OSIRE - Videos III.
Practicing with OSIRE II.
Acoustic guitar, an economical way of practicing
There are many approaches to how to make the bass guitar sound, thanks to the modern mindset of nowadays’ musicians. Some of those techniques have even become so popular and widely accepted that they now are considered standard bass picking techniques. The role of bass guitars seems to be shifting from what they were originally intended; their role used to come down to laying down the beat, making a harmonic framework. Basically, these new techniques have been popularized thanks to the efforts of today’s self-expressive musicians, so that bass guitar could become a possible solo instrument. Acknowledging and welcoming these new trends, I think that the teaching methodology of the bass guitar must be up to date and consequent; I basically consider bass guitar not a solo instrument, which means typically soloing techniques, such as tapping, are not described here.
So let’s just play some music using my software, OSIRE!
The basic bass guitar techniques are as follows:
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Picking technique
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Finger picking technique, a.k.a. picado
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Slapping-popping technique
Picado and slapping-popping techniques can be combined; the famous bass guitarists typically use this combination. There is no possibility to combine the plectrum picking technique with any of the others, making it a standalone technique with a different methodology.
Picado is a finger picking technique where notes are played with alternating index (i) and middle (m) fingers, resulting in a continous imimimimimi… sequence. It is predominantly used in flamenco style, especially in the solo parts. There is an obvious relation between picado and the continuous up and downstroke picking technique, with all the benefits. Picado defines the bass guitar finger picking technique, too. That’s what I will show you using OSIRE.
Guitar channel: clean
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Level: Advanced
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Scale: A major
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Scale pattern in digits: 0120
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Scale structure: trichord
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Mode: one scale degree
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Speed: 90
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Soloing technique: picado
This piece of practice speaks for itself; a relatively difficult scale pattern (0120) at medium speed in A major scale.
Guitar channel: clean
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Level: Advanced
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Scale: F major
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Scale pattern in digits: 012
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Scale structure: trichord
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Mode: one scale degree
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Speed: 120
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Soloing technique: picado
I have a story to this one: Once I got an email from one of my followers. He had objection to the first trichords (on the E6 and the A strings) of the F major scale, claiming them to be impossible to play. This reflects very well the sadly fact that that occurs many times; Even though someone lacks the familiarity with a certain thing, they still criticize it instead of just trying to get familiar with the thing. (You can find the whole story in section Questions and answers – Question 6)
To prove that you can actually play those trichords if you keep practicing, here is the below picture. It is not for complete beginners, but you can actually achieve it with steady practice. This photo was taken of one of my online Skype-students, after just one year of practice.
Starting off as a solo guitarist proved to be a huge advantage when I started mastering the bass picking technique. A little extra effort can actually make you as good on the bass as you are on the guitar. This potential knowledge is always at hand, you just have to take the time to practice.
Guitar channel: clean
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Level: Advanced
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Scale: B Dorian
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Scale pattern in digits: 0123
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Scale structure: trichord
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Mode: one scale degree
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Speed: 110
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Soloing technique: picking
A medium-speed scale pattern (0123) in B Dorian:
Slapping (and popping) are unusual techniques. Like I said many times before, one of my key thoughts is that there is no music without scale system, so consequently learning the scale system and practicing the scales are the most important things one has to do to. Even though slapping and popping do not seem to be related to scales when it comes to practice, you can still play them as scales. Benefits? A loose wrist and a yet more confident knowledge.
Guitar channel: clean
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Level: Advanced
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Scale: A pentatonics
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Scale pattern in digits: 0 00
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Scale structure: bichord
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Mode: one scale degree
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Speed: 200
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Soloing technique: slapping
Slapping technique needs a loose wrist. Folk guitarists learning the flamenco-based folk guitar picking exercises, but the bassists can only rely on their own, making exercises for themselves. The below exercise is in a simple A pentatonics…
…but employs a scale pattern (0 00) that will loosen the wrist in the long haul. I want to note here that you can practice your slapping skills even playing the basic scales.
Guitar channel: clean
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Level: Medium
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Scale: G major
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Scale pattern in digits: 0
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Scale structure: tetrachord
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Mode: one scale degree + section selection
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Speed: 200
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Soloing technique: slapping
With OSIRE you get to practice this interesting piece of scale. It is in G major, with the scale structure being tetrachord (four notes on every string) and the range only one octave.
In the video, the software plays only the basic notes of the scale, I however play the octaves with popping technique.
Acoustic guitar, an economical way of practicing
As you all know, a quality bass guitar is pretty costly; not everyone can afford one. My opinion is that you don’t necessarily need the expensive stuff to practice the techniques; a simple acoustic guitar will perfectly do the thing. Here is a video exercise to show this.
Guitar channel: clean
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Level: Medium
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Scale: F pentatonics
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Scale pattern in digits: 0100
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Scale structure: bichord
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Mode: full
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Speed: 90
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Soloing technique: picado
I use my Ibanez acoustic guitar, ignoring the last two strings (B and E6), playing the full F pentatonics scale.
The scale pattern is 0100, the picking technique is picado. Here are the mirror images by OSIRE:
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And finally, here is the video: