Students
All Students | Info | Songs | Notes | Receipts | iCal Link
Nathan Michaud
Past Notes
March 10th, 2020
Nathan brought his four charts from songs he'd been working on, and we went through them together. He's basically got them down pretty good, so I suggested he pick another four to work on this week... to print them out, go over them with the recordings, and then bring them to next lesson.
March 3rd, 2020
Nathan said he had printed a few songs but couldn't remember quite which ones they were - he recalled two, so we went through them (How Great, and Waymaker).
After those, I randomly picked a few others. I also showed him some more techniques for popping the strings on more funky songs to make it sound more exciting.
February 25th, 2020
Nathan said he wasn't able to print out the charts because his computer wasn't hooked up to a printer, so I reshared with his mom.
We then went through four or give songs in the folder:
Stand In Your Love
Waiting Hear For You
Sons and Daughters
Reckless Love (Am)
Great THings
No Longer Slaves
Lord I Need You
February 18th, 2020
Nathan and I worked through the songs we sang at church last Sunday.
Here's the link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lmlm2ulyj5vdzs4/2019-02-16.pdf?dl=0
Download it soon before I remove it from my Dropbox - try to work on these songs with the recordings.
February 11th, 2020
We continued working through songs on charts today- Steve recommended printing some of them out, so he can practice at home - I mentioned that I'd sent the charts to Nathan, so he can print out his favourites if he wants.
February 4th, 2020
We went through some worship songs together. I shared the folder of songs on Google Drive with him.
We talked about half-step in to notes, and fifths above and fourths below for added interest.
January 28th, 2020
Nathan and I went over a few worship songs again, this time focusing on the rhythm he'd play on the bass.
After doing a couple of songs, I showed him how he can add the fifth and the octave as well, to add interest to the part.
January 21st, 2020
We continued with our work through some charts, this time playing worship music from Harrowsmith Church. Nathan could likely play in our band soon, should he be interested.
We touched on playing bass along with drums near the end of the lesson, and this is something we should do more of.
Also, taking some rhythm responsibilities while playing, will help the bass to sound more interesting.
January 14th, 2020
Nathan and I discussed some ideas for how he can improve on finding notes on the neck, and finding them quickly. We reviewed some tricks, like the L shape (chess move thingy) for finding a higher version of the note, and what to do when it's an open string (act like the nut is where your finger starts.
Also, remember to use the alphabet to find notes. C follows D, etc.
We went through Wolfmother , working on the fast parts, and trying it at 75% and then 100% speed. FAST! Please keep working on that one.
We then went through some charts that were piled on my piano as a way to improve sight reading. Let's keep doing that each week too.
January 7th, 2020
Nathan had forgotten to practice much over the holidays, and so didn't remember much of Woman by Wolfmother.
I didn't give him too many hints in finding the notes, as he's depending a lot on his ear, and forgetting how to read and find notes on the frets. I led him along to help him figure it out; this hopefully will help him to find notes on his own when his ear lets him down.
We might consider stopping learning songs for a while, and just do lessons of "quizzing" to find notes.
December 17th, 2019
Nathan finished up Mother without any problems.
We added Woman by Woldmother:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCYM6UgJi3I
This is crazy fast, but pretty simple once you learn the patterns. Nathan's got two weeks to work on it, since there won't be lessons on Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve.
December 10th, 2019
Sunshine of Your Love went great, and Nathan did a wonderful job on it.
We added a new song, pretty easy, but still fun:
This is Mother, by Danzig:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jesc3yvZSws
December 3rd, 2019
Nathan played through Barracuda and then we moved on to a new song, "Sunshine Of Your Love," by Cream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3y8jf01UY8
This is a pretty easy song, but fun still. I wrote it out in notes to keep him paying attention to where his notes are on the fretboard. I get the sense he's lost a bit of touch with that over the last few months, and I think it is a good idea to review it, and keep focusing on that (staying away from TAB).
November 26th, 2019
We went through Barracuda together, and when we came to the bridge, I wrote out those parts, and we continued working on that - it's so hard to hear the bass part there.
We then talked about whether or not to learn sheet music to make it easier to read the bass parts and not forget them in the future.
My recommendation is that he continue to review his past songs every week - to come up with a stategy for looking at them - maybe add one a week to the list of ones to go over.
November 19th, 2019
Looks like Nathan isn't coming tonight.
November 12th, 2019
Nathan really nailed Sweet Child O' Mine - we added the last part which we hadn't notated before, and then decided to start a new song:
Heart, Barracuda:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JYoQyMXsNU
November 5th, 2019
Jason sick today.
