Natalie: Hey Gigajamer's, welcome this is the essential bass skills course part one. There are ten episodes altogether. We're actually on episode seven which is lesson seven. I'm Natalie Barrass, this is Terry Gregory, Terry how are you?
Terry: I'm good, how are you?
N: I'm fantastic, I've been practising, practising, practising, but I'm ready to learn more
T: You remember the octave shape?
N: I can. It was like a little L shape. It was from the low to the high G, two along, two up
T: That's it. We're gonna start with that, our first lesson objective today is revisiting that, and develop our understanding of and performance of octave shapes
N: Excellent, what are our other lesson objectives?
T: The other big objective, which we're gonna tackle today, is, you were talking about this in the last lesson again, about how the piano's got this kind of black and white and monochrome colour-coding system. It's very difficult sometimes, in the beginning, to see where you're on the bass, so the other big lesson objective today is, is describing, introducing the symmetry of the bass. The fact that the fingerboard, the bass neck is symmetrical
N: Mmmhmm
T: And that that allows us to transfer shapes, to move shapes, from one place to another
N: Excellent stuff, I mean we should say that lesson seven is very much a continuation isn't it, of lesson six?
T: Yeah absolutely, developing rock grooves part two. And the first real heading is to pick up on what we did in the last lesson, which is to take that octave shape and transfer it. So transferring an octave shape. Yeah…
N: Okay
T: …grab your bass, good
N: Show us the, show us the shape
T: I'm sure you remember it. We were playing a G octave shape using the first finger to play the low G
N: Yeah
T: On the third fret of the E string. Very good, and then using the little finger, the fourth finger, crossing two strings, so it's that L shape you were talking about…
N: Mmmhmm
T: …it's kind of like going up two, and across two
N: Yeah, so up two strings
T: Up two and across two, so low G and high G. And we played a few exercises to help us develop our facility, our technical control, our fluency with executing that shape. What we need to do today, right away, is transfer that shape. So if we can do that for G
N: Yeah
T: We ought to be able to do that for some of the other notes we learned
N: Are we able to do it for all the notes?
T: We are, that's the great thing about the bass finger board. It's symmetrical, keep using that word, the big S word, symmetrical. And it means that, pretty much, we can move things around from one place to another. So let's transfer that octave shape
N: Mmmhmm
T: From G, to A. So you can kind of keep that shape with your left hand
N: Yeah
T: And do you remember where, where A is? If you move your hand up two frets to the fifth fret, there you go
N: Yeah
T: Same fingering, same overall shape, we're still kind of going from that finger…
N: Yep
T: …across two and up two
N: Okay, so this was our A note that we learnt
T: Yeah
N: Right back at the beginning
T: Do you remember that?
N: Yeah, fifth fret
T: Good
N: Fourth string
T: Yeah, and just check you've got the right shape there with your little finger, your fourth finger. It should be up two and across…
N: Oh!
T: …there you go Natalie, that's it
N: See that's where I've messed up, cos what I was doing, I was trying to lock that shape as we were moving along, but unfortunately my fingers aren't as rigid as they could be
T: Okay, so you need to practise that
N: Okay
T: That's the A shape, low A and high A
N: Excellent, can I hear what they sound like?
T: You can, I'll just turn on the bass. There's our old A…
N: Yeah
T: …which we've known and loved for a long time now. And here's this new A which is on the seventh fret, we're going into new territory, we haven't been up this high on the bass before, so we're up on the seventh fret on the D string, the seventh fret of the second string. So low A and high A. It's good that you've done that so that we can hear the difference between those two notes, the low A and the high A, the A up, an octave higher. And I'm not really worried at the moment about rhythm, timing…
N: No
T: …the band or anything. I'm just locating those notes…
N: So…
T: …making sure that I've got control of them
N: Once I've located them
T: Yeah
N: What's a good way to practise them?
T: We need to practise them don't we?…
N: We do
T: …So we've got the usual media files here, so if you scroll down
N: There we've got the positioning, the diagram
T: That's very helpful isn't it? So you can see, colour-coded, you can see that L shape being transferred across the neck
N: Mmmhmm
T: And… (Video starts playing)
T: There comes the media file, so that's low to high. So I'll just follow on from the end of that clip now
N: Mmm
T: So as you can see that's… (Video stops playing)
T: ...low A, high A, low, high T&
N: A, A
T: Just rocking back and to in that octave shape. I'm using the first finger of my fretting hand and the fourth finger of my fretting hand
N: Okay
T: In the other hand, I'm doing what we talked about in the last lesson, just that kind of split with my right hand, sorry, my picking hand fingers, just that kind of split with my picking hand where I've got one guarding one string, and one guarding the other string. So they're ready to drop down
N: Fantastic, I can see where we're going there
T: Good
N: We've got the Xtractor up
T: You don't hang around do you?
