TEACHER JOSH: This is bass
school, and we need bass rules. For without rules... disorder! DISORDER!!! Whoa, hold your horses Teacher Josh! Don't you know, that rules
are meant to be broken? [josh is so wimpy] Well, uh... they are. [meow] Here are 10 bass rules you'll hear from teachers about technique,
theory, rhythm and more. I'm going to show you why
pro bassists sometimes break these rules and whether it will help or hurt your playing to copy them. [BassBuzz Theme] TEACHER JOSH: Rule one,
don't pluck too hard, Unless you want to sound like Geddy Lee. Teachers tell you not to overpluck because it's tiring and it gives you this kind of nasty tone. But that tone can be killer for intense or aggressive music like Rush. GEDDY: I don't do soft picking. I whack, I attack the bass. Just pay attention to the difference in sound between normal plucking and overplucking. And don't overpluck when you
need a nice mellow sound. [Midnight Train To METALLLLLLL] And also overplucking
can mess up your rhythm if you're too tense, 'cause your fingers will get stuck on the string. So it might turn your
nice solid eighth notes into [shite]. Before we hear rule two, a quick shout out to
Mike at Art-Of-Guitar. Check out his "10 rules that
guitarists break" video, which inspired this bassy version, after you're done watching here. The link is in the description. TEACHER JOSH: Rule two,
pluck with two fingers. Unless, you want to sound
like James Jamerson. Teachers teach you to alternating pluck with index and middle so
that you can play fast enough to keep up with all
the music you want to play. But what pro bassists still love about one finger plucking
is the consistency of the sound of the same
finger attacking every note. I love one finger plucking, but my caveat for beginners is if you
don't force yourself to consistently practice alternating plucking you're never going to get good at it. And then you won't be able
to keep up on faster songs. [Marcus shreds] 'Cause getting one finger plucking, even like sorta fast is really hard. ["For Once In My Life" By Stevie Wonder] TEACHER JOSH: Rule two and a half click like and subscribe to Bass Buzz. And don't skip the notification bell. How can you have any pudding
if you don't eat your meat. Get on with your work. TEACHER JOSH: Rule three,
use the pinky to fret. Unless you want to play like Chris Squire. Bass teachers do everything
they can to talk you into using your pinky As any student of my Beginner
to Badass course can attest, I start forcing you to use your pinky in the first few lessons. That's because the
sooner you start using it the sooner it'll start feeling easy and you'll have more reach,
you'll use less energy and have less fretting technique issues. This is the first rule I'm
going to say really is a rule. And actually Chris Squire
was the best example I could find of breaking this rule, but even he sometimes used the
pinky on more complex runs. But he might've been able
to relax his hand more and do less work by incorporating
the pinky more often. Playing something like
third fret, fifth fret with index and ring fingers
the way Chris Squire typically would have means that your hand is stretched this amount. But if you go index pinky,
now you're stretched less which means less work, which really adds up after hours of playing. TEACHER JOSH: Rule four
no thumb over the neck. Unless you want to play
like Louis Johnson. Teachers tell you not to
do this because it can lead to not using the pinky
because of this hand angle. And also it kind of makes
you look like a guitar player which is a bassists worst nightmare. [BURN] But doing this at the right
time has some benefits. That thumb can help with
muting the low strings, especially when you're picking or slapping and you don't have your plucking
thumb available for muting. And you can also add secret
low notes with the thumb like Louis Johnson does
on songs like Billie Jean. You might think that
bassline goes like this. But it actually goes like this. Apologies to my Beginner
to Badass students who thought that song was plenty damn hard enough without extra notes in it. TEACHER JOSH: Rule five
fret with your fingertips. Unless you want to sound
like Rocco Prestia. Teachers push using the
fingertips because it keeps you from like locking out
your fingers like this. And it's also easier to not
like accidentally mute yourself and you just get cleaner, tighter notes. But that's actually why
fretting with flat fingers like Rocco can be an awesome
move in the right context. You end up slightly
muting most of your notes since there are other
fingers touching the string past where you're actually fretting. Which gives you a tone
kind of like you'd get from palm muting or using a bridge mute like this Nordymute that I reviewed in my last Bass Gadgets video. Here's a Rocco line fretting
with all fingertips. And here's flat fingers. It's less clean and it's way funkier. And you still aren't locking
your fingers out to do this. They're just kind of flat-ish. TEACHER JOSH: Rule six, keep
your bass above the waist. Unless you want to play
like Robert Trujillo. So why is this a bass teacher rule? Well, first of all, I have