October 29th, 2019
We went through Sweet Child o' Mine again today, advancing further through the song, into the second part of the intro, the verses, and the chorus. It's a challenging song, but I love how well Nathan is doing it!!
As I said in the lesson, the bass player is doing things a little bit differently in every verse/ chorus, so that makes for a hard song to learn if you're trying to emulate him. A better approach may be to learn a few of the bass licks, as we have done, and stick them in here and there where the bass player tends to do "fills," -- keeping in the same flavour as the original bass part, but not necessarily note-for-note.
October 22nd, 2019
Nathan did really well on the Redbone song - we added a new one by Guns and Roses, Sweet Child O' Mine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Du63mrkbWY
Actually, before that we added another one, so easy, by The Runaways, called Cherry Bomb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EBvXpjudf8
October 15th, 2019
Nathan mostly had Under Pressure down, and pretty good up-to-speed too!
We added a new song, which has a complicated bass line, although really repetitive for almost the whole song.
Redbone, Come and Get Your Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zdyYi8CABc
October 8th, 2019
We went through I Want You Back and Nathan has it down pretty good... this was at full speed.
We added a new song, by Queen, Under Pressure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWdLt3Afjrg
It's hard to hear the bass in this recording, but we did our best to figure it out. It's pretty easy really.
October 1st, 2019
We went through the Jackson 5 song a few times at different speeds - he has some issues in the really fast spots, which are going to require learning to smooth out the hand position, and using more fingers.
September 24th, 2019
Nathan forgot his book, so I wrote out the parts on a page. Copy it into your book.
We added a new song, by Jackson 5 - I Want You Back:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T5xWkO56GI
September 17th, 2019
Nathan finished up with Roxanne today, and we added No Doubt's Just a Girl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wETo3tufqmA
September 10th, 2019
Nathan is doing really well with the Black Magic Woman song, but I'd like him to work out some of the little mistakes this week, and we'll review it again next week.
After going through it, we added a new song, The Police, Roxanne:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb-ABuRa9Qw
It's god a fun bass part in it, it should be a quick learn.. it's got some challenging timing though.
September 3rd, 2019
Today Nathan added a new song, by Carlos Santana, Black Magic Woman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q07Vox0JjAw
I wrote out the main patterns, and he should try to figure out where they go in the song - it should be fairly straight-forward.
The intro is different than the rest of the song, so work on that too. ;)
June 25th, 2019
June 18th, 2019
June 11th, 2019
June 4th, 2019
May 28th, 2019
May 21st, 2019
May 14th, 2019
May 7th, 2019
Nathan added a fun and challenging song, "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Vj092UgKwQ
April 30th, 2019
We added a new song by LovelyTheBand, Broken:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCDxY1AO9OE
April 23rd, 2019
April 16th, 2019
We added a new song, by Jonas Brothers, called Sucker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG60iRJwmfA
Fun bass part - we worked on doing it up an octave and down an octave.
April 9th, 2019
Nathan finished up Billie Jean, ... then we added Come Together by the Beatles, and today we added Thriller, also by Michael Jackson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIx_HbmRnQY
April 2nd, 2019
March 26th, 2019
March 19th, 2019
We added "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=B02LXuKWGTI
March 12th, 2019
March 5th, 2019
February 26th, 2019
Two weeks ago, I forgot to note that we were doing Sting - Message in a Bottle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePwjipxjAmA
He ROCKED it today.
We added the next one, by Keith Urban called Never Comin' Down
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLFZthp7cv8
See you next week!
February 19th, 2019
February 12th, 2019
lesson cancelled from the snow.
February 5th, 2019
Nathan did amazing on Don't Stop Me Now, and we added a new song, by Sam Hunt: Body Like a Back Road.
Much simpler, but there is some fancy bass near the end that he could try figuring out himself if he's feeling motivated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzmy6iUGDo8
January 29th, 2019
January 22nd, 2019
We added a new song, "Don't Stop Me Now"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKny_ia8Fvo
January 15th, 2019
January 8th, 2019
December 18th, 2018
Nathan and I reviewed Rudoplh the Red Nosed Reindeer, then added two more Christmas songs: We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and Silent Night.
December 11th, 2018
Nathan did a good job on the Queen song, I Want to Be Free. We went over it together, and then added a new song for Christmas, "Rudopolh the Red Nosed Reindeer."
This song makes use of a 1-5 bass pattern, and so we talked about bass patterns over chords, and I showed him the 1950's pattern as an example (1-3-5-6-b7-6-5-3).
The pattern in Rudoplh is simply 1-5
December 4th, 2018
We played through Back In Black, and Nathan nailed it! Great job, buddy!