N: I don't hang around, no, cos we need to push on, let's…
T: Okay I'm ready, go
N: Hit play and let's practise (Xtractor starts playing)
T: Here it comes. So if you wanna play along, remember that we're using the fourth string, the E…
N: Yeah
T: …the E string. That's it
N: I'm there. And we're just doing quarter notes here
T: Quarter notes, starting with the E string
N: We're just building it up again
T: That's good, and you've got a nice separation between those fingers in your picking hand
N: Mmm
T: Great
N: Alright, lovely
T: Yeah, I think I'm comfortable with that
N: I'm, I'm almost comfortable with it, but…
T: Sounds fine
N: …I wanna keep going onwards and upwards
T: Good… (Xtractor stops playing)
T: …so what we've done so far is we've understood that we can transfer an octave shape
N: Mmmhmm
T: The symmetry of the bass finger board allows us to do that, and take a shape that we learned for one note, transfer it, move it somewhere else to another note we know, and copy that shape across
N: Yeah, I mean, we were familiar with the G, the low and the high
T: Yeah
N: We've just taken that shape, moved it along, it's something new, but it doesn't feel too scary
T: No new notes, really. New locations because as I said before, we've come into new territory on the bass. But we don't need to worry about that, don't need to let that faze us at all, because that shape will guide us through all that…
N: Mmmhmm
T: …and we just hold on to that shape, and that'll lead us through
N: Okay, so let's do exercise two, and I notice in exercise two there's some eighth notes in there
T: We've got used to doing that, that's the way we do things here at Gigajam isn't it? We follow on, it's this accumulative approach where we keep what we've got and we combine it and add it to the next thing. So, you're right, this next exercise, if you look at it, the first bar is A
N: Mmmhmm
T: And that's only quarter notes. The second bar is A with eighth notes and quarter notes…
N: There they are
T: …so a combination here. Slightly longer exercises gives us a bit more time to practise this octave A shape, and crossing the strings
N: Okay, I'm gonna load up the Xtractor
T: Okay, Good
N: And we can play along with that, obviously at home, take your time on it, you know, break it down bar by bar, get your rhythm how we practised before
T: Yeah
N: And then bring it into the Xtractor
T: Absolutely, yeah, you could look at each bar in turn, make sure you understand the rhythm. Don't be rushed along. Go at your own pace and spend plenty of time to make sure you understand everything
N: Exactly (Xtractor starts playing)
N: So these are our quarter notes, and then this is the second bar there with those eighth notes. I'm liking the sound of this. We're mixing it up. I'm gonna move that so you can see them there Terry
T: That'll be helpful
N: (Laughs) It's all about team work here on Gigajam. Okay, we're just bringing it all together, we've got our A shape there
T: Yeah
N: It's sounding good as well. Sometimes, you know, practise can get a bit boring and a bit dull if you're just doing the same thing
T: That's the good thing about having this Gigajam band isn't it, really?
N: Yeah
T: If you were just doing this on your own, you would get bored, pretty quickly
N: Lovely Terry
T: Good
N: Beautifully demonstrated (Xtractor stops playing)
N: As ever
T: Thank you
N: We've got more haven't we?
T: We've got lots more, so if you could scroll down, kindly. You're working quite hard today
N: I am, so are you, we all are I think
T: Slaving. Okay, what do we do next? Have a guess
N: Building a rock groove?
