LeftyBassist.com

Hi i have been having alot of trouble jamming with my drummer i just dont know what to do i just cant get a solid groove going any tips you could give me to get better?

sometimes playing too fast can waste a groove and only listening to yourself.
Instead, slow it down and listen to whats going on around, this is important to your drummer

I always just ask my drummers to start playing a beat. I don't care what style, tempo, whatever. Then as it progresses I slowly add more and more to my line. As I progress further, I keep what i've "built" so far (the foundation of the groove) which allows me to keep a solid foundation while getting fancy on top. This is how I start off most of my jams and twenty minutes later it always turns out to be a good time.

Turn your brain off and your heart on.

Hummm...may be the drummer is playing without listening to the bass.

But the idea of a jam is to start with something like a riff or a motif or a chord progression or even a tempo. You need a starting point. May be your drummer is playing all over the place also. Give us some more infos if you can.

well i can jam ramones style but then he says yo that sh** is too simple do something more funky and thats where i cant jam iam good at really simple stuff but when he wants something complex i cant do it

Then I think you should speak the same language as your drummer : RHYTHMS

Forget about the notes and start working on rhythms cells/motifs, syncopations at first to match or complete his. Then focus on melodic or harmonic ideas but first it is the rhythms and the groove.

If you were to play with a drum machine, which by definition is NOT listening to you, it should still lock. So here is my advice.
Have him play with a click during the practice and focus on his kick. That would quickly settle the dispute and would be a good start to build the groove. Practice some really simple grooves with a kick on every downbeats and play only 8th notes. Kick and bass should sound tight like one instrument. (think of Jack Black in School of Rock, imitate his facial expression while playing, take a pictue and send it to me! LOL!)
It is not about simple or complicated bass lines. Personally, if the drummer plays busy, I play simple, if he plays simple, I trend to fill in more and play busier bass lines. Some of the best grooves are dead simple anyway.
If he can't play on a click, HE needs to go back to the woodshed, if he can but YOU can't lock with him, then you need to go back to the woodshed. My feeling is that he is trying to play in a funky style with some kind of swung 16th's or behind the downbeat and you play straight 8th, hence the awkward feeling. If you mess around with a drum machine or a computer software such as Cubase, you can experiment those concepts and it makes a lot of sense.
At the en of the day, If it still doesn't work, file for divorce!

I forgot, if you guys really can't get the music going, do what the Sex Pistols did when recording My Way: hire some studio musicians to track your parts while you're trying to recover from drug abuse, have the singer stumble to the microphone and mumble a few words reminiscent of the cover, then pretend you recorded the tune.

honestly i think its me i have been playing bass for a short while and dont really know any music theory

You don't need to know theory for a jam. It's all just feeling. Just feel the pulse and heart of the beat. If you want, I could record an example of how I would establish a jamgroove over a simple RNB drum track

if you could do that that would be great

If it's just you and a drummer, that's true.

If you haven't played long enough to improvise a jam, start learning some easy tunes (besides the ramones) that the two of you can "jam on" together.

Some classic, easy and fun tunes that have some "groove" and AREN'T Ramones songs are...

Sunshine of Your Love
Play That Funky Music (White Boy)
Roadhouse Blues
Hey Joe

etc, etc...

Almost everything valuable I learned on bass, was through screwing around with a drummer and a guitar player who were close to my same level... we would figure out other people's songs and jam on them for hours... as many different bands and styles as possible.

In my opinion, the more of other people's stuff you learn how to play, the better foundation you build for yourself. You'll start to hear things that other players play that you like, and you'll build that into your style... you'll hear stuff you don't like, and you'll know not to do that.

Before you know it you'll be jamming on your OWN shit, and by then... it's all over.

Even to improv with other musicians you don't need to know "alot". I mean it's not like you have to invert chords and all that crap, just play a simple pattern like a I-IV-V or just I-IV and jam on those two. For a "jam", it's usually more fun (in my experience) to just jam around on a few simple chords than get into complex songs.

A very wise old bass player taught me that (1)the GROOVE is the space between the notes & (2) you don't need a lot of notes to create a great GROOVE.

Maybe spooning for an evening could help?

It sometimes helps to temporarily "think" a click track. In other words, concentrate on constant 16th notes, and listen to where the drummer's notes fall in that. It'll give clues to whether he's making it uneven to add some swing, or whatever. You can clean up your playing by doing the fast-click-track thing for a little while too--it helps to clear up things like anticipating, or overplaying on notes that should be unemphasized.

There's a method for breaking down rhythms that works pretty well on its own: Takadimi. It can be helpful when you're interested in learning some music theory a little at a time. Never mind the time signatures; the big thing is having a separate syllable for every division of the beat.

But really, who says you have be able to play funky? Will funk skills come in handy somewhere, seriously? Maybe, maybe not.

LOL

Is the drummer a....she???