A level Bass composition need HELP

[lewibassist]

Hiya i was not sure what to put this in im sorry if i have put it in the wrong one. My problem is that i have taken music A level. And you have to compose a 3 minute composition. I am going to base mine around the bass. I havnt got a clue where to start. What would be the best way to aproach this. My schools recording facilities are limited so i will have get some home recording equipment. Does anyone have any advice on composing a short but impresive peice. I was thinking of recording a short simple groove then adding stuff from there. Like guitar and drums. I havnt got much experience in composing .Hope someone can help .

[FunkMachine]

Hey. Im currently doing A levels - but decided not to choose music.

However, the rest of my band ARE doing music and have had to do their compositions..

They all wrote their compositions on some sort of tab software, none of them played them live. Im not sure if this option is available to you, but it would be very useful. In our school, we have Mac computers for music, which have the program Sybelius which can be used to compose entire pieces, with a range of instruments.

It would save you having to go through the hassle of actually writing all the parts, then playing them yourself, and then playing them to perfection.

IF you HAVE to play your composition live and record it, then I suggest you figure out a simple backing track - drums, guitar, whatever else, and then when you record the bass part, use it as the 'lead' instrument so to speak, to make sure things are varied..Maybe throw in a solo. Also, it may be good to make the other instruments 'show off' at one point or another just to make the piece more interesting and show off more compositional skills.

Still, as i said before, if you can write your stuff on a tab/music program, it would be much easier. I could actually send you a program, and maybe some of my own pieces so you get the idea..Just gimme a PM.

Good luck!

[lewibassist]

Thanks Funkmachine. I do have the option to do it on a computer. We have cubase in school i used that for my G.C.S.E compositions. But when i pluged my bass into the computer and played it through cubase my bass distorted very easily and i was getting a good sound. I kinda wanted to avoid using that. I was thinking of buying a recording device i had the korg pxr4 in mind or the tascam pocket studio 5. i Have read they have built in drum tracks and guitar tracks. It would be great if i could here some examples .Thanks again

Lewis

[FunkMachine]

Oh yeah - I know what you mean about the distortion..
why dont you try connecting the bass to the comp through a pre-amp? That might help, but Im not sure..

Alternatively, you could play the bass part on a keyboard..The comps at my school all have keyboards hooked up to them. But then again, if youre not a keyboardist, it'd be hard to do anything fancy..and ofcourse you dont get a true bass 'feel'.

The recording device sounds good, but then you gotta spend cash on it...Well I guess you could use it for alot more stuff in the future aswell, so its all good. What kind of in-built tracks do you think they have? I would suspect they are very simple/mediocre and your bass part would have to be absolutely fantastic to bring the piece's overall standard up to the level of an A or B grade..

Cant you compose directly onto Midi? And then use what you've written as a backing track? Programs such as Guitar Pro and Tabit let you do just that.. Then you can shift your midi track from there onto cubase, and just add your bass part.

If you have MSN, i can send you a few midi 'backing tracks' just as an example, and you can see if they can be shoved into cubase..?