Learn Metal Bass w/ David Ellefson DVD#1

hi I'm David Ellison and this is the rock house method level one program for learning to play metal bass guitar I've been a metal bass guitarist most of my life I've been a musician for most of my life and I've certainly been a huge metal fan throughout all of my career though the one thing I have known how to do is to be a well-rounded versatile musician and this started when I was a very young boy I learned how to play keyboards I learned how to play saxophone I learned how to play guitar and most importantly my passion about playing bass guitar this has given me a firm bedrock for everything that I've done throughout my professional career now in this program you're gonna learn all the basics you need to get started playing bass and to develop as a metal bass player I also want to let you know about something else that's really cool that this program comes with a free online lesson support go to the main menu to find out how to register for your free membership at Rock house method calm so grab your bass let's go let's go tear it up and play some metal okay to get things started let's first of all take a look at the parts of the base essentially there are three parts of the instrument there's the body there's the neck and then there's the headstock so starting from the top to the bottom the headstock consists of the tuning keys which are designed to tune the instrument then there are always two nuts involved with the base there's this nut right here which the strings go over and then the other nut is the one who's playing the instrument down below that we have the the frets which are run the entire length of the fingerboard down here we have the pickups and this is what actually amplify helps amplify the instruments that we actually hear the sound from it as it runs through its amplifier down here we have the bridge which anchors the strings into the body and we have the electronics which are ultimately the volume and our tone controls down here we have the Jack where you plug the instrument in so that it would you can be connected to the amplifier and then on the end of the bass and also up here we have the strap buttons which is what you use if you want to be in the standing position using a strap so there you have it those are the parts of the bass let's talk position for your playing the base most of what we're going to be doing in this program I'm going to be sitting down playing and you as a beginner learning to play the instrument well most like we want to be sitting down because it'll be the most effective position for you to be in to properly play and study and learn essentially most bases are cut out with a contour down here so you can put the bass in my case I'm a right-handed player so a right-handed player would usually set it on your right leg if you were a left-handed player this all of these mechanics would be completely the opposite so as you hold the bass it's most important to just be comfortable and usually with the neck coming across your body as opposed to being back this way will afford you the the ability to move your hand comfortably out as you extend your arm down to the upper reaches of the neck which is what we're going to be doing most of our playing in this program now for your right hand which is your picking or plucking hand you should be able to rest your hand comfortably back here so that you don't break your wrist because that that can cause some serious tension and problems as well as it can affect the way that your ability to play the instrument I like to when I'm playing with my fingers be able to anchor my thumb right here on usually a pick and the pickup or on a pick guard or something even this is one of the strings but essentially you should just be comfortable and you should be relaxed from your plan so now you know how to hold the bass okay before we get going on any playing we need to make sure that our instrument is in tune and for these purposes today you can tune to me and I'm going to go across the strings I have a four string bass and the first string is the is this smallest skinniest string up here on the top which is a G string the second string below that is the D string the third string is an a string and the fourth string is the biggest fattest string here which is the e string so I'm going to play each string so that you can tune your instrument and you use your tuning peg on the top to tune you can either raise the pitch or you can tune it toward you to lower the pitch so here's the g string you should be able to raise or lower it to get in tune here now I'm going to go to the D string now we'll go to the a-string [Music] and finally we'll go down to the e-string [Music] there's also a tuner available at the rock house method calm website that you can download that you will be able to use to help you better with that and now you should be in tune let's do some plan now I want to teach you how to read tablature or tab as it's commonly called tablature is a numbering system for reading notes on the neck of a guitar or bass it does not require you to have any knowledge of standard music notation and this system was designed specifically for guitar and bass what you're looking at right now is a bar of tablature you'll see four horizontal lines and those represent the strings on your bass the top line is going to represent your g string which is the smallest string the one below that is your D string below that is your a string and beneath that is your E string the biggest string you're also gonna see some numbers on the strings these correspond to the frets that you're going to be playing on with your left hand so for example you'll see a zero that would mean not to play any frets at all that's an open string when you see a three that means with your left hand you're gonna play the third fret on the E string because that's where the three is the next string up you're gonna see a two and that's your a string that