More Session Stuff

[BenLoy]

Some sessions I did a couple months ago were just released on MySpace:

 

http://www.myspace.com/janellebrooke

 

First two tracks were on fretted, the last one was on fretless.

 

Comments? Thanks!

[Eric VB]

Nice solid playing!

 

"Home". Nice slides. Good tone. Tastey note at the end of the first verse. Nice support to bring up the chorus. Nice pentatonics prior to the guitar solo. Tasteful use of fast change-ups without making the line sound too rushed, "notey", or overplayed.

 

"Bye My Side" (or is it "By My Side"?) Nice slow ballad. Keep working those slides, yeah! Nice shadowing of the melody at times. Good sustained note to give the guitar some room to work there. Yeah, now it's starting to rock! Way to support and bring the excitement up without distracting. Good dynamics; bringing it down for a soft landing. Nice.

 

"Open Wounds". Tastey fretless slide to start things off. Another "hold back it's a ballad and we wanna hear the pretty girl sing" song. Tasteful. Nice lead into "So hear I am on my knees" before the guitar solo. Solid support for the solo. Interesting note choice to keep from just playing the roots.

 

Any reason why you didn't play fretless on all 3 songs? With such predominant slides, it might have been nice to play them fretless.

 

Overall it's really nicely played. I think I reviewed some of your other stuff before. My criticism remains the same, so it's probably just a difference of opinion is all.

 

There's little melodic support for the songs outside of the vocals. The guitar isn't really playing any strong melodies, even when soloing. In those situations I advocate playing more melodically on bass. I'm not saying to stomp all over the vocals -- those are still the main attraction -- I'm just saying add a little counter every now and then (because the guitar isn't). I don't remember which song, but when the singer starts doing the "oh oh" part it could really use some more melodic support, IMO.

 

There are some other things I'd try. On the passages where it's just a 2-chord change and then it repeats, I like to vary the bass line to keep things moving. For example, on a IV I IV I, instead of playing roots I might play root 5th 3rd root in an ascending fashion. (In the key of C, that'd be F/F C/G F/A C/C.) Sometimes it's ok for the song to bounce back and forth for that cyclic, stuck in a rut, can't decide which way to go next thing. Sometimes it helps to add a bass line with direction to move things along. I'm not saying this is the "right" way to do things, it's just something to try.

 

I can hear you picking out interesting chord tones to emphasize to keep things fresh. The 3rd in the chorus to "Open Wounds" is really nice. I realize you're limited here because every song is pretty much a slow ballad, but I think you can get away with more than one pitch per measure (like varying the whole note feel with half notes) every now and then.

 

In summary, it's all well played. In the end, as long as the client liked the playing -- and I assume she did -- it's all good. We can play the game of "I would've done it this way" from now to the end of time. The bottom line is that we all have our own styles. Your bass playing in all 3 songs is solid and does the job. End of story.

 

Next?

[g.]

Fairly the same comments as the man above. Including the bit about fretted vs fretless, with this amendment: all three songs could have been done with the same bass, didn't matter perhaps that much. You play nice, but the songs themselves have so little flesh on their bones, really each one seems like a stylistic formula (the same one too), OK, start, don't do anything spooky, go some more, come back around, OK, now come on a little stronger, she's emoting finally so get active and bring on the current-day power jangle etc etc etc.

 

What can you do? Plenty. What SHOULD you do? Probably about what you did, and take the paycheck. And hope someone comes in with something a little more songcrafty, or that COOKS.

[jeremy c]

It was hard for me to get past the singing and songwriting....they were driving me up a wall.

 

I think you did your job well, Ben (which of course doesn't surprise me in the least). Solid playing, nice tone.

 

I also agree with GB....it would have been possible to give the songs more structure with your bass part....but of course that's not what you were hired to do. I would have tried to overlay some sort of rhythmic patterns on top of the other parts to make the music move a little more and to attempt to differentiate one section (and one song) from another.

 

When the lead guitar came in in the third song my first feeling was, wow, where was this guy for last ten minutes?, there could have been a lot of things added by having more melodic guitar parts around and under the vocals.

 

Were all the slides your idea, Ben, or was that part of the instructions? I usually try to argue against lots of slides and say, you get one per song...it better be in a good place.

 

Ric's suggestions are good...use alternate bass notes to create inversions and perhaps make a two chord progression sound like a four chord progression.

 

But once again, recomposing the song is not what you were hired to do, you were asked to put a bass line on these songs and you did fine.

