How do you approach the bass?

smurfco

smurfco

Meatus McPrepuce
Me, I walk up to it slowly.

Seriously though, how do you approach bass playing? I consider myself more a bassist than anything else these days, and I try to approach it as a rhythm instrument as much as possible while still remaining melodic - but without overplaying. I think what the bass and drums are doing are 80% of what makes a song sound good.

Thoughts?
 
When I've played bass in bands, I've always thought of myself as the bridge between the guitar and drums.
 
I am not a very good bass player; on recordings I mostly do very simple bass parts just to give it some weight. My brother was a very melodic bass player; he know when to keep it simple and when to go wild.
 
I don’t really have a philosophy about what the role of the bass should be, and I find the question kinda backwards and silly. It should be whatever it needs to be. Sometimes that means playing the root every quarter note. Sometimes it means being a solo instrument.
 
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Having only played bass for the last month or so (and not yet really thinking of myself as a bass player), I haven't really formulated a philosophy yet, but there's something much more visceral about bass (both playing and listening to) than guitar. both physically in terms of frequency/vibration, etc, but also mentally or something. it's more gut level, less brain level. For me at least, at this point.

I think what I'm struggling to articulate is sorta along the lines of what you guys are saying, in that I like bass parts that you feel/make you want to move, etc, which for me is definitely more about rhythm than melody, etc
 
Help!I'maRock! said:
terribly.
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this too! I'm finding the right hand (I'm right handed, fingerstyle) is the thing that's taking the most brain re-wiring. left hand stuff is longer reaches and bigger strings, etc, but the basic mechanics are close enough to guitar that that hasn't really posed an issue.

I even started guitar back when I was a wee youth playing fingerstyle classical, but the concept of raking and using the right hand thumb to mute, etc is taking some more work
 
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Make sure that you know where the 1 is. Bass players are really the time keepers and the drummer should be playing to your tempo once they start it. Played with enough drummers whose tempo may waver because of over play.





 
Keep to the lower registers as much as possible, stay in the pocket with the kick drum, mind the singer, keep it simple...I'm a terrible bass player, but probably better at bass than guitar, so any more than this would just be silly...
 
Flamencology said:
I don’t really have a philosophy about what the role of the bass should be, and I find the question kinda backwards and silly. It should be whatever it needs to be. Sometimes that means playing the root every quarter note. Sometimes it means being a solo instrument.
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Yeah but that's kind of a meaningless answer. Shouldn't everything musical be whatever it needs to be?

Of course nobody would play the same type of bass line for every style of song, but there must be differences in approach between say McCartney vs Geddy Lee vs Jamerson vs Flea... no? Or will a good bassist be able to adapt to any situation, i.e. put Jamerson in RHCP and he'd play it same as Flea? Who knows, who knows...

And don't even get me started on Sting
 
I like to stay with the kick most of the time, and to play some fills with the drums.
But then the trick is knowing when to veer off and do something nifty from time to time.
 
Let the drummer lead. Stay in the pocket with the kick drum and toms. Stay subtle and in the background. Take the lead when it's called for, but otherwise, keep the rhythm with the drummer.
 
I try to play as few notes as possible and make sure I'm locked with the drums as a general rule. Exceptions are when I'm driving the song along (like the middle bit of Tax Man by the Beatles.
 
I'm a lousy bass player, but if I'm overdubbing on a demo i use the bass to emphasize harmonic interest in the chord progression. If there's a descending line through the chords that doesn't really come out in the rhythm guitar part, I'll feature it in the bass. The bass player in my band wholly disregards whatever i put in as a placeholder, every time.
 
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