How do you develop a unique style?

[Rowan S]

I was wanderin how Jaco, Marcus Miller and the rest of these pro bassist came up with there own styles. I really want to have my own style, one where someone can listen to something and think " That must be Rowan"

I asked a teacher at school and he just said learn a load of songs. But i dont think that'll help much.. also how much would i have to learn lol. I allready know a fair amount.

So the question is How do I develop my own unique style of playing, that people could tell its me just by listening to it.

Thanks

Rowan

[neatobassman]

learn as many techniques as you can and as many styles as you can. You find what comfortable for you and us what you like from certian things. And years of experience, that helps too.

[Raiven]

Play, then play some more and keep playing.

That's the best way, learn all the basics then play until things click your way.

[SixnStones]

As with pretty much every question on MX, yours boils down to "how do i get better without practicing?"

the answer is, you don't, you practice more

[Jimbobntnr]

You steal Rollo's soundclips and put them on your myspace page.

[Polyamarous]

By being better than everyone else.

[billbern]

if you can't have a bass in your hands as oten as you'd like you can still continue on a path to "your style". when you're listening to music you're hearing cool basslines and trying to figure out what's making the line sound good, right? well that's great, but also consider what you might like to hear that's different, or what you might have played yourself it that situation.
getting it under your fingers is of course important, but i think hearing the line in your head is paramount.

bill

[mastrrbasser]

Not only should you study music theory and various other techniques, you should also widen your horizons to genres you may have never considered listning to. On a given day i'll listen to small brown bike(emo), joe pass(jazz),charlie parker (beebop), bury your dead(hardcore), and jamiroquai(funk).

People have their unique styles because of their influences. Jaco didn't hear bass as the backround music, he heard music as a whole. he'd listen to records and not even hear the bass, he'd hear the melody and the fullness of the music. That's what inspired him. les claypool was into paul McCartneys bass playing and melodic supporting basslines, but he was also into tom waits and the residents and a lot of funk. They fused their influences and the sound they produce is their own as a result.

Flea is another example. he loved the intensity and simplicity of punk but he loved the groove found in funk as well.

It could take a lifetime to find your own sound but the only thing that will help you is experience and influence.

[Jody LeCompte]

Your sound is a product of what you listen to, what you practice, and what sounds good under your fingers. You might not necessarily push bass anywhere or develop a sound that no one has ever heard before but that won't make you any less of a musician.

Even a funk bassist in a metal enviroment for instance, doesn't make him one of a kind, he's still a funk bassist. He just took that left turn back on I-10.

[BenJammin]

You steal Rollo's soundclips and put them on your myspace page.

:lol: :lol:

True enough.


It also helps to start writing/recording your own material. That's how I found my style, for sure. You'll notice that when you play, you start to do certain things a certain way, or you always come back to this tone for a particular use, and it's out of that stuff that you begin to develop a style.

[Akira]

Flea is another example. he loved the intensity and simplicity of punk but he loved the groove found in funk as well.
I think that that is an example of another way to find your own style: learn a new instrument. If you learn how to play another instrument, you can take how you apply that instrument and use it for bass. Flea grew up playing jazz trumpet, and I think that comes out in his sound.

[mastrrbasser]

^^^^

it most deffinately does. You can hear it marcus miller's sound too. he possesses immense clarinet skills.

I can personally attest to the fact that other instruments help you find your own sound. Right now bass is my main instrument (it always will be too), but over the years i've played tuba in marching/concert band, and i've been learning piano. I can hold my own on drums (enough to support the average rock/funk band), and since my bass teacher is a guitarist, i've decided to take up some guitar and take it to lessons. I've been learning more chord theory on guitar, and as a result my bass playing has deffinately matured. Not only am i writing songs on multiple instruments, i'm not starting the writing process on the bass. Now i can come up with a cool drum beat and find ways to make the bass lock into it more coherantly than if i hadn't played drums.