means you're gonna play on the second fret of your a string and then above that you're gonna see the D string has a two also so you're going to take your finger off the a string and place it on the D string and play on the second fret now you may notice these little numbers underneath the numbers that are on the strings and these correspond to your left-hand fingers that should be playing these notes on the frets the little number one corresponds to your index finger number two is your second finger number three obviously is your third finger and four would be your pinky this just helps you play when you're trying to work out positions because a lot of times you're gonna run into things that are complicated or seem like you don't have enough fingers to play so this will help you out let's go over some real simple techniques here before we start playing so that now that we're comfortable with the base and we know the parts of the base let's talk about a few techniques with both the left and the right hand that will help get the most optimum sound out of your fingers because ultimately playing as much as we can learn all kinds of nifty cool things about playing the bass our real sound comes down to our own personality and the way that we touch and feel and play the instrument so with our left hand which is going to finger the the neck up here we want to make sure that our hand is really in kind of AC position so that you're always using the back of your you're the neck is touching with your thumb and from there what that's going to allow us to do is play on the tips of the fingers we want to always be up on the tips as much as we can as opposed to just laying our hand across the string it'll give us a much more clearer more precise sound and we also want to try to finger in between the frets not directly on the fret either but again we want to be able to use our ears for this to make sure that we're getting the cleanest clearest sound possible now a lot of people played the bass with fingers I actually do a little bit of both I pluck the bass with my fingers and I also use it with a pick for plucking it's just a matter of just simply raking your hand across these across the strings and ultimately we like to use a one and second finger approach to plucking the bass you can incorporate more fingers later on but everybody mostly uses one and two and it seems to be the simplest and again anchoring on a pickup is always a good technique for that ok let's talk about the pick now there's many different gauges styles many different manufacturers out there that make picks I am particularly like to use a medium heavy gauge pick and I like to use a torte X pick instead of plastic the torte X to me is a little more durable it's a little bit stronger and it doesn't slip out between my fingers because it has a little more grit to it now when holding the pick you want to hold the pick between your first finger and your thumb you want to make sure that it's blocked in there and it's comfortable and just like we discussed earlier with being comfortable with the instrument you're going to want to find your own place back here where you want to anchor your pinky which I often do between underneath a string or on the pick up and ultimately you want to you know be in a position where you can is if you pluck a little closer to the neck you're gonna have a deeper sound if you click a little bit closer back here to the bridge you're gonna have a kind of a thinner jazzier sound so I like to be somewhere in the middle where I can find something that has a comfortable sound to it speaking the sound let's do some plan let's go [Music] a couple of other fundamentals that I want to go over are some scales to start with we're gonna start with the major scale and for any of you that may have taken any piano lessons if you walk up to a piano the first key that you're always going to be introduced to is the middle C which is the middle of the keyboard so on a bass guitar a middle C is actually right up here on that note which is the fifth fret on the g string so our scale is going to go for one octave meaning that we're going to play from the bottom up and then we're going to go from the top down and this scale will sound like this [Music] now on playing this scale this is a scale that doesn't have any accidentals meaning there's no sharps or flats so start with your second finger on the a string on the third fret now this shape that you're going to use in other words these fingers that are going to finger this scale you can move this scale in this finger shape anywhere across the neck and be able to play a major scale so as much as you're learning the music and the notes you're also essentially learning a couple of cool little things right now which will help you in almost any setting be able to play with all kinds of people because you'll be able to just move your hand around the neck so here why don't you play along with me we're gonna take it real slow and another thing that I want to really advise you to do if you don't have one handy is to get a metronome or a drum machine and a metronome is essentially a timekeeper and there is one available at Rockhouse method calm that you can download that you can have I would always with these exercises start slow learn them be solid with them and then start speeding them up to challenge yourself so let's start at a slow tempo here and we'll start again second finger third fret on the a-string [Music] now we'll go back down [Music] there you have it the major scale now unlike the major scale the minor scale always has a darker more ethereal sound to it and something that's very popular in metal and hard rock music because it gives a little little little darker tone to it so it's an important scale to learn again the finger shape that we're going to use you can move this all over the neck and be able to play minor scales we first we started with a C major scale in the previous section the relative minor to