#1923161 - 04/07/08 09:40 AM
Becoming Part of a Song
|
rarebasses
Member
Registered: 04/07/08
Posts: 2
Loc: Missouri
|
Offline
|
|
I was just sitting here listening to music and hearing a different bass line then I would have used, and I had a thought.
Maybe some of us have trained our ear to revolve the song around our bass line instead of choosing a bass line that would make the song sound better, or be more supportave. I've always thought I needed to be more supportave than flamboyent but in 29 years of playing I've never though of coosing a different bass line than I would normally hear and choose in favor for a more likable to the ear when listening to the whole band.
_________________________
...'I loved it, it was MUCH better than CATS I'm going to see it again and again.'
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
#1925301 - 04/11/08 04:57 AM
Re: Becoming Part of a Song
[Re: rarebasses]
|
Kramer Ferrington III.
MP Hall of Fame Member
Registered: 05/12/05
Posts: 9383
Loc: Wellington, NZ
|
|
Offline
|
|
I don't know... personally I'm going through a period of questioning the very nature of "basslines".
If you look at keyboards (piano, say), the bass and the melody are produced by the same instrument and, as a result, the concept of a bassline becomes a lot more fluid. The LH plays an accompaniment to the RH, but is not necessarily confined to a certain register. The conceptual difference is quite astounding: the LH plays a support to the RH, but there's no rules about what form that support must take. In other words, there's no reason why a keyboardist's LH needs to be going "chug-chug-chug" all the time. This becomes a lot more obvious when listening to classical music: in a symphony or a choral piece, for example, there's nothing odd about giving the melody to a cello or a bass singer. The concept of a bassline is relevant mostly to dance music. And to military marches, but they're dance music of sorts, too. 
As a result of all this, I don't see "the bass" and "the song" as being separate things, as most rock bassists believe. There is no reason why "the bass" can't be the actual song, with the higher pitched instruments working around the bass (if you're doing covers, of course, YMMV).
Given this, the concepts of "flamboyant" or "supportive" become meaningless, since all instruments have the same importance.
As a bass player, you can pass from flamboyant to supportive and back again in various places across the song, and play in the higher registers if that's what's required and do whatever it takes to make it work. People are always talking about contributing to the song as if the song was something quite separate (and independent) of the bassline. People always seem to imply that "the song" is a pretty bad-tempered creature and best approached with caution, especially if you're a bass player. Whereas, of course, the bass is the legs of that creature and those legs can carry the beast or scratch its ear, so to speak. When the "legs" move, every other part of the animal moves in sympathy, if you can follow such a twisted analogy!
And some things remain the same, no matter what you do: if one instrument is overpowering the others, that may not necessarily be a good thing (though useful for occasional colour)
Anyway... Welcome to the forum. 
Vince.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
Moderator: Bill Leigh, Jonathan Herrera, Brian Fox
|
|
|