[dcr]

I'm largely in agreement, although I only listened to the 3rd song (my cheap-ass broadband provider makes it such that a 3-minute song is a 20-minute download). The bass playing was excellent & solid, & I wouldn't expect anything but very big grins from artist & producer. The problems are in the arrangements, which (a) take absolutely no chances, and (b) are too thin, especially on harmonic support of the melody. Those aren't really your problems to fix...that's what writers & producers are for. Part of it's the mixing, too; on the fretless tune, the guitars were so far in the background that it was mostly vocals & bass, which can be a great approach, but not, I think, for this song. Still, if called back to record for this artist again (& how would you not be?), this might be something to think about in constructing bass lines for her songs. Even if you have to be a bit "stealthy" about how much control of the arrangement you're taking!

 

Good playing.

[BenLoy]

Thanks for the comments, guys. As you guessed, I was a hired gun, and the tunes were all written by the singer on acoustic guitar.

 

The slide choices were mine, as was the switching between fretted and fretless. I was trying to get the songs to sound different from each other a little bit.

 

The suggestions for reharmonizations are interesting and well-founded, but I could tell that doing anything other than holding it down was probably not in the job description for this session. Case in point: I played a melodic fretless intro on "Open Wounds" that we all thought sounded great in the studio...but was edited out on the final take.

[g.]

In retrospect I probably sounded harsher than intended ... but I don't know how many movies have had such songs in the soundtracks that seemed stamped with the same cookie cuttter, and vaguely unfinished.

 

Your friend/professional aquaintance really ought to give Lisa Loeb some time. Lisa's songs have a lot more variety, and lyrically express what they set out to with great emphasis, color, and subtle shifts of mood from the players and production team. But those people have more to work with. You can tell that she's written hooks, interesting bridges, turnarounds, etc, and that the songs stand well on their own yet offer a spark that encourages exploration and treatment.

 

In various pop offshoots the songcraft still brings much to the party, and there is ever so much to learn if one wants to present their voice best and perhaps enjoy a full and varied career.

[Phil W]

Ben, great bass playing as I've come to expect from what I've seen/heard of your stuff. Very supportive, tasteful and good listening on your part. The slides are great. I'd echo everything above, sorry I have so little to add but they've said a lot and I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your solid playing.

I probably would have played fretless on all three, but you all know about me and my fretless infatuation.

I can't say I really enjoyed the songs or arrangements much - to echo what's posted above. I agree about the reharmonisations. Left to my own devices, I love these kinds of things but sometimes the singer/writer/employer lets you know clearly that's not what's required.

[LizzyD]

Tasty bass playing! You did exactly what I would have done...hold it down and keep it solid. The songwriting (and singing) is not real strong, so there isn't much more the musicians could do to make it any better.

[Big Daddy from Motown]

A fine professional job Ben. Keep up the good work. Fretless sounds great but i think it works better as you used it, as a change of pace.

[LLroomtempJ]

good stuff, ben. As my main focus right now is pentatonics and applications thereof i can really appreciate your playing on the first track.

 

which fretted/fretless basses did you use? How ling did it take you to compose these baslines? How much time did you spend writing them before going into the studio? How much was improvised on the spot?

 

jason

[BenLoy]

I didn't spend any time writing them. I had some rough demos of the tunes beforehand...so I just wrote out the changes and showed up with some charts. I have no idea what to play until I hear what the drummer's doing, anyway.

 

Thanks for the kind words, everyone!

[...]

Nice playing, Ben. You played exactly what these songs needed and did it well!

 

It's always fun to walk in and come up with something on the spot, innit?

[Tom Capasso]

Solid foundational playing. Nice J sound on Home. I wasn't annoyed by the music as some, but I do think you guys (since I see the band is a familiar backing group) needed to do more to make better music out of it. I see that you were not permitted to do so, though I agree with others that I'd have enjoyed hearing what you'd come up with.

 

LizzyD said:

You did exactly what I would have done...hold it down and keep it solid.

Ben - Along with lacking your skills and connections, I would have been hard-pressed to do lay it down solid and simple. I'd have looked for lots of opportunities to add to it. That's why I have such a short list of recordings

 

Tom

(having heard them, I definitely enjoy Jesse more than Janelle)

[BenLoy]

Honestly, guys, I think that the way we played for the material is fine. Usually I find that the material dictates what I play as opposed to trying to "inject" something of my own in there.

 

Thanks for the kind words, Tom, but I used my Stingray for all the fretted parts!

[Tom Capasso]

I've heard that Stingray make that "J" sound in your talented hands (November 2002 on LI). Also, I thought you were successful at switching to the fretless to change up the sound of Open Wounds.

 

Tom