that is a minor that right now isn't so much as important as actually learning the shape again set your metronome to a slow tempo and I'm gonna play it for you first so that you actually know what it sounds like here we go in a minor [Music] so to get started with this again we're going to use one finger for each fret so we're going to start with our first finger on the fifth fret of the fourth string which is the E string again set your metronome at a slow tempo and let's take a stab at it here [Music] there it is the minor scale [Music] [Music] [Music] now we get down to finally doing some playing you've learned some basic techniques that'll help you get your hands comfortable on the neck learning how to pick and pluck back here this is the figure that I was just playing is something that you can do it's a real simple first baseline and it only uses one string and you only have to use two fingers essentially up here on the neck essentially what we're going to do is we're going to start out playing on the a string which is the third string we're going to use our first finger on the third fret which is our C and we're going to use our third finger to go up to the fifth fret which is the D and we're just going to cycle through that now with the picking hand what we're gonna do is we're just gonna play what are called quarter notes and if you notice with our backing track we have a guitar and we have drums so that it actually feels like you're playing with a real band to play this early simple progression what we're gonna do is we're gonna we're going to strike the string four times for each note yeah if you're using a pick you'll be just picking down or if you're using your fingers you're going to be plucking up and as it all sounds together it should sound like this there let's try it with the backing track see how it goes [Music] [Music] just like an old pro now that we've done some playing let's talk about some of the rhythms involved since we've discussed a little bit of the left hand and the melodies and the role of the bass guitar you fall somewhere between that of a melody instrument with the guitar and also being that of a rhythm instrument with the drums I always call it like a bass players were the mortar between the bricks the bricks are important but without something to glue them all together it doesn't fly so that's essentially what I view the role of a bass bar especially in metal as you've heard what the the previous playing example and you'll hear throughout this program we have some tracks that have guitar and drums now in most Western culture music most time signatures are what we call 4/4 time meaning that there are four beats within the bar and we have a playing example here to discuss how the drums outlined this simple playing pattern starting with the hi-hat the hi-hat always hits the most amount of notes in this case it's hitting on the one two three four with the bass drum now coming in which is heating on the one and the three one two three four and then the snare drum is going to come in and that's going to be hitting on the two and the four so we have a one two three four bass drum snare bass drum snare and this type of pattern is going to be in synonymous with most types of heavy metal and hard rock music that you'll be playing and essentially that's how the drums break down and that will give you your rhythm in your timing for you to be playing along with so let's take this rhythm and timing example a little bit farther and we're gonna break this down into quarter notes half notes and whole notes starting with the simplest one which is a whole note a whole note essentially gets four beats two one strike to the string so we're gonna play a track right now and I'll demonstrate what this is like using the whole note which is pretty simple and you should be able to do along with the track right now 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 were striking on the one [Music] three four three or again we're gonna want to be striking along with the bass drum one one [Music] so that was a whole note now let's move on to the half note which gets two beats so essentially we're going to be striking the string with our picking hand twice in one measure and really with this example the easiest way is to just strike along with the bass drum on one and three we're gonna run a track right now and play along so you know what it sounds like 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 [Music] make sure you listen to that bass drum you'll hear it [Music] [Music] okay so now that was the half note so now finally let's move on to another simple passage which is the way we played it initially which is using the quarter note this a quarter note is in this case where each you strike the string four times in the measure because you're essentially playing one time for each beat we're going to run the track one more time and we'll play along you can play basically every one of these is was is subdivided against the hi-hat which is probably the simplest piece of the drum kit to listen to let's see what it sounds like or one one two three [Music] and you're also hitting on the snare drum so there you go you've got the whole note you've got the half note and you have the quarter note three simple ways for you to be able to play cool easy to play solid sounding rhythms on your bass guitar [Music] [Music] next section I want to get into is talking about the half step it's a vital component of metal music and it's really the thing that actually separates it mostly from hard rock music the half step creates a little more tension creates a little more of that demented diminished sound that we all like about heavy metal let's take a look at this particular passage that I was just playing on the right hand I want to talk also about picking we're gonna introduce a new concept of playing eighth notes this is playing twice as many notes as we did previously with the quarter note and we're at the way the