to stand to show you this and now you can't see my face because I'm too tall for my set. So I just inherently don't
like this strap length. But seriously keeping the
bass this low can lead to some fretting technique issues. You can't really fret normally
cause you torque your wrist. So it's easy to end up doing
this thumb over the neck and don't use the pinky
thing in this position. And also if you'd like to
stand and sit, it means that your strap is useless
when you're sitting down. So why does a killer bassist like Trujillo choose to
rock the bass this low? I mean, it kind of looks really cool if you're standing on
stage and rockin out. It's ferocious. And also it's easier to
keep a straight wrist on your plucking arm
cause your arm is so low. But if you don't need to
professionally look cool then I'd still push you to
have the bass a little higher. Otherwise you're working with
serious fretting limitations. It's really hard to get
to your higher frets. And also when you sit down the bass is just going to be falling over. TEACHER JOSH: Rule seven, stay
down low on the money notes. Unless you want to sound like Peter Hook. It's not just teachers who say to stay down on low notes when you play bass. You'll hear this from studio
session pros, from producers and maybe even from your band
leader, if you stray too far. That's why learning those notes on the first few frets is
so important as a beginner. So check out my Fretboard
Money Notes video if you still need work on that. But if you want bass to
be a strong, melodic voice in your band like Hooky,
then the sky's the limit. Or at least the top of the fret board is. I mean just imagine
Love Will Tear Us Apart without those cool high notes. And if you're in the right key you can avoid losing the bottom end when you play up high by
adding some low open strings like Hooky does in this and other songs. Rule eight bass tone should
have lots of low end. Unless you want to sound
like Victor Wooten. So the last rule is about
what notes you play. Whether you play up high
or you play down low. This is about the actual
tone of those notes. Whether they sound like fat and bassy. Or whether they sound thin and bright. The general rule whether
you ask a bass teacher or a sound engineer is that
you need enough bottom end in your tone to fill the
role of the bass player. So how does Victor Wooten get away with a much thinner, more guitar-like tone? Well, Vic is a lead bassist. Thinning his tone is a clever move he uses so that even somebody without a great ear for bass can still pick out all the virtuosic madness he plays. Check it out, here's Victor's
tune Me and My Bass Guitar with just some nice solid bass tone. It's pretty hard to pick
out all the notes, right? But if I roll off some bass, roll up a little treble and high mids, it's a lot easier to pick
out what's happening. I knew I learned that lick when
I was 16 for a good reason! So for the average bassist, yes, you need to bring good
bassy tone to your band. But if your lines or solos need
to cut through the mix more you can experiment carefully
with thinning out your tone. TEACHER JOSH: Rule nine,
you must learn theory. Unless you want to play
like Billy Sheehan. Teachers want you to learn
theory so you'll understand what makes things sound good, but why bother? 'Cause Billy Sheehan seems
to do just fine without it. I have patterns and notes and
melodies and moves that I do. I don't know what scale they are. I don't know what notes they are. I flunked rudiments of
music in high school. Here's the deal. Yes, you can get away with not learning theory if you
have an amazing ear. But if you don't, theory can actually help you develop a better
ear so that you can play more intuitively, you
can talk about music. You can understand what's happening. You can analyze songs. And that's why I teach theory in context on this YouTube channel and even more so in my Beginner to Badass
course, over at BassBuzz.com. TEACHER JOSH: Rule 10, play
on the one for God's sake! Unless you want to sound like Sting. Beat one is super
important for bass players as any Bootsy Collins fan knows. BOOTSY: And you hit on the one, one. I did a whole video talking about Bootsy and the one which you can check out here. So what's going on when bassists like Sting don't always play on the one. Does that mean it doesn't really matter? Take a song like Roxanne. The verse bassline has almost no beat one, but that works because the
guitar is hitting the one. So they've traded roles from
a normal reggae feel where the bass would be on the
beat and the guitar would be off the beat. So Sting is still relating to
the one - he's just dancing around it and playing
with your expectations. And it works because it's
supported by the guitar part. So yeah, most of the time
basslines need to hit on the one but in the right context and
with support from the rest of the band, playing with that expectation can sound really cool. Teacher Josh you're throwing
us all these rules - Can you even play the bass? TEACHER JOSH: Of course I can!!! Well... only songs about teachers. Chin up!
