Here we are in the last week of genius hour blogs! All in all this project has been a great experience for me, and I have very much enjoyed being able to learn the bass. I have come a long way with understanding music in general, even after having a few years of musical background.
At the beginning of the project, I was really struggling, and I was getting frustrated pretty easily when I couldn't play something properly. However, throughout the weeks I have come to realize that it isn't easy to be able to play something perfectly off of a cite read, and it takes patience and practice. My project didn't go much like I had planned at all, because I never really got around to studying real tablature and exact note locations on the fretboard. That is something I am going to have to set time to study and learn. One of the things that I never really did was experiment with my amp's aux feature so I can play along with songs, because I haven't really spent the time to learn an entire song. However I am going to figure the aux out for my presentation, which will involve a video clip of me playing along to something, as well as some other little riffs I enjoyed. I am thinking on doing "Killing in the name" by R.A.T.M. or "N.I.B." by Black Sabbath. One of those or maybe something different will be played along to, and the presentation will have some short riffs as well, all put into one video.
0 Comments
As the Genius Hour project nears the final week, I am starting to really reflect on my progress, and how it has mostly been learning short riffs rather than specific notes or the music theory. I have spent my time learning riffs using a website that just shows the frets and strings, rather than a real tablature, so I haven't really learned how to read the sheet music for the bass.
In middle school, I played the alto saxophone, and I was able to quickly read and recognize the treble clef notes, and I feel like if I could go back I would definitely spend time to learn bass clef so I could read proper sheet music. This week, I was very busy with homework and other assignments so I had very little time to learn anything new, so the time I did play was just old riffs I already know. For the final presentation and my work for Week 12, I will probably experiment with my amp's aux feature, and see if I can find a good song to play along too. Because I don't want my presentation to take up too much time, it will likely only be less than 2-3 minutes, so I can have the other few minutes being me actually speaking and maybe some other clips. For all I know, I could look at making it all one video about 3 minutes long, so I can spend the other 3-5 minutes talking for the presentation. For this week, I spent a lot of time by myself playing, and learned several new riffs, and recorded one. To start it off on Wednesday, I learned "Longview" by Green Day, the riff to "Thriller" by Michael Jackson, "Hysteria" by Muse which I find very fun to play, the first part to "John the Fisherman" by Primus, "Forty Six & 2" and "Schism" by Tool, part of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "My Friend of Misery" by Metallica, "Bombtrack" by Rage Against the Machine, "Give it Away" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and finally "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin. The most important one by far was "Black Dog" because as I'm sure I've mentioned before that Led Zeppelin is one of my all time favorite bands, and the song played a big part of my childhood. My fondest memories are from riding in my dads silver van to Church with the album Led Zeppelin IV on, and this song coming on. I did manage to record it and put it on my instagram, but I will upload it on here below. Aside from the song being meaningful, it is just a really fun riff to play and as my dad puts it, "the bass owns that song." For this weeks practice and playing I spent a lot of the time on my own, just playing around some more to get more aquatinted to my bass. To do this I did the only thing within reason, which was to learn meme songs of course.
I spent a solid two hours sitting on my bed just learning songs from memes and some move/show theme songs. My dad also showed me "Ramble On" by Led Zeppelin. I learned everything from the Mario Bros. theme to the coffin dance meme with the guys dancing with a casket. Meme culture is just so diverse. After playing around with those for a while on Wednesday, the next day (Thursday) I wanted to learn something from Rage Against the Machine, because they have a few songs that I like. So, I first learned the openings to "Guerrilla Radio" and "Bulls on Parade" because they were relatively easy. However, the one I really wanted to learn was "Killing in the Name" and I have wanted to for a while. I've always put it off because it is in Drop D tuning and I never felt like messing around with that, until I did this week. I really loved learning this one, because I think it is really fun to play while still not being that hard. For my final "goal" of the project, I have been thinking of recording myself playing a cover along to it, because the amp I have has a feature where I can plug in an aux chord and play along from the same amp. The one thing I probably will have to do is find a proper tab for it because there were two different ones on the website and they were slightly different, so I want to find an official or correct one so I know I'm playing the right notes on time. This week for Genius Hour I learned a few more riffs than normal. First, my dad showed me the three notes to "Misty Mountain Hop" by Led Zeppelin. As a side note I'm surprised it took this long to learn something from Led Zeppelin IV because it is one of my favorite albums.
That was a pretty easy riff to learn, so my dad also decided to show me "Working Man" by Rush. Rush along side of Led Zeppelin is one of my favorite bands, so I have been looking forward to learning some of Geddy Lee's bass lines. I was able to pick it up pretty quickly, and this time I was shown the chorus to it, so I know a little more than just the opening. One thing I am considering for next week is to learn the bass line to an entire song and play along with the whole thing. I am going to take the first half of next week figuring out what song I want to do, and then spend next Saturday playing it and possibly recording it. Aside from these two riffs, I also took my own time to attempt the main bass part to "The Trooper" by Iron Maiden, but that was very difficult. The triplets in it were very fast and I actually kind of got it, but the opening was a bit tricky. After this, I also learned "Hand of Doom" by Black Sabbath. I was only able to play today, which is Sunday because I've been pretty busy this week. My dad was able to show me a new riff, which was the bass line to "Riders on the Storm" by The Doors. Overall I really enjoyed this riff, and was able to pick it up quickly. Last week I received a comment from Mr. Barker about uploading a video of my playing, and this week I focused on recording me playing this new line and the opening to "Sweet Emotion" from last week. It took several takes because I messed up quite a bit, and it wasn't great audio because I was on my phone propped up on my bed sheets. I know, it's not the most desirable set-up for recording. After cringing from my voice and playing in a video for at least 30 minutes, I came to a one and a half minute clip that I didn't absolutely hate, Which will be uploaded below. After recording, I decided to go back to some old riffs, and played around with "Hypnotize" by System of a Down and a few others.