count of it is 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 em so as we're picking this and I'm gonna slow it down a little bit here for you is the way that the picking pattern is going to go on this is going to be one and two and three and four and one and two and three four one and two and three and four and for and that'll be the picking pattern for it let's take a look at the left hand real quick to make sure we get the notes right and you can have fun goofing around with these patterns the half step is a fun thing especially if you're into metal and you mean you know your history of metal you're really gonna have fun with this one because most the popular groups use it first we're gonna start with the open string then we're gonna put our first finger on the third fret then we're gonna put our third finger on the fifth fret but here's where the half-step comes in is we're going to use our pinky to play on the sixth fret and that's what gives that tension that that cooled metal sound right there so when you play it slow [Music] remember our right hand long and two and three and four and one for like that we're gonna run the track to grab your bass let's play along its have some fun with this one [Music] remember our counting [Music] or [Music] there you go that's some vital metal stuff right there now I want to take you into a few more advanced concepts but before I do I want to make sure that you've got the previous material down good make sure that you've been practicing with your metronome or your drum machine make sure you start slow speed up gradually so that you really feel secure with it nothing is more frustrating as a musician especially when you're first starting out and feeling like you don't have the material down it makes you feel like you're not progressing in that you're you're not getting any better and that can be very frustrating and a lot of musicians end up quitting and walking away from their instrument we don't want that to happen because part of what I'm trying to do here is show you how I play and essentially give you some skills and some techniques so that you can develop how you play now what what I want to move into here is muting and for the purposes of what I'm going to talk about here is using a pick so for this little section here we are going to have to grab a pick which we talked about earlier muting is is ultimately about using your picking hand to settle a bit on the string to to deaden the sound of the string as opposed to an open string which sounds like this a muted string sounds like this buting is a vital part of the heavy metal sound and it's going to be something that to become an accomplished heavy metal bass player you're gonna need to get this technique down a synth really the nuts and bolts if it comes with having kind of the meat of the palm of your hand not off of the of this string buts resting slightly on the saddles of the string you don't want to be too far back because again you won't get any mute you don't want to be too far up because you won't get any note so it's really a matter of kind of finding your spot right there so that you can be able to get the true sound of the note and not deaden it too much yet not have it too far open I'm going to play along with a track right now and do another thing with this is I want to use the concept of both up and down picking most of what I've been doing so far has been down picking and this is another eighth note passage meaning that we're going to be playing eight strokes on the string for each bar in other words one and two and three and four one and two and three and four and another thing that is important to get down as a metal bass player especially if you're playing with a pick is to be able to do the up and down strokes and this is something you should practice slowly and diligently with your with your drum machine or your metronome and it should sound like this making sure that each of them are even [Music] so we're going to run this with a track right now and play along with it and this it should sound like this [Music] boring [Music] now let's try it with up and down strokes [Music] real evil [Music] and again these things should be practiced on a regular basis with both your metronome or your drum machine using both the up and the down picking as well as just straight down picking so that you can perfect the muting technique okay now we're going to start to add some more notes to our playing and we're also going to start to move up the neck instead of just across the neck we're gonna use our a minor scale as the basic notes of what we're going to play and what we're going to start to introduce here are we're going to start to introduce the octave which in the a minor scale is the same note one octave higher so if we hit the a for instance on the fifth fret of the fourth string and then we hit an octave above it is that note if you hear it's the exact same note it's just the one is higher than the other how we get to that is it's eight steps up two three four five six seven eight okay so that's how we get to that note that's called an octave in between here we can also add something called the fifth two three four five okay so it's five steps up and in this pattern just for the for the picking purposes we're gonna play eighth notes on this so again it's one and two and and three and four am let me show you I'll play for you slowly but I'll show you a quick little pattern and then we'll play along with it to a track here in a little while [Music] so we're doing [Music] two-and three-and four-and reading that fifth in there [Music] okay so now to look at where the notes are on the neck we're starting with our first finger on the fifth fret of the fourth string which is the e string where we're heating the fifth is right here with our third finger up here on the seventh fret of the a-string one five one five that's a good little interval to to train your ear to start to hear then we're going to