T: Building a rock groove is exactly what we do next. And what we did earlier, in the last lesson, was play G octaves. And in this lesson we have played A octaves. You can see what coming. We're gonna combine those two so, many a rock groove, many a bass groove or a bass riff, or many a song has been born out of just exactly that. Taking something, coming up with a core rhythm, like for example with this octave shape, transferring it to a new note, copying it. And then those two things together become the foundation of a song perhaps
N: I like it. We're gonna mix it up, A's and G's
T: Yeah, so this exercise number three is the first bar is A, second bar G, third bar A, fourth bar G. So gonna give us the chance to practise…
N: Mmmhmm
T: …moving, transferring this octave shape from A, which is where we start, down to G. So going from the fifth fret…
N: Mmmhmm
T: …down to the third fret, and then back up. So it's gonna give us plenty of time to get all this under control
N: Yeah, I mean the difficult stage is, I think, when we're gonna be changing bars, when we're gonna be changing the notes
T: Yeah. Once you're in one location, that's fine, isn't it? It's when you've gotta change to the other place that there's a potential for you to kinda lose control. So if you do, don't worry about it
N: Mmm
T: Jump back on and keep going. If you're not happy, stop, check it all again, try out that move, maybe practise it first
N: Maybe practise it, you know, bar one to two
T: You could do that, yeah. Yeah you can do it completely out of time first if you want. Just make sure you've got the locations, down. Cos it's a tall order moving this octave shape around. We only learned it last time, and now we're moving it around to build a rock groove…
N: It is
T: …and playing around
N: I'm gonna put the Xtractor on to give us the Gigajam band
T: Great
N: And…
T: I'll play
N: Yeah, talk us through it as well, talk… (Xtractor starts playing)
N: …us through the tricky change
T: Okay, here we go. Starting with A. Low
N: High. There's the change, we've gone up and we're going back to the A. And there's the G
T: A
N: There's our bar of A. Bar of G
T: High, low, low G
N: We're testing all areas aren't we? Cos, I mean, you're reading along
T: There's a lot going on, isn't there?
N: We've got our rhythm, the alternate fingers, wow!
T: Which is why I'm not talking much!
N: (Laughs)
T: Low A, high, low, low G…
N: The change
T: …high, low, high, A
N: And it's, it's knowing where to look, isn't it? I mean, you're obviously looking at the music, and we've gotta feel that…
T: Yeah
N: …rigid shape… (Xtractor stops playing)
N: …with our fret hand and…
T: Just transferring…
N: …bringing it along
T: …that shape back and to. That's it, that's what this exercise is all about. So take your time, do plenty of practise, and make sure that you can move that octave shape and transfer it from one place to another. It's a really handy bass players tool
N: Handy, really handy. I like it. That's it for part one, keep practising in the….
N: Welcome back Gigajamer's, this is part two of lesson seven. I'm Natalie, he's still Terry. Terry, a packed first half there, I think you'll agree
T: It was good, wasn't it? Fast and furious
N: It was fast and furious
T: Mmm
N: But very learned as well
T: Yeah, we've learned about this octave shape, and we've been transferring the octave shape because of the symmetry of the bass. And we were moving around using that exercise, exercise three, from A to G. There's another exercise in the pack, exercise four, so the viewers at home should take their time and give themselves the opportunity to perfect that octave changing and get smooth and fluent with it, get it under control…
N: Yeah
T: …by using exercise four
N: It's a tricky skill, and it's one that we've gotta practise
T: Yeah, conceptually, understanding it is one thing. But, as ever, once you've got that knowledge and you understand that, it's then applying that…
N: Mmm
T: …getting it out onto the, into the real world
N: Excellent, what's next?
