Bass soloing tips?

[thepandageneral]

I've been playing bass with my school choir recently and until now I never knew keyboards and basses can sound so good together especially with piccolo strings. (it sounded like a moody harp sometimes)

Here is something I am trying to accomplish..
I don't play piano and I definitely do not know enough theory to compose a solo version of the piano line on the bass guitar all on my own. (I do write simple pop/blues grooves)
But I am very interested in experimenting by playing the treble bit of the song with chords and stuff starting with POTC theme song. I know Dmanlamius has this amazing chord lesson stuff that I already bought a while back but I honestly don't even know where to begin.
Should I play everything I see on the sheet music or should I play it some other way?

I've seen some *amazing* tapping bass solos of songs like stairway to heaven and I am just interested in how they are arranged so I can do something similar with this song!

[EricssonB]

Jus' hang loose, blood. She gonna catch ya up on da' rebound on da' med side.

[MalcolmAmos]

Originally Posted by thepandageneral

I've been playing bass with my school choir recently and until now I never knew keyboards and basses can sound so good together especially with piccolo strings. (it sounded like a moody harp sometimes)

Here is something I am trying to accomplish..
I don't play piano and I definitely do not know enough theory to compose a solo version of the piano line on the bass guitar all on my own. (I do write simple pop/blues grooves)
But I am very interested in experimenting by playing the treble bit of the song with chords and stuff starting with POTC theme song. I know Dmanlamius has this amazing chord lesson stuff that I already bought a while back but I honestly don't even know where to begin.
Should I play everything I see on the sheet music or should I play it some other way?

I've seen some *amazing* tapping bass solos of songs like stairway to heaven and I am just interested in how they are arranged so I can do something similar with this song!

I'm having trouble following what you actually want.

You play bass now. What sheet music do you now use?
Perhaps if you would rephrase the question.......

[thepandageneral]

Originally Posted by MalcolmAmos

I'm having trouble following what you actually want.

You play bass now. What sheet music do you now use?
Perhaps if you would rephrase the question.......

Okay I have the piano sheet music and I want to play the whole thing on bass as much as possible. Sorry about the confusion

[Spin Doctor]

So you don't want to play bass solos as such, you want to be a solo bass player.

I'm not much into that, although it's an interesting thought. I think the guys like Michael Manring who specialize in that style are intimately familiar with alternate tunings. Manring has a specially designed bass that he uses to change the tuning of each string on the fly. I don't think you need all that yet, but it may be worth checking out, just to get a listen.

There is a guy here that wrote a book on playing solo bass. Think his name was Mike, so you may want to search around for that also.

[wmheilma]

Getting from the piano score to what works on the bass will require some adaptation for sure. My approach would be to look at the score and figure out the chord structure first. You can do it by ear or by looking for notes (Cmaj7 = CEGB, Am7=ACEG etc.) Then learn to play the melody and integrate the two by ear using whatever chord voicings sound best to you.

If you can tap what is written that would be a great start, but you ought to put your own spin on things before you perform.

I play 6 string bass and have a bunch of tunes I can do solo, but i did not pull them from a piano score. I listen and adapt parts. I also dislike the tone of tapping (no matter how much effects are on it), so I avoid it for the most part in favor of chords and harmonics.