move up to the 8th fret on the e-string we're just gonna drop our third finger right there again that instantly becomes a 5 5 then we're gonna move up to the 10th fret on the e-string drop the third finger down [Music] so it's and that's how we play the 1 and the 5 now simply enough to add on top of that we just drop the octave up there so I'm keeping our hand in the same position on the 5th fret we add the 1 the 5 the octave which is the 8th I prefer to use my pinky finger with that because I think it makes a cleaner sound the other way you could do it is to just drop your lay your third finger across [Music] so we'd essentially do the same thing we do the 1 3 3 octave and we move that up to the 8th fret and do the same thing [Music] then finally we move it up to the 10th fret and do the exact same finger shape [Music] so here's how it sounds when I was we incorporate the picking as well as the actual fingering [Music] it's the five now I'll add the octave on top [Music] and again the picking of the of the eighth note pattern should be one and two and three and four and and four in and four and one is remember we want to keep playing in eighth notes let's run along on the track and see what this sounds like is we're playing with guitars and drums ok real simple just to start with just to get the feel of it now we'll add the fifth for a moment around I will add that octave [Music] one to Andrea so you can experiment a lot with that you can pick any particular pattern of notes that you may want and you can move that around and that's a very significant part of the heavy metal sound and it lets you incorporate and add some more notes to your playing to add a little bit of flavor try not [Music] [Music] what I just pointed was a simple pentatonic scale which is a great pattern to use and to incorporate to take what we were touched talking about in the previous section using the fifths and the octaves taking it to a new level again you're starting to branch out you're starting to add a little more color to your playing you're starting to move around the neck both up and down the neck this way and also being able to move across the neck with greater ease pentatonic scale is Penta meaning five and tonic meaning notes so it's a five note scale and as it applies to the aim minor scale that we were talking about earlier there's many many different shapes of this of the pentatonic scale that are available on the website if you want to download them and look at them but let's take a look at just the simplest one a minor is pretty simple for these purposes so we're gonna take our first finger and we're gonna put it on the fifth fret of the e-string then we're gonna reach up and use our fourth finger to go up to the eighth fret from note number two the third note is going to be the first finger on the a string and we're gonna put our third finger on the seventh fret then we're going to put our first finger again on the fifth fret of the d-string and then finally we're gonna put our third finger on the seventh fret so what we have is a scale that sounds like this [Music] five notes up five notes down and that's our scale now as we play along with this the progression here that I've outlined is the a C and the D which again are all part of the minor scale that we talked about earlier and fit really comfortably within the pentatonic scale now for our purposes here we're going to keep our hand in this particular box in this shape here so that we get comfortable with where those notes are that lie right underneath our finger you can you you can vary and fluctuate your your picking pattern a little bit too you don't have to be so literal and just playing only down picking or up picking or even just playing eighth notes because that's part of playing pentatonic is that you're able to move around it's a very bluesy kind of very slinky feeling kind of pattern to play and play along with the track do a little experimenting on your own too [Music] [Music] now let's try to do a little [Music] and do all kinds of different things with this one go up to the octave you don't even have to do these blending right on these on the beach either [Music] fail to play [Music] of course I added a few extra notes in the end but that's part of the fun of it and really as long as you're staying within that shape there really are no illegal notes as I like to call them to play they're all perfectly legal and they're all part of it and it's definitely part of the metal sound so let's take this concept of working around the neck and adding some color to our playing oh even one step farther we've talked about playing with fifths playing with octaves we just worked on the pentatonic scale another really simple colorful way to to help incorporate yourself in when you're playing with a guitar player is the use of what's called arpeggios now this is where we're picking certain notes that are in a chord which most guitar players are playing chords so when your buddy comes over this guitar and shows you these new chords and these new riffs and parts that he's learned you'll actually have something to play along with them let's take our example of our C major scale first we're only going to use three notes here so we're just going to keep it real simple so we start with our first finger on the fourth string on the fifth fret on that same string we take our fourth finger go up to the eighth fret then we jump up to the third string and we use our third finger to go up here on the seventh fret it might all sound confusing but just keep in mind what we're really doing is we're learning the shape of playing of the notes of that particular scale for this arpeggio are the 1 3 5 3 1 3 5 3 and again if you wanted to play it in a type of a blues setting it would sound something like this [Music] again do you serve arpeggios just another way to help you personalize your style and add a little bit of color to your playing this next groove is a very cool metal groove and