Top 5 Bass Tips For Learning Songs! (For Gigs Or Practice)

Preparation

First things first, you’ve got to LISTEN to the song, over and over and over again! Why is this? Well, you can probably sing your favourite songs away from your instrument. That way you know the structure, the melody and it’s become embedded in your mind.

You’ll already have a great overview of the piece and have built up familiarity with it. Once you know the song really well away from your instrument, it’s very easy to learn it once you pick up your bass.

Form

After listening to the song loads, just write out on a piece of paper the overall form or structure of the song. Make notes of each section of the song; verse, chorus etc.

Then once you’ve done that, listen again and write out how many bars in each section. Listen through and count as you go making notes of any other pieces of information that turn up such as; time signature changes, odd bars etc.

This chart will serve as a cheat sheet and visual representation of the song in question.

Bass line Types

Now, you have to think about what kind of bass line you are dealing with, is it riff based or is it outlining a chord progression?

In short, a riff will be a repeating melodic figure whereas a bass line outlining the chords might not be as repetitive and require some more time to learn.

For the chord progression defining bass lines, the cheat sheet or Chord Chart really comes in handy!

Theory

It’s really worthwhile getting to grips with music theory as learning about chord tones, scale degrees, arpeggios etc. really goes a long way to speeding up the song learning process.

You’ll start to recognise recurring patterns and even hear the character of the chords and intervals. Theory is a huge boost to learning music and not just something muso’s talk about!

The Final Stage

Finally, when it comes to songs, get off that chart as soon as possible. This is just a way to help you learn the tune, but try not to get stuck on relying on it, staring at a chart on stage is not a good look!

Also, play along with the original recording and then test yourself on playing it away from the track. Building your bass repertoire is vital to your development as a musician so get cracking!