Who Here Composes their Bass Lines?

[thebassclef]

We have all written a bass line or three in the past, and commited them to memory, but has anyone ever composed them to standard notation? I am learning to read the Bass Clef, and started composing some of my bass lines as a practice tool, so I was wondering if anyone else does this.

[Alun]

Yes, partly due to having an useless memory!

Cheers,
Alun

[BassChuck]

I write down the line or some kind of short hand to help me remember what I've done. No point in wasting rehearsal time re-doing the work of last rehearsal.

[Grimlock]

Originally Posted by thebassclef

We have all written a bass line or three in the past, and commited them to memory, but has anyone ever composed them to standard notation? I am learning to read the Bass Clef, and started composing some of my bass lines as a practice tool, so I was wondering if anyone else does this.

I don't know musical notation, so I do the next best thing: I record the part on my PC. For the more complicated parts, I have a "Book o' Tunes" where I keep all the ideas tabbed out.

[BrandonBass]

i tab out my lines...dont know standard not

[smperry]

I do...whatever I have in terms of bass line, chord changes, melody, and lyrics. If I don't have time, I'll just write the notes, which is usually enough to remember the rhythm for the short-term.

Marshall

[tZer]

I am lucky to have a sort of photographic (in this case 'audio-graphic') memory when it comes to basslines I invent. So if I hit on a line I really like I am typically able to recall it pretty readily - HOWEVER - that is not always the case and because there are occasions when my 'audio-graphic' memory fails me, I have started writing my "more significant" part out - at least charting them (Chord Symbol + notes), if not fully writing them out in standard notation.

I have recently been working on a song with a friend and I hit upon a bassline that we both agree is a "must keep" - it was born out of my recent infatuation with Paul McCartney style lines and really hit a home run in relation to the song we are writing. Since I chart all of our songs for my purposes, I was able to jot annotations in this section that reminded me of what I played (Dm to Gm up near 12th fret - ascending like Macca...) - so then next week when we ran that song, that line just jumped right back into my head. I was worried before we played it that I would not remeber it - I could not 'imagine' it at before we started. Once we started it showed up right on time.

More often then not a simple chord ref. and annotation is enough to recall the line.

[Sundogue]

While I don't read standard notation (though I can, albeit at a snail's pace that makes it useless in a live setting), I do use my own musical shorthand for most everything I learn.

I played bass in an originals band and wrote my own bass lines and thus wrote everything down as well as recorded it (even if it was just a hand held cassette recorder).

In my many years of playing I've played with a lot of cover bands and the last two were ones where I needed to learn all of their material in a very short period of time. 60 songs in two weeks kind of thing. Were it not for my notes, I would have been lost and resorting to just jamming (in key).

As it was, having my set list notes up in front of me and doing a quick scan of my notes prior to each song (like during the end of a previous one), I was able to recall bass lines to (for me) obscure songs quite easily. Taking notes is, IMO, an absolute must if you are in a cover or originals band. The cover band I'm in now plays over 200 songs (not always the same ones) in many different styles to suit the occassion and we learn anywhere from 2 to 5 new ones every week.

Without notation of some kind (be it standard or my own shorthand) I wouldn't be able to do what I do and be as successful as I am with it. After a half year with my current band, I'm only now getting to rely less on my notes (at least for the older stuff).

The real beauty of keeping notes on it is not only will it help you now, but after years of note taking, future gigs/bands/projects will be so much easier because I don't have to try and recall the hundreds and hundreds of songs I've learned over the years. I now have a huge database of notes.

I recently got called to play with an old band I played with off and on for the past five years or so. We had an opportunity to play a major gig for a huge amount of money, on very short notice. So short notice, that we had no time to rehearse even once beforehand.

Thankfully I had all my notes from our entire catalog of tunes we played. Any I had forgotten we're easily played and the gig went great, without any rehearsal. Without my notes, I think I would have regretably turned down the gig. It's happened many times to me. I must have my own notes to a thousand songs, if I have one. I get a lot of calls to fill in with no rehearsal and I can't tell you how many times my notes made the gig possible.

No matter how you do it, take notes. Put them in some kind of organizer. Keep them around forever. You never know when they could bail you out.

[tonedeaf]

I am in the process of teaching myself standard notation (I can read the notes fine, it's the rhythms that are tricky), and writing parts out in standard notation is a great way to teach myself and have a way to remember the line later. I have a piano player friend I run the parts by. I put the sheet in front of him, he plays the part, and it's very easy to tell where I've gone wrong.

[tZer]

For non-classical stuff I would recommend 'charting' or 'inventing your own short-hand' as Sundogue describes.

It is important for you to develop that part of your brain that retains the main idea of what you do without the need for a one-to-one transcription in front of you.