T: Well, we'll skip by exercise four, and go straight to the next section, which, as you can see, is developing our octave shapes for C and D. We learned those notes sometime ago in an earlier lesson
N: Yeah
T: So the octave shapes, fantastic invention, because we can now use that on any note. So I've immediately put my fretting hand, my first finger which we always use the first finger to play the lower note of the octave shape…
N: Mmmhmm
T: …on the third fret. And you're copying me, fantastic, what a good pupil you are
N: Yeah
T: And then the fourth finger completes the octave shape. Remember it's got that L shape to it, so you go up two and across two, very good
N: Two, two, yeah
T: And that is the octave shape on C. First finger, fourth finger, third fret, fifth fret…
N: Okay
T: …so we've now gone, sneakily without even announcing it, up onto the G string…
N: Yeah
T: …for the first time. We're actually playing the G string. We haven't announced it, haven't made a big song and dance about it, because the octave shape just gives us this fantastic system of transferability, where we can access all these new things and go even higher on the bass. At the moment there's C, so let me just switch…
N: Yeah, let's have a listen to that…
T: …my bass on
N: …the low and the high
T: Yeah, would you like to hear it? Here it comes. There's the low C, and there's the high C
N: The brilliant thing about this octave shape is, you know, we knew that C, now we apply that, we've got it, we've got the high C straight away
T: So as ever, we're bringing everything together, combination of all our knowledge and understanding, yeah. I'm not worried about the rhythm or the timing, or the media files at the moment. I'm simply making sure I've located those notes properly, and that my octave shape is secure, but at the same time comfortable, so that in a moment we can move it, we can transfer that shape around to another note. So, yeah, I could practise that a few times, as in exercise five, just playing quarter notes with this C octave shape pattern
N: Okay give us an example, yeah. Low, high, low, high
T: First finger on the low, fourth finger on the high
N: Mmmhmm
T: Remember the octave shape, two up and two across, and this is the C octave. I'm not using a media file at the moment, just doing my own personal practise
N: Yeah
T: To check that I know what I'm doing, and I'm comfortable with it, before I switch on the technology
N: Okay, how can we progress this then? So we've got the octave shape on C
T: We've got the octave shape on C, so we've now learned the octave shape on G and A and C. There's another note we know, it'd make sense…
N: Indeed…
T: …to tie it up
N: …it's that D note
T: Yeah. So we move up to D, which is on the fifth fret of the A string
N: Yeah
T: And we use the first finger I see you're already there
N: I'm there
T: And then the octave shape, up two and across two, that little L shape. So there we are, there's the low D, and there's the high D. And again we're playing the G string, the first string, the thinnest string, for the first time again. And we're all the way up here on the seventh fret, which, if you thought about that call that just said, "oh we're gonna do this now", everyone would get a little anxious about it. But the fact that we've just kind of, you know arrived at it, because of the safety, the relative safety of this octave shape, so it's a really good device which allows us to move things around
N: Yeah, a natural progression
T: So here's the D, and here's the high D. First finger and fourth finger as ever
N: Mmmhmm
T: And then, as ever, there's an exercise to support this, and practise this. I'll just do it on my own first. And there it is
N: There it is, so if you're following along with the notes, you've got exercises five and six, that's for your C and D
T: Great
N: There you go, exercise C, just D
T: Yeah
N: Exercise six, just the D rather
T: Exercise six is D, yeah. And I might want to try it, oh I'm gonna go back to exercise five now. The very easy thing, isn't it, to just go okay fine move on, move on, move on. I'm not really sure that when it comes to the next exercise, which I assume, I'm sure you're the same, is gonna be a combination of those two. I'm just gonna go back and make sure that I've really nailed exercise five. There's my C thing
N: Isn't that a good attitude to have to all the kind of exercises?
T: Absolutely, yeah, you know, I mean, it's very easy, isn't it to say "okay I've got to the end, finished"?
N: Mmm
T: You go, well, let's just review all that stuff. Let's just make sure that if we are gonna be performing, playing in a band, ultimately, you know, we hope, we'd hope to be recording with that band. And as we've found already, throughout the essential bass skills lessons, the technology is very, very accurate, so you wanna make sure you are too. So yeah, there's, it's a good thing to go back and double check things, and just make sure as I was doing then with the previous exercise
N: Mmm
T: And then I can think, okay yeah here's the next exercise, there's the D. Cos I know that any minute now there's gonna be an exercise coming at me which makes me, helps me, encourages me to practise moving between the C and D octave shapes
N: Shall we have a look at that exercise?
T: Let's see if it's there. We both know the answer to this
N: Okay so now we've got playing all octave shapes learned so far, G, A, C and D
T: Yeah
N: Cor
T: Talk about turn the heat up
N: Exactly, that's everything, that's all the notes that we've learned, and that's all the octave shapes that we've learned to this point so far
T: Absolutely Natalie, well said yeah. All the notes we've learnt so far, so we're gonna play a bar of G, and then a bar of A
N: Mmmhmm
T: And then a bar of C, and then a bar of D. But not content with just that, we're gonna play an octave shape on each of those notes…
N: Cor
T: …so playing octave shapes for all the notes learned so far
N: So we've got A in the first bar
T: G in the first bar
N: A in the first bar
T: A in the first bar
N: (Laughs) I don't wanna have a fight with you Terry
T: Just checking!