We then added a new Queen song, I Want to Be Free:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUOtCLOXgm8
It's pretty straight-forward, played in eighths (we talked again about eighths and quarters).
This time we wrote the notes out instead of the numbers, to help build memory of where they are located on the strings.
November 27th, 2018
We talked through quarter notes and eighth notes again, and played a bit of a beat that had quarter notes and eighth notes in it.
We then went over Back in Black and worked through the solo section, thus finishing up the song.
I think we should be able to play it through from beginning to end next week, and then start a new song. Nathan should give some thought to what song he'd like to learn next.
Here are some songs other bass students have learned:
https://rockandroll101.ca/#!/songs/byInstrument/bass
November 20th, 2018
Nathan's dad, Steve brought him tonight.
We worked through Back in Black, Nathan had been having trouble with the faster part, so we reviewed that, and then worked at getting it so he was playing it in the right place.
We then added the next section, but in the process brought up quarter notes, eighth notes, and rests of that type as well... when one doesn't play for a full beat that's a quarter rest, and when one doesn't play for half a beat (on the "AND") then that's an eighth note beat.
November 13th, 2018
We went over Another One Bites the Dust, at 75% of full speed. It has some fast parts, and I'd like Nathan to keep working on it.
We also added a new song, by AC DC, Back in Black: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjJe1rBdm9U
We didn't have time to do much of it, but we worked through the beginning.
November 6th, 2018
October 30th, 2018
We added a new song by Maroon 5, Girls Like You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJOTlE1K90k
October 23rd, 2018
We went through Thinking Out Loud and I was quite impressed! He nailed all of it, even the hard parts.
We added a new song, by George Ezra, called Shotgun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_B3qkp4nO4
This is quite repetitve, but does have different rhythms played by the bass. There are also some fancy extras, which we'll learn later - or address in a future song.
We moved ahead a bit with notes, and talked about sharps and flats, and the names of various notes on the fretboard.
Nathan should try to think through what the note names are on the fretboard - from time to time go through E, F, F#, G, G#, A etc. on all the strings.
October 16th, 2018
Nathan and I went over Stay With Me a couple of times, and then added a new song, by Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU-JDYqkZgw
He had difficulty this week with losing his spot in the song, so we talked a bit about patterns, and developing a sense of where one is in the song... thinking about developing an awareness of where one is in the song, so when the chorus is coming up, you start to think- the chorus is right around the corner, this is the last pattern before we get there. It's an intuition that starts to build.
He should keep working on the last couple songs we've learned, so he doesn't forget the stuff we've been learning.
October 9th, 2018
We reviewed stuff we looked at last week - octaves, playing the scale from a new popint.
We remembered to use the correct fingering, and I wrote some notes out for things to practice properly.
We reviewed the song from last week, and added a new one which I wrote out for him. We went over it a couple of times.
October 2nd, 2018
We had a good lesson this week, and went over 15 minutes because we lost track of time! 30 minutes goes by so fast! :)
We reviewed the octave concept, and the scale starting point from the new octave. We went through "You Say" together, using the higher scale for the softer part of the song.
We talked about holding a "whole note" for the full four count, which means right to the very end of beat four, just before the next beat one.
We then added a new song, Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM5W5y9zb1A
I wrote out TAB for him, and explained to him how it works. It's important not to confuse TAB with the other numbering system we already learned.
September 25th, 2018
Nathan did really well going through Round Here, last week's song.
We added a new one by Lauren Daigle, You Say:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIaT8Jl2zpI
Practice the new song, practive the scale of 1 through 6, use both fingers of both hands.
Also, practive octaves, and continuing the scale 1 through 6 from the higher octave point too.
September 18th, 2018
This was a good week - Nate had a bass from Joe's MILL, and we went over the names of the various parts of the bass.
We reviewed the stuff we learned last week, and I showed him how to play with fingers to keep it sounding "legato," smooth.
He should use as many fingers on the left hand as he can, and at least two on the right hand.
We learned our first song, "Round Here:"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=52&v=vqM23Ms_lqM
Two notes only, so an easy song to learn.
He should practice at least four times a week, ideally every day for at least fifteen minutes.
September 11th, 2018
Today was Nathan's first lesson! He wants to learn bass, and so we started out with a quick overview of the fretboard, working through the Do Re Me scale with numbers (1,2,3,4,5,6) and playing some chord progressions together on different places of the neck.
We talked about levers, and the best place to press so that the string is firmly held against the fret.
We also talked about octaves, and the L shape, 2 frets up, two strings up, to play an octave higher.
Web Development by CrookedBush.com • Login / Logout