The Quickest Way To Achieve Competence as a Bass Guitarist
Learn some Riffs, Shift the Key, and Alter the Sequence of Timing or Notes
This post is specifically about the bass guitar, but the general theory applies to other instruments, too (piano, saxophone, bagpipe, glockenspiel, kazoo, etc.)
Getting good at playing a musical instrument is, for most people (non-Wunderkinds/child prodigies), quite difficult.
Basically what’s required is the answer to the question, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” (practice, practice, practice).
But there is a shortcut to becoming adequate, or competent (which, admittedly, will still take a lot of time and effort — but not as much as if you don’t follow it), namely:
Learn some songs / riffs / patterns
Learn how to “transpose” those series of notes into other keys
Change up the timing of the notes and/or their sequence
Not to “diss” the blues (actually, I love the blues — it was my first musical muse), but probably the easiest genre in which to become proficient is that one. Not because it’s easy to play bass riffs, but because the blues can be pretty repetitive, and most blues songs are played in one of a mere handful of chord progressions (such as 12-bar blues, 12-bar blues with a quick shift, 8-bar blues, 16-bar blues). For more specifics, watch this.
But now, for a little more on these three points, here goes:
Learn Some Songs / Riffs / Patterns
This is pretty self-explanatory, I think. And you should know which key you are playing in.
Get to know at least a handful of songs in various keys to prepare for the next step.
Learn How to “Transpose” A Bass Part (Song / Riff / Pattern) Into Other Keys
What if you play a song (bass line) in the key of A, and the other musicians you’re practicing or jamming with say, “let’s play it in Bb (B flat)”? Easy peasy, you just move everything up one fret (Bb is the same thing as A#, one note higher than A).
However (and however’s are common after somebody says something is easy), what if you were playing some open strings? Now you can’t do that anymore. That open A note now must be fretted (on the sixth fret of the E string).
NOTE: I am assuming you are playing a standard 4-string bass in standard EADG tuning.
One way you can make your transposing easier is not to play open strings in the first place; e.g., in the case above, fret the A on the 5th string of the E string. However (here we go again), that’s not always possible, because what if the open string you were playing is the E string, which can’t be fretted, since it can’t be played anywhere else on the bass? In this case, you just have to bite the bullet, so to speak, and fret the F (when playing that riff in Bb). Don’t fret, though — no, do fret, actually! Just not in the sense of getting your knickers in a twist.
Every other open string (besides E) can be fretted, though, so even if you like the sound of the open A, D, or G string, it’s good to know how to play the fretted version of it (on the 5th fret of the next lower [in tone] and fatter string) to prepare for the possibility of having to up or down the neck and/or across strings.
The only way you can play a riff with a fretted E is if you avoid the low E (E1) and play it an octave higher (E2, such as on the seventh fret of the A string or the 12th fret of the E string). Then, if your bandmates want to change the key from E to D, you can just shift down two frets, and … voila!
Change The Sequence of the Notes and/or Their Timing
This step isn’t absolutely essential, but it will upgrade you from a barely competent, predictable, and somewhat boring — or even robotic — player to a seasoned “pro” — or at least a reliable journeyman.
Once you’re comfortable with the notes you are going to play (and able to play them in whatever key is required to match the singer’s range or the other musicians’ preferences), change the note sequence or timing. What I mean by that is, you can play the same notes in the same sequence, but play them for different lengths of time: change the quarter note to a couple of eighth notes, and/or a couple of eighth notes to a quarter note, for example. Alternatively, you can change the order/sequence of the notes you play. To be clear, you can still play the same notes, just in a different sequence, or order. And, of course, you can do both: change the timing of the notes and the notes themselves. Just don’t get so “out there” that you throw off the drummer or the other cats (and/or chicks).
Note, though, that you probably don’t want to make these changes every verse, but only once in a while, for variety. Even if the audience doesn’t notice your creativity and facility (they typically don’t really know what the function of the bass is, and they wonder why it only has four strings), your bandmates will appreciate the initiative you’re showing and possibly be inspired to get creative themselves, which can become a “virtuous circle,” where each member of the band incites the others to play at their best.
An example of using an interesting combination of note lengths is the Doobie Brothers song Listen to the Music (which is fun to listen to, especially here, but even more fun to play), as the main riff uses a combination of quarter note, shuffle, two eighth notes, and another shuffle (by which I mean a triplet with the middle note left out).
One way to let people realize what you “bring to the party” as the band’s bassist is to simply stop playing for part of a song. Most people will realize something is missing, and when you come in again, they might experience an epiphany — a band without a bassist is like a cheeseburger without cheese! This is one of those situations where the old saw, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" is true.
And besides, “Nothing is often the best thing to do, and usually the best thing to say.” And what is music but a conversation carried on in a universal language? Being a painter, writer, or musician (or an artist of any stripe) is more about what you don't paint, write, or play ("negative space," in other words) than what you do. Be economical in your playing. To quote Stalin's virtuous twin, "One note can be beautiful, but a millions notes are merely a statistic, and quite possibly a tragedy."
To Infinity and Beyond
Once you can comfortably play several songs, can shift keys without breaking a sweat, and are proficient enough to throw in some stylistic fluorishes now and then to add some variety to the music, you will have become competent. Where you go from there depends on how badly you want to get to Carnegie Hall.
Note: A followup post, Transposing Songs Between Keys On the Bass Guitar, shows how to transpose riffs into other keys.