N: (Laughs) A in the first bar, then G, and then we've got C and then D
T: Perfect, you know more than I do, I'll let you do it
N: Ahh, I didn't wanna tell anyone
T: And we're only using quarter notes
N: Yeah
T: So, let's have a look at the video
N: Good idea
T: See this in action. It gives me a chance to work out my moves. Here comes the video, so as you said
N: So first note (Video starts playing)
T: A. And then he moves down, to G
N: To G
T: Across to C
N: Up to the…
T: Okay…
N: …D
T: …great
N: A (Video stops playing)
N: G, C, D
T: This is not dissimilar to an exercise we played in an earlier lesson, without the octave shape
N: Yeah
T: We, we built rock grooves, bass rock grooves, using those root notes…
N: Mmm
T: …moving around. Do you remember the different kind of combinations? We're doing exactly the same thing here, only each time instead of just playing the root note, we're playing an octave shape
N: Just revise root notes for me, just quickly
T: Yeah, just the root note of A, is what we learned earlier. The root note of G, and the root note of C, and the root note of D. And what we've done though, is we've extended our knowledge, by playing the root note, and an octave above it
N: Mmmhmm
T: And then moving them all around
N: Okay is it, I mean it's a series of rectangles, really isn't it? And sort of upside down letter L's
T: That's a great way to describe it, yeah. So just locking that shape, and moving it around. That shape…
N: Mmm
T: …get those fingers out the way. It's just that shape, isn't it?
N: Yeah
T: It's a very rock shape
N: I mean obviously, just remind, I'm sure you guys will know by now, but Terry, you're a left-handed guitarist. I am a right-handed, semi- bass guitarist (laughs)
T: It's coming along nicely, you're doing fine
N: Yeah, we're getting there. Terry we should practise this
T: Yeah let's practise it
N: Okay, I'll bring the Xtractor up there
T: Thank you, I'm ready with my octave shapes, moving them around
N: I'm ready to hit play. A one, two, three (Xtractor starts playing)
T: Go!
N: There's our first bar, that's A. And then G. And up to C. And then D
T: So just moving that octave shape around
N: Yeah
T: The same shape. First finger on the low…
N: Mmmhmm
T: …and the fourth finger on the high
N: And it's the same pattern you're doing, isn't it?
T: Just a four bar exercise, and it's just to help me, improve my control, my fluency. Moving around and playing an octave shape on each of the notes we've learned so far
N: Yeah. Oooh
T: Oooh
N: If we were recording that, we'd have picked that up wouldn't we?
T: It's pretty unforgiving, isn't it?
N: Exactly. My ears are becoming more tuned to you now (Xtractor stops playing)
N: Fantastic. That's the end of the Gigajam band. For the moment
T: Mmmhmm
N: How was that? Any tips or advice that we could give to the viewers on practising that?
T: Yeah, I mean you saw then, you know I was playing it and talking to you and it's very easy to make a slightly out of time note, or, don't worry about it. You know, stop it, if you're not sure what you're doing go back over it again like we did earlier with those exercises. We've moved on from exercise five to six, and then when I played exercise six I though, "oh yeah, let me just check exercise five again". It's very easy, with all this information coming at you quickly, so it's a good idea, as we said just now, to go back and check it. So again, you know, the pressures of us only having half an hour to go through all this fantastic information. At home, you don't have to restrict yourself to half an hour, you can take as much time as you like…
N: Yeah
T: …so I think that would be a really good thing. This is just a four bar exercise, it could be a forty bar or a four hundred…
N: (Laughs)
T: …bar exercise. Just loop it around, because the whole point is if you don't feel comfortable with it, if you can't move it around, if you're not playing the right notes at the right time or it doesn't sound and feel good, then obviously something's wrong, so stop it and check, check what's wrong. Fix it if you need to
N: Yeah
T: And then dial it all up and play again
N: Terry, today's lesson is almost up. Lesson seven is at a close…
T: Shame
N: …what's happening in episode eight?
T: More of the same, you know, that progressive learning. Flowing on from where we were. Using a lot of the skills we've been practising here in lesson seven. One of the big things coming up in lesson eight is root and fifth
N: Root and fifth
T: Root and fifth
N: I don't know what that is
T: It's another of the essential bass skills that you'll need. That's the good thing about Gigajam, you know, we're not only giving you a whole load of knowledge, of course we're doing that…
N: Absolutely
T: …helping you to understand it. But essentially, the most important thing of all is putting it into practise, so that you can play not only with the virtual band, via the Gigajam band, but with a real band too
N: Exactly, putting it into practise. And you guys need to be putting in the practise. Join us here next time for episode eight of the essential bass skills course