Bass Lesson 23 - Playing Together

On line tutors and magazine can only teach so many things. Theory and scales, chords and how to read music is some of them. But electronic and paper media cannot teach the importance of playing together with real people in real time. One of the hardest things to do for some players is changing from playing out of time at home to playing in the groove with a drummer. A lot of the time players practice it is without a metronome and in free time. Starting and stopping as needed to re practice certain parts of a song over and over again. This causes problems when it comes time to hold down the groove solidly and play with a drummer or another guitarist.

When a band is playing together they have to barrel through mistakes and keep time moving. There is no place for mistakes when playing together, especially in front of people. This is just one of the things that practicing with other people will help you overcome. When you play by yourself you are playing freely and don't have anything that is playing 'against' you. When you play with a drummer or guitar player, what the other person is playing might not always fit what you’re doing, which means you have to adjust what you’re playing to compliment, or at least fit, what they are playing.

Starting out you might have one or the other start playing a riff and then let the other person come in on top of that. You may need to talk to each other about what you’re going to play, chords, notes, rhythms etc. The best way may be to just play it and have one or the other watch and then come in. Don't expect things to go smoothly unless you are both used to playing together and are comfortable with improvising. When playing together being able to improvise may be the most valuable thing you can bring to the table, besides a guitar.

One key thing to remember is that great riffs and melodies don't come right out of the ground or fall off trees. You will have to build up to something great. Start out with a simple chord change, maybe Gmaj to Amaj or something of that nature. Make up some funky rhythm on the bass or just make something simple. Once you get into the groove with the guitarist then one of you can start jazzing things up. Change rhythms around and maybe play around the scale a little. Eventually you will want to add in a few more changes than just Gmaj to Amaj. Then have the guitar play through in a few 7th chords and see if they fit in, if you playing heavy and distorted stuff, then you might want to just stick with power chords or unison lines.

The easiest way to start playing together is to start out with simple rhythms and chords and then eventually add in more notes and different rhythms until you settle on something that you like. If your trouble actually finding someone to play with dig around at school or work and see if anyone has an old instrument they used to play, try to get them back into it. Or if that doesn't work try to persuade one of your music loving friends to learn an instrument, that may be a little more challenging than actually playing though...

Either way, have fun and remember that playing together with other people will teach you things you just can't learn anywhere else. If you have any questions, as always feel free to ask as many as you want on the GLI forums.

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