TEJANO/NORTENA BASS MUSIC BOOKS

[guitardefector]

I'm of Mexican heritage, so I grew up around mostly tejano/nortena music which I've come to reappreciate in later life, even though I once became the laughing stock at a jazz quartet gathering for even mentioning it as an actual style.

I've noticed that there's hardly any literature or instruction books out there on this bass style. It usually gets lumped in with COUNTRY bass. And even though both styles have similarities they are so vastly different. There's usually more syncopation, lots of snare and military-style drum rolls accompanying it and it stands out literally from any other style in that the bass is very audible and "in your face"(sort of like reggae) so there's never a problem figuring out the bass line.

Perhaps the fact that it's remained a dive bar and dance hall genre is why it's so unappealing to people outside the culture. If anyone knows of any books on this style I'd love to hear from you. Thanks!

[IconBasser]

... pardon my ignorance regarding the genre as a whole, I've never heard a tejano bass line that didn't consist of "1 5 1 5 1 5 1 5 1 5"

[Jazzdogg]

Can you provide links to YouTube videos that show representative examples of this kind of music?

[guitardefector]

Originally Posted by Jazzdogg

Can you provide links to YouTube videos that show representative examples of this kind of music?

Here are a few samples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGq1q...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2CCh3EMdQU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3R0TKSloIA

As you can see Iconbasser, it's not all 1-5, 1-5....

[Jazzdogg]

These bass parts are similar to traditional tuba parts in European folk music. To learn these songs, concentrate on learning the chord structure of these songs. If you listen to traditional tuba parts, which are straightforward and fairly simple, you'll hear lots of similarities.

Not to be too harsh, but I wouldn't suggest you emulate the bassists in the videos you provided. These players don't have a left-hand technique that's very efficient, and they make the kinds of mistakes that betray a lack of understanding of the harmonic structure of the music they're attempting to play; they're playing without much real comprehension.

[fearceol]

Originally Posted by Jazzdogg

Not to be too harsh, but I wouldn't suggest you emulate the bassists in the videos you provided. These players don't have a left-hand technique that's very efficient, and they make the kinds of mistakes that betray a lack of understanding of the harmonic structure of the music they're attempting to play; they're playing without much real comprehension.

I agree, and I was thinking the same thing myself, but it begs the question, if we could only hear, and not see them, would we know the difference ?

Not sure if I would.

[Jazzdogg]

Might not be able to see the inefficiencies in his technique, but could definitely hear the wrong notes.

[guitardefector]

Like I said, you have to be from the culture and open minded to understand it, technique and physical presence notwithstanding. Thanks for the constructive criticism.