Am I playing for the song?

[tonedeaf]

I have sort of gotten involved with a local semi-band. These guys have known each other for a long time and been writing songs together mostly as a casual pursuit.

They asked me to play bass on some recordings for them. I'm not an official member of the band and don't really want to be for a variety of reasons.

Following is a very rough recording of one of their songs. I've practiced in person with them 2 or 3 times, and last night I recorded a bassline direct into my PC and e-mailed it to one of them, who put together this quick and dirty track. You will hear a few mistakes that I made doing this; I didn't spend a lot of time on it because 1. I wanted to see if the direct to PC recording would be any good at all, and 2. it was late at night.

I'm not interested in critiques of the recording quality, the music style, anyone's ability, or anything along those lines, although you are free to express your opinion about them if you want to.

What I want to know is, in your opinion as a bass player, am I playing for the song? Does what I'm playing support the feel of this music and generally drive the song in the right direction?

Alone.mp3

[OtterOnBass]

Nice. Since you asked for anyone's opinion, I'll be happy to add mine

I like what you've done. The only changes I would suggest would be to try to match or compensate for the drummer's beat changes. Something that makes it sound planned and not like all the instruments are ignoring it. It's a cool drum part, emphasize it.

The second would be at the end of the chorus, don't start pedaling so early.

I know you're only interested in your part, but that fuzz guitar seems out of place in the recording. It's probably better live... Maybe you can find a bass tone that helps bridge the '60s psychedelic guitar fuzz and the train-sounding harmonica. Or maybe not

[tonedeaf]

Thanks for the input. When I played the line, I was listening to a different drum part, so when I got this version back I felt the same way, like I was doing the same thing all the time while he was changing things up. It's still pretty early in the evolution of the bassline for me (I'm pretty sure I haven't played this song more than a total of 10 times), so I'm still thinking some parts over. If the pedaling part you're referring to is where I think it is, I agree completely. That little section took me by surprise, and I went to ol' standby 8th notes until I could figure out what was going on.

I'm not a huge fan of the fuzzed guitar myself. . .

[OtterOnBass]

I recorded bass for a song my friend wrote, and I found recording difficult. First I had to learn the song and come up with an appropriate bassline, which took a little time, but then recording took me like 20 tries. Partly it's because the timing I was using wasn't always straight forward and I would do some fills and lead-ins, and I did a background solo. Background solo - is that possible? I played some more articulate tones in a bridge. Fun experience though. I'm glad it was recorded on a computer in a bedroom and not a pay-by-the-hour studio.

[Jeb]

Nice job. I think that the line fits the song. On a song like that, I would tend to be too "notey." That almost never fits. But then there are those thirds. Thirds are good, major or minor chords doesn't matter, they're cool on the bass. What if you played off of some thirds? What do you think that would sound like?

[tonedeaf]

Speaking of thirds, I toyed around with a new idea last night that incorporated a minor third-based riff into the verse.

I know what you mean about "notey" lines. I'm trying hard to avoid that here since it's not really my band or my music.