This week was a week more so focused on technique, and I spent a lot of time playing a scale over and over how my dad showed me. He taught me that all scales follow the patter of whole-whole-half, whole-whole-whole-half. Each fret is a half step, meaning I go from a fret up two, up two, up one for the half, up two, up two, up two, up half. This can be done on one string but he showed me starting from A on the E string going down to the D string. I don't know yet why the third note is a fret down on the next string up, and how you know to do it.
Aside from teaching me the scale in A, my dad then tried showing me "Sweet Emotion" by Aerosmith. The important word is "tried" because I was extremely confused when he attempted to explain the rhythm. I learn riffs easily by being told what notes are played at what time, and with this riff it couldn't be explained that way based on the way I was shown. So, after telling me the notes he proceeded to play, and expected me to be able to try it. It didn't really go well, and I just kind of sat there. I was hearing it and understood what was happening, sort of, and just couldn't place it. What I heard was the same note, open A, being played at the same time as the others in the riff. When my dad showed me the finger placements I just got really confused. After trying to understand I got a little frustrated and my dad decided to show me a different riff. He said it was a base for blues. It is also the riff to "It's Not My Cross to Bear" by the Allman Brothers Band. after learning this easy line, my dad left and said to work on the scale and play it a lot to get a feel using certain fingers that I wasn't used to. After playing that for a while, I decided to try to learn "Sweet Emotion." Before he left, my dad told me that listening to the rhythm would help me understand how to play. So I pulled up the song and just listened, and I realized how the open A was being played, and spent some time perfecting the riff. This week was a pretty busy week and I didn't get a whole lot of time to play and learn new things. In the small amount of time I did play, I looked up some tabs to random songs, and learned fairly quickly the bass line to "Stand By Me," the Pirates of the Caribbean song, and the first few notes to "Ramble on" by Led Zeppelin.
These riffs weren't too hard to pick up, but it did take me a little while for the Pirates of the Caribbean one because it was a bit of a stretch on my fingers. "Ramble on" has a pretty simple opening line, but then it was a bit tricky switching strings. One thing I have noticed about my playing is that the first thing I always play when I first pick up and plug in my bass is "Who Knows" by Jimi Hendrix, which I learned a few weeks ago. This is pretty much my warm up song because I like it so much. After playing with these for a while, I did go back to "The Ocean" from last week and spent some time working on my technique for reaching far notes easier. I started to mess around with which fingers I used on certain notes of the different songs and I noticed I was using my pinky a lot, which is one of the weaker fingers. I realized that I for the most part I could have been using my ring finger, because I am more smooth on string transitions with that finger, and I had just naturally been using my pinky. When I started using my ring finger, it made "The Ocean" sound a lot better and was a little easier to play, even if I stretched my hand more. I didn't spend a lot of time playing this week, and most of the time I did was just fiddling around with random notes. On my own time I learned how to properly play the riffs to "Come Together" and "Day Tripper" by The Beatles.
I learned these two because they are two of my favorite Beatles songs, and these are the ones that come to mind for bass riffs I really enjoy. It didn't take me long to learn "Come Together," but it did take me a good while to learn "Day Tripper" because the transition among the strings was kind of awkward. On Saturday my dad showed me how to play "The Ocean" by Led Zeppelin. I have always really liked this song, and never really thought of learning it until my dad showed me it. This riff was one of the harder ones to play because I really had to stretch to reach the notes when it changed strings, and one part is a stretch on two strings back and forth. I spent about 30 minutes playing the riff over and over, and eventually it started to hurt my fingers from stretching so much. I now know that that is something I will have to practice a lot to get used to because a lot of bass lines and songs have fast notes and awkward positions. Outside of the notes, a lot of my issue is not having a great technique, which I've heard is a problem and having a good technique will make you a better bass player. I'm going to spend some time getting a feel for my bass and getting a better technique. This week, I spent most of my playing time on my own and in my room. I had a lot of fun playing this week because when I played I was home alone. I got to crank the sound up really loud and really got to know my bass.
I was mainly fooling around with fifths, which is playing one fret on a string, and going to the next string two frets higher. Playing fifths to me will always sound good, and make for a unique way to change up a normal riff of a song. After playing with the fifths for a while, I kept going back to the same two positions because I really liked the sounds coming out of them. After playing those two back and forth, I went down to the first from the second position in a specific rhythm, using each fret in between. After playing the riff I "wrote" I realized that it sounded really familiar. I realized the next day that it sounded a lot like "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones, and I hope they aren't the same exactly so my riff can have some originality. Other than messing around and not playing anything specific earlier on in the week, I did look up the bass tab to "Come as you are" by Nirvana and also learned the second part to the Seinfeld theme. One thing I do want to do is learn what certain symbols mean in bass tabs so I can properly read it and be able to play a little easier. |