something that's gonna make you really feel like you're developing as a metal bass player it's a line that Steve Harris from Iron Maiden who's personally one of my favorite bass players as well as geezer butler from Black Sabbath another favorite of mine they use these kind of grooves all the time and it's very synonymous with kind of a cool traditional European type of metal I call it the gallop and here's essentially how it sounds it's it's you and it's II I find easiest if you use a pick but it's also something can easily be done with your fingers as well and now we're I'm only gonna be using two notes in this I'm gonna place my first finger on the second fret of the e-string which is an f-sharp and then I'm gonna put my pinky up here my fourth finger up here on the fifth fret of the E string which is an A and I'm just gonna alternate back and forth between those and here's what that here's what the gallop sounds like an account of it is pretty simple actually its monthly kind of an eighth-note pattern one two four one two and three and four and A one two three four and A one and A two and A three four it's pretty simple and it's mostly just a cool groove and a feel when you hear it you'll know it and once you start locking into it if you're playing along with your drum machine or your metronome you're definitely going to really start to feel the pulse of it it's really a cool thing I'm gonna play along on the track right now so you get a feel for it as well [Music] [Music] hello the guitars playing something a little bit just drop it underneath walking right in there with the drums [Music] outside the base in the wrong [Music] here [Music] [Music] cool room very solid very metal the last groove that I want to talk about is the use of sixteenth notes we've been talking about subdividing with a whole note a half note quarter note recently we've been playing with eighth notes sixteenth note is something where we subdivide it even farther and this next groove that I want to go through in this pattern is something that should definitely be played I think with a pick it's nice because you can also incorporate the muting technique that we talked about earlier for these purposes I'm going to play the notes on the e string starting with an open note then we're going to go to the third fret which is a G and then you can just use your third finger to go up to the fifth fret and play an a now for the subdividing of the sixteenth note at the eighth note we went one and two and three and four and we're going to subdivide even further and we're going to go one E and a two E and A three E and a four E and a 1 e and a 2 e and a 3 E and a 4 E and a one E and a two E and A three E and a four E and a 1 e and a 2 e into thinking and the one-e-and-a two-e-and-a three-e-and-a four-e-and-a and counting along is something I do it even when I'm in the studio I do it sometimes when I'm learning new things so don't be afraid to count and if you have to count out loud to get started don't feel embarrassed about it it's a cool thing we're going to play along with the groove here real quick to see what it sounds like [Music] notice how I'm using my again great technique vital part of being a great solid metal bassist [Music] as you may notice this track sounds a little bit darker and a little bit thicker and meaner than the other ones that's due in part to the to the new tuning that I have here those of you that have been listening to new metal and metal in recent years are very familiar with the new tunings that are coming out a lot of it started with the advent of the seven string guitar where guys wanted to start tuning down and even in the early 90s some bands like Allison chains were starting to do a tuning that I'm in right now which is where you take your E string and you tuned it down to a D we call this a drop D tuning where essentially you drop it down one whole step now it's easy to do because you already have another D on your bass guitar correct right there so for tuning and you're dropping your E string down to a D you've already kind of got a built-in tuning mechanism right here of course using the professional tuner is always best but this is how we get to this particular one right here and again it adds a little bit of girth makes it a little bit darker a little bit mean or fatter sound to it in for this particular track I'm mostly just kind of playing a hitting some eighth notes I'm syncopating some things with the right hand you can be creative and come up with your own line I'm just using this one as an example to just demonstrate the tuning I'm using the open string the third fret of the of our now D string the fifth fret and then I'm actually incorporating that half-step again now what's cool about this is our octave is now right here there's our deed [Music] so we can play in all kinds of cool things you can do in new tunings and it's I I find it to be a very creative thing we're gonna run with the track one more time on the way out just so you can hear what it sounds like again playing along [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] see with your right hand and some different picking things [Music] detuning it's cool it's metal when you're first starting out playing bass you like myself when I was starting I always wondered why my bass didn't quite sound like all those records that I was listening to well fear not they've spent thousands of dollars and there's a lot of expensive trickery and gadgets and a lot of high-tech equipment used in making records but for our purposes of beginning as bassists we there are a few things that we can do to try to alter our tone to try to get the most pleasant and pleasing sound that we like for what for how it is that we want to play I I recommend on the bass to always turn the volume of the bass up as far as it will go I also recommend turning the tone knobs up as far as they'll go as well I like to get as much output out of the bass into the amplifier as possible