bass with melody in Celtic/Irish/Trad music?

[Jeff Guevin]

Hi all,

Jazz will always be my first and greatest love, but for a few years now I've been coming back to traditional Irish music again and again. Unfortunately, bass seems to have a pretty marginal role most of the time, when it's used at all. I'd love to find out if anyone has ventured into using the bass in a melody role in Irish or other "traditional" music (perhaps Scandinavian, something like Vasen?). Maybe it'd sound horrible to have a bowed bass flying through jigs and reels, but I don't yet have the technique to find out for myself!

Slainte,

Jeff

[teleharmonium]

It seems to me that you could adapt a bagpipe style to bowed upright. You may want to use an alternate tuning and bow closer than usual to the bridge to get enough harmonics to get closer to a bagpipe sound. Essentially the G becomes your solo voice and you would drone on the D, and perhaps not mute the other two strings to let them create some more complexity. If your intonation isn't perfect, it's actually OK because bagpipes have that non equal tempered sound anyway and it fits.
I've sort of done this myself a little bit and it is fun. It's not that hard to get the point across on something simple like "Amazing Grace" (you know, like when Scotty played it as they fired Spock's casket into space...). Playing the real stuff, on the other hand, would require some serious left hand technique and strength. Those guys play some fast figures.

If I remember correctly, there's some good bass playing on recordings by Ken Hyder's group Talisker, which is sort of a mix of traditional Irish music and jazz. You might also like Rufus Harley, a jazz bagpiper who usually played with more or less traditional jazz (and sometimes funky/soul-jazz) sidemen.

[ubasshudson]

I say go ahead and join the celtic fun. I wanted to do some celtic tunes a while ago but I had no local "celtic cell" with which to jam. I recruited some brave symphonic types to read some arrangements that I produced from lifted melodies that I wanted to play. I passed the melodic and harmony duties around the ensemble and gave the bass lots to do.

Most of the celtic groups that I have heard with mighty bass parts have arranged their stuff to make room and compliment each other.

I suggest you find some celtic players who can read (most of them can but they refuse to admit it) and have at them.

PS most of the melodies actually lay pretty well on the bass fingerboard and can be played. The part that will be challenging will be the ornaments. Good luck.

[brianrost]

You are correct that bass is rarely found in Celtic music and definitely not as a lead voice. I have heard a few cellists, but even that is not common.

But the good news is you could be the first