writing parts you can't play

[mikerophone]

just curious if anyone else writes bass lines that are a little too tricky to actually play. not necessarily impossible, but something you really have to practice and work at to be able to perform the way you hear it in your head (or have composed in one way or another).

there's one note in a tune i composed electronically (this one, if you're curious) that i had a real hard time hitting when i'd play it on bass. i think the fact that it's difficult for me to play makes just that one note much more enjoyable to me.

[dtiii]

Sure. It becomes an etude.

Great clip. I enjoyed it very much... love the dynamic arch. Thanks for the link.

d

[slybass3000]

Originally Posted by mikerophone

just curious if anyone else writes bass lines that are a little too tricky to actually play. not necessarily impossible, but something you really have to practice and work at to be able to perform the way you hear it in your head (or have composed in one way or another).

there's one note in a tune i composed electronically (this one, if you're curious) that i had a real hard time hitting when i'd play it on bass. i think the fact that it's difficult for me to play makes just that one note much more enjoyable to me.

Best way is to adapt it for bass guitar. Remove some extra notes, shift octaves for high notes and bottom line: make it groove. Don't put yourself in the corner by trying to play grooves or lines that were not meant to be played on bass.

Ok, I just listen to your song and it is of course a keyboard line. Use a bass guitar sound for the bass part and listen to it this way. You'll probably find out that some notes could be played lower to avoid big leaps and make a more bass guitar groove or part from the notes.

[Samsound]

Yeah I wrote new rock arrangement of an 1840's hymn, with a real fast, hard punk sounding chorus long before I took up the bass. When I first started up on bass, it seemed nearly impossible for me to run it at tempo. That was a few years ago, and haven't tried since. Maybe I'll have to dig that out if the archives and give it a whirl.

[Samsound]

Here's a 2007 recording of it. I Heard The Voice. The bass here is a soft-synth.

[SnakeKappele]

All the time. For most instruments.

My imagination is much more skilled than my hands.

[champbassist]

For bass, I can play what I write, but my guitarist and drummer have a tough time playing what I write and I'm often told to scale back. I've grown to understand their limitations and write accordingly, to a good extent.

[JTE]

Stanley Clarke said he wrote parts in RTF days that he still couldn't play fifteen years later.

John

[GianGian]

Not really, I write things when I have the instruments in hands. I used to write on the computer, but I ended up with some videogame songs after a while.

[Nashrakh]

Sometimes, when I write stuff using Guitar Pro or other notation software, stuff ends up on the staff that I can't play right that instant. It's a good incentive to get better though, definitely.

[mikerophone]

Originally Posted by dtiii

Sure. It becomes an etude.

i had to look up the word etude, but you're right, that's exactly what it is!

Originally Posted by slybass3000

Best way is to adapt it for bass guitar. Remove some extra notes, shift octaves for high notes and bottom line: make it groove. Don't put yourself in the corner by trying to play grooves or lines that were not meant to be played on bass.

Ok, I just listen to your song and it is of course a keyboard line. Use a bass guitar sound for the bass part and listen to it this way. You'll probably find out that some notes could be played lower to avoid big leaps and make a more bass guitar groove or part from the notes.

i actually wrote the bassline on a bass before i arranged it the way it is there. when i adapted it to sound more video-gamey i moved some notes around and added the one that makes the tune a little trickier to play on bass. i ended up learning to tap that note so i could get back to the low g without missing a beat.

Originally Posted by Nashrakh

Sometimes, when I write stuff using Guitar Pro or other notation software, stuff ends up on the staff that I can't play right that instant. It's a good incentive to get better though, definitely.

i use that program too! fun stuff!