When I have to do the "60 songs in two weeks" thing, I always do simple charts for each song - 1) to keep the changes straight and 2) to have a structual diagram to reference. Pop/Rock/non-classical/non-jazz tunes can be so similar to each other that you are faced with remembering "Is it Am C G D or is it Am D C G??" - when you have songs back to back that share the same chord progressions... BUT I ultimately make my charts as dirt simple as the can be because the ultimate goal is to commit these tunes to memory and if you are buried in your charts looking for every lick, forget it!

Here is a scenario where more 'professional' charting is warrented:

I am working with my friend to get his originals to a level where we can record them with a full band. So I chart them (again, just chord symbols and simple annotations) so that I can follow them easily. Then we record a rough-draft of just he and I (guitar and bass) playing the most basic version of the song with a metronome.

Now I can refine the charts to be more easily read by a piano player or another guitar player (removing my short-hand and replacing it with more standard annotations - D.C. Al Fine, repeat marks, etc.). NOW we can hand a CD with our rough draft and a packet of charts to our other musician friends and they are that much farther ahead with being able to jump in and do their thing.

If respect to important things like a melody that needs to be done by others, those things get written out note-for-note.

Too much information? Sorry... I tend to ramble.

[Sundogue]

Originally Posted by tZer

When I have to do the "60 songs in two weeks" thing, I always do simple charts for each song - 1) to keep the changes straight and 2) to have a structual diagram to reference. Pop/Rock/non-classical/non-jazz tunes can be so similar to each other that you are faced with remembering "Is it Am C G D or is it Am D C G??" - when you have songs back to back that share the same chord progressions... BUT I ultimately make my charts as dirt simple as the can be because the ultimate goal is to commit these tunes to memory and if you are buried in your charts looking for every lick, forget it!

You got that right. While my initial notes on any song might be long and detailed (like during a very complex part) while learning it, once I hit the stage my notes are mostly chord progressions and some kind of note as to the style, i.e.- jazzy, upbeat, etc.). I even had a slow waltz we did for a wedding and my notes simply said... D C G - "Slow Death". I knew right away what song it was, even though I had only heard it once and hadn't played it in over a month.

It's one thing to make notation others will use. But when you are doing it for your own use, just use whatever makes sense to you (but then stick to it so you don't confuse yourself).

[Aaron Saunders]

I very, very rarely write out my own lines. The last time I can remember doing so was for the culminating project at the end of a semester long music focus program in first semester grade 12. All music, all day...we were a five piece doing a mix of rock, funk, soul jazz, acoustic DMB stuff, and metal (everyone in the band had different interests -- can you tell?) and all of my basslines were improvised around a skeletal groove. Writing them down was a nightmare, because I had to go back and transcribe them from our recordings and from memory. Even so, there was more than one section where I just wrote down the chords and put slashes indicating an improvised passage.

That was about a year and a half ago. In a performance sense, 90% of what I've been playing lately is fully improvised over chord changes. I haven't written a bassline in ages. There are certain tunes where I play original ostinato basslines on (our arrangements of Fever and My Heart Belongs to Daddy, for instance) but I've never written them down. I'm young and my musical memory's sharp, so I haven't particularly felt a need. It also helps when you've played these tunes so often in rehearsal or on the gig, that it would be almost impossible NOT to remember them...

[MAJOR METAL]

Gosh I have not done this in years, I best do so because I been loosing more of my short term memory lately.

[Sundogue]

Originally Posted by MAJOR METAL

Gosh I have not done this in years, I best do so because I been loosing more of my short term memory lately.

That was my reason for doing so.

Though "short term memory" for me is anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 weeks.

[tzadik]

It's great practice...

[JimK]

Originally Posted by Alun

Yes, partly due to having an useless memory!

Cheers,
Alun

Agree 100%.


...now if I can just remember where I'm stickin' all these charts.

[BassGod]

I've never had to do this actually... usually when I practice or just jam, I plug in, and immediately turn on my recording program, then play. That way if I come up with something, it's saved, and ready to be heard at any time.

This especially helps when composing tapping pieces.

Graeme

[brooklynbassed]

Originally Posted by tzadik

It's great practice...

+1

Sometimes, we can be our best teachers, when we allow our own voices to "speak". I find that it's good to write and analyze what I'm doing, so I can see the progress and the process of my musical development. You can also compare what you write to faithful transcriptions of legendary bass lines, to see how they compare.

Even if you don't read notation (for those who have said so), it's never too late to start, and it's always good to try. You'll expand your horizons, improve your musicianship, and increase your marketability (don't be afraid of that word, "marketability").

Good force to you.

[FrigginChris]

I do. I when I was starting to learn standard notation I made myself write everything I came up with down in that rather than tab and now I do it just out of habit because it's what I'm used to.

[thebassclef]

Originally Posted by FrigginChris

I do. I when I was starting to learn standard notation I made myself write everything I came up with down in that rather than tab and now I do it just out of habit because it's what I'm used to.

that is what I am working towards. I have a program (Demo) that allows me to plug in standard notation and hear it back in MIDI, so it helping me find my mistakes.