now if you want to get a more rounder kind of bigger sound reminiscent of some of the vintage metal like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin you can turn up the bass control on your amplifier that will give that big worm bottom sound if you want to get a little bit more of that kind of eighties sound which is more reminiscent maybe of what Iron Maiden has try turning up your treble knob you can get that kind of khaki or sloppier kind of sound going on if you want to try to get what's more kind of considered a a modern metal bass sound and certainly something that's reminiscent of the nu metal sound maybe something like what feel D of corn has been doing try taking your mid-range control if you have it on your amplifier and turning it down essentially what that does in the EQ curve is it kind of scoops that out that's why we've had that sound with where the metal guitars kind of fit right in there but the bass isn't in there ultimately in them in the sound spectrum you've got the drums on the bottom the bass fit in there on top of that with the guitars on top so if you kind of think of everything is layering up there you might be able to get a bass sound that sort of fits somewhere in between there especially as you start playing with some of your friends and you're playing in bands and often playing with the guitar very hard sometimes get your bass to stand out around the guitar again a lot of that has to do with how we finger the bass a lot of it has to do with how we pluck the bass and that in particular is why I like to use a pick but in either case experiment and have fun and come up with a tone and a sound and when setting that's right for you all right I want to talk to you for a moment about practicing because it's something that has kind of a stigma almost like doing homework you know it's something we all have to do it's something that just the sound of it makes us not want to do it but yet we all practice I still practice and I think anybody who has been very proficient at their instrument and certainly those of us who have become professionals we need to continue to practice the things that we've outlined so far in this program there's some simple things that just as far as learning how to put your fingers on the neck learning how to use your your picking and plucking hand going through scales these are things that are very basic and very elementary and and really the the knowledge that you can gain from these things if you keep studying is really never-ending so what I like to do when practicing is I like to take some time where I know I'm gonna sit down and I'm actually gonna practice some difficult passages these may be things that are frustrating for me things that I can't play up to speed and I want to sit down and I want to start slow I always practice with a drum machine or a metronome I don't think any of us are ever beyond that having good time is a critical part of being a solid and found musician then moving on from there I like to then take another few minutes where I can just move on and be creative in in the musical world we call this ad living and sometimes for us that are songwriters this is a time where we can sort of forget about the rules not really throw them out but forget about it for a while and sit and explore on our instrument and have fun that's often one of the things that kind of takes us off into a whole nother into a whole other dimension of our playing and most importantly I like to always have instruments available to me you know if you've only got one bass that's fine don't always put it away in the case so that it requires effort to get it out and you have to clean it off and plug it in and turn on your amp and get everything going keep it in a place where you see it because so often times an instrument that sits there that looks inviting is something you're going to want to sit down and play you may not even always have time to actually have a set regimen for your practicing better to put in fifteen to thirty minutes every day because it's fun for you and you enjoy it then not touching the instrument for a week and trying to pick it up and cram and try to almost like you're doing an exam for school so I think most importantly practicing can be a very fun and an enjoyable and most importantly a very rewarding part of your playing thank you for joining me here with volume 1 we've gone through some very basic and rudimentary things about baguette being a beginning bass player most importantly to becoming a well-rounded musician throughout my career I've had of course had a lot of professional accolades and accomplished a lot of things that I always wanted to do but most importantly through all of it I've had a lot of fun and at that been the foundation of it all is I'm a musician so make sure you keep practicing all of the things that we've talked about this in this program so you'll be ready to move on to volume 2 I'll see you from the stage [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Eyad Mostafa

Views: 86,898

Keywords: learn bass guitar in 8 weeks, chords beginner, beginner, scales, learn bass guitar fast, bass, learn, learn bass, bass guitar, fast, notes, songs, megadeth, education, music, david ellefson, dvd, video, movie, film, disc, 4 string, bassist, g string, a string, d string, e string, riffs, chords, intermediate, advanced, cool, cool riff, pick, picked bass, fingerstyle, 1 hour, in 1 hour, quick, rock, metal, rockhouse, method, fretboard, fret, nut, bridge, in a month, in 30 days, in, 30, days, 30 days, 1 day, hour

Id: 1-z5mMfnSLk

Length: 53min 38sec (3218 seconds)

Published: Fri May 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/emobn25i]

wanky bass

[u/Emach00]

Learning how to interact with others via Twitter hosted by David Ellefson. I hope this doesn't throw a wrench in the tour dates this fall. Would've been cool to see Jr. on bass. Wonder who Dave will pull out (heh) to fill in?

[u/[deleted]]

Jackson Jackoff