[sr800bkBassist]

I was wanderin how Jaco, Marcus Miller and the rest of these pro bassist came up with there own styles. I really want to have my own style, one where someone can listen to something and think " That must be Rowan"

I asked a teacher at school and he just said learn a load of songs. But i dont think that'll help much.. also how much would i have to learn lol. I allready know a fair amount.

So the question is How do I develop my own unique style of playing, that people could tell its me just by listening to it.

Thanks

Rowan
first you need to start writing your own music. this would be more efficient on a guitar, and then go back to your bass and make a bassline to fit.

when you start really writing your own stuff and not really trying to be anyone other than a songwriter, is when your style developes.

[ToolBox]

I play with my feet.

[Shinobi_sniper]

I slap my B string and then push the E down onto the pickup for a nice horrible buzzing noise

[lais817]

I slap my B string and then push the E down onto the pickup for a nice horrible buzzing noise
in the straightest way possible....I like you :p

[Rollo47]

You steal Rollo's soundclips and put them on your myspace page.

Hahaha, yeah, go for it. What a twit.

:rolleyes:

Seriously though, practice loads. Learn songs, write your own, and just play.

The key is to play as much as you possibly can.

[Rawb]

I think if you play long enough you'll develop your own style. I think I've developed my own style, or at least my guitarist thinks so.

I dunno, just keep playing. It should only be a matter of time.

[Shinobi_sniper]

I swear I can make it groove!


and lais: Straightest way? aww :(

[Tarquin1986]

Here's an idea: Record a chord progression or riff you use a lot. Record yourself scat singing on the progression. Then learn the melody you sang on bass. I,ve done this and it's kinda cool.

[kilian]

We all bake our eggs in a different way, don't we? Just like bassplaying. But you have to be creative.

Nowadays I bake my eggs with chili powder, italian herbs and dutch cheese. With my bassplaying, I tend to use more rests and use different rythms then I used to do a few months ago.

Keep updating your style to your tastes.

[Spaceman Spiff]

I've noticed that my style has changed quite a bit over the summer. I took a pretty big break and hardly played for the couple of months of summer, and now when I'm just sitting around and jamming, the stuff I'm doing when I play fingerstyle and when I slap is much different... and I like it. :D

Maybe it was the big break that helped me, but I'm always listening to a wide variety of music, so I'm sure that helped too.

[Shuffle It All]

the only way personally you can play with your own style is by not learning songs, and by not learning theory, by learning all theory there is to be known, all your doing is limiting yourself to what you have learnt.

i was playing bass yesterday with my band, i had a cool bassline and i showed it to teh guitarist, nah that doesnt work he said, why not? your not playing teh right notes, however the drummer and vocalist thought it sounded good, just because my notes didnt stick to any certain already used pattern or scale they were wrong apparently.

to me someone interesting is somone different, influences are fine, but if you want to develop your own style dont look at other basslines and try to improve them, create them yourself, only then is it your style.

[Spaceman Spiff]

I really never understood why people say that learning theory limits you. I know some theory, not a lot, but what I've learned has only helped my playing progress.

[Shuffle It All]

oh im not saying theory is bad, and it certainly doesnt limit your understading or playing ability, but to me if someone has their own style, then it hasnt been taught to them, it has been worked out by themselves.

[Rowan S]

Cheers guys :chug:

Well i decided on my project for the next year, is to learn a load of Charlie Parker. For anyone who doesnt know, he was really famous for choosing the wrong notes, and makin them fit. Choosing the notes that were in theory, wrong, but to the ear, nice. I think learning a load of his stuff will not only give me another way to look at making things up, but also do wanders for my chops.

Also i would be making my own songs up, but i seem to be a total spac at that. I cant do it.. I hear lots of stuff in my head though to play over other songs, but nothing to start a song off.

So. Im gonna run upstairs now, and get out my real books and Charlie Parker CDs. And ill see you soon.

