson
N: And you could do that either, I mean you could either have the high one on the first one or the high one…
T: Yep
N: …on the second finger, whatever feels comfortable?
T: Absolutely, whatever feels comfortable, whatever you feel comfortable with, whatever seems to be working. Maybe you should just try the alternative
N: Yeah
T: And see whether that's more or less comfortable. In any case, you'll know more about your own technique and control and fluency, so it's a good thing to do
N: Alright
T: Shall we try this with the…
N: Let's, do you wanna try it with the Xtractor?
T: The Xtractor, yeah, and play along with the band
N: Alright, I'll load that up for you. I'll be looking for a number of things here, whilst I'm studying you Terry. I'm gonna be looking at your positioning with your fret hand
T: Okay
N: And the picking hand
T: Yeah
N: And obviously you've gotta keep in time, and that's where the Gigajam band aren't gonna let you make any mistakes
T: Hopefully (Xtractor starts playing)
T: And I'm just demonstrating the octave shape
N: Yeah. Low, low, low, high, high, low, high, low, high, low, low, high, high, low, high
T: Really important shape for bass players. Lot's of great
N: Yeah, it's a good sound actually as well, I mean is this a popular, sort of, maybe little rhythm that's used in music? I can't speak, I'm in awe!
T: You're having a good time?
N: Yeah!
T: Yeah it is, and what we'll see in the next exercise is exactly that. How to use this octave shape, use what is effectively just one note really…
N: Mmmhmm
T: …a G. A high, thanks Natalie, a high G and a low G… (Xtractor stops playing)
T: …and use that to build some interesting rock grooves using just that root base note. So scroll…
N: Okay
T: …down, there it is, that's what I'm looking for
N: So we're using, we're using this octave shape…
T: Yeah, this…
N: Getting us in the creative mood
T: This next exercise, exercise four
N: Mmmhmm
T: Doesn't use any other notes, it just uses G. It uses the low G, that we've been practising, and the high G
N: Yeah
T: The difference here is, is the combination. It's what we were talking about earlier. Different combinations, different permutations, re-designing it, changing them around. Not playing necessarily one bar of just quarter notes and one bar of just eighth notes, mixing that up to different combinations makes it really exciting. Yeah, let's have a look at the video clip
N: See how it sounds, and then maybe play along with it with the Xtractor
T: Okay (Video starts playing)
T: I'll get ready to go
N: Alright, talk us through it Terry
T: So the basic approach here is just using that low to high thing
N: Yeah
T: But of course you could also go high
N: Mmmhmm
T: To low, so he starts out, it's getting to the end of the clip and then I'll demonstrate it
N: This is sounding quite tuneful now
T: Yeah, it sounds good, doesn't it?
N: Yeah
T: Okay (Video stops playing)
T: So the first four bars we go low to high, we've got the low G. That's just me repeating the first four bars
N: Yeah
T: Yeah? So that's low to high. The first time it's eighth notes, and then quarter notes. The second four bars, bars five through eight, turn it around, turn it on its head
N: Yeah
T: Play high to low, why not? Always consider the options, the alternatives, try and make the music more interesting. So here we're going from high to low, and this one goes…
N: So this is keeping it interesting still, obviously we're learning…
T: So here's the whole exercise
N: …learning those skills
T: Yeah. Are you dialling up the Xtractor, or shall I…
N: I certainly…
T: …just play it?
N: …am! (Xtractor starts playing)
N: So this exercise then Terry, exercise four. Alternating that high to low G's, and then, that's in the first four bars, and then in the second four bars, bars five to eight, we're going from the high down to the low
T: That's it
N: Fantastic stuff, Terry keep going. Guys keep practising because it's the end of our lesson, join us next time for episode seven