<Rowan

[katana_manatee]

If anything, learning theory expands what you can do. It helps you understand what you are playing and you can have many choices of what to play. Think of a language, isn't a large vocabulary better than a smaller one? Knowing a lot of theory can give you so much more to say. And at the end of the day you don't have to rely on it.

[Spaceman Spiff]

You're not making very much sense to me. It seems that you're saying that theory will make you unable to have your own unique style... which isn't really true at all.

[Shuffle It All]

ok imagine this, your designing a new guitar shape, to find the new shape you first do teh research looking into different shapes to find a different shape and get idas from each, you then create the shape and its different to all teh other shapes. However, it isnt, as you have got ideas from others, and basically all youve done is taken out all the parts of the shapes that you dislike.

imagine now the research is your theory and learning songs, and the new shape is your own apperently unique style.

thats the best way i can think of explaining it for now.

[thelowsoundofbass]

I have been told that I have a very unique style, but all that I really do it play some arpeggios in a funkified pattern. I like to make bass bounce, I usually make playing roots notes sound interesting. At least that I what I am told.

lowsound

[Spaceman Spiff]

How about this: listen to Stu Hamm, then listen to Victor Wooten, then listen to Michael Manring, then listen to John Patitucci, then tell me while being completely honest that each of these guys doesn't have a unique style.

They all know their theory, yet not one of them sounds like another. They all have their own unique style of playing, theory is in no way stopping them from playing how they want to play, and in no way does it make them sound like each other.

[thelowsoundofbass]

ok imagine this, your designing a new guitar shape, to find the new shape you first do teh research looking into different shapes to find a different shape and get idas from each, you then create the shape and its different to all teh other shapes. However, it isnt, as you have got ideas from others, and basically all youve done is taken out all the parts of the shapes that you dislike.

imagine now the research is your theory and learning songs, and the new shape is your own apperently unique style.

thats the best way i can think of explaining it for now.
What you are saying makes sense, but that IS how new styles of music are made, how new body shapes for guitar are created, how individual styles of playing are created. You take what you like from everyone else and mix it all together and the end result is your own take on things. That is individualism and, like it or not, that is how new stuff is created. Even if you don't take influences from anywhere, in the end you are still playing bass and that has been done before.

lowsound

[darrell]

Theory is such an awesome tool, IMO. Most of the people who put it down are people that don't know it. It's always easier to do nothing than to do something. Learn theory. You'll be able to understand what works and what doesn't work without having to try it. I'm just starting to get into the interesting stuff and I'm loving it. Secondary dominants and secondary leading tone chords... Awesome.

You are supposed to learn the theory, beat it into your head until you're blue in the face, and then forget it all when you play. It should become second nature... that's where I'm trying to get to. I've got a ways to go.

[irishslappop]

how do you develop a unique style?


by not asking other people.............

[mastrrbasser]

ba ZING!!!

[peeted]

i think its best to play lots of diffrent genres of music properley and allso have some crossover, say if your jaming to a funk song you might put bits of jazz in and if your jaming to a rock song shove bits of r&b bass in, take all your favorite aspects of what you come up with and try incrporate them into your bands songs (or your own songs if you dint have a band).

[Lefty]

1. Delete your forum account, unplug your modem.

2. Shut up and play yer (bass) guitar.

[HaVIC5]

Well i decided on my project for the next year, is to learn a load of Charlie Parker. For anyone who doesnt know, he was really famous for choosing the wrong notes, and makin them fit. Choosing the notes that were in theory, wrong, but to the ear, nice. I think learning a load of his stuff will not only give me another way to look at making things up, but also do wanders for my chops.

Well, they were theoretically wrong at the time, but since then jazz theory has come a long way, and they fit rather neatly into various scales and patterns jazz musicians use all the time these days.

You develop a unique style not by theory, as important as it is. You develop a unique style not by listening to others, as important as it is. You develop a unique style by playing, and playing as much as posible with other people. How can you develop a distinct way of talking if you don't speak all the time? Same thing applies here. You'll find your voice sooner than later if you just keep playing.