Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread

[ugly_bassplayer]

2 things... Dave Carpenter a six string bassist?

Okay, so to differentiate between, to use your terms, pass chord melody and broken chords with passing notes... are you just alluding to the melody, as opposed to playing it, outright? Got any good resources, maybe an old chart you made?

To add to what others already said on chords.

I played every standard I knew 4 ways.
Chords, melody, walking, soloing

I didn’t do the Joe Pass thing but did voice « colour notes » of the chords and extensions.
Also played some walking lines and chords at the same time. (With the roots of the chords. So root to next root using chords tones and chromatic or diatonic passing tones)

I never had a book to learn this, back then we used any harmony\arrangement book and apply it to every instrument.

Chord Voicing:
- So first would be the triads Root, 3rd 7th. (Omit the 5th)
- Then add 9th, 11th, 13th. (Natural extensions such as b9, #9, 11th......etc.....)
- Then colour the chords like a piano guys right hand or a guitar player. So that means you can omit the root (thats the bass players job )

So if the chord is for example F9 you could just play A, Eb and G (maybe have a chord of F9 playing along with you to hear the voicings, I would make cassette tapes with the old crappy Finale chart software looping the changes ad vitam aerternam)
Since you have a 6er, you can voice so many ways its nuts.

Then I got nauseous playing standards and went on another path of my own.

My 2 cents

 

[emjazz]

To add to what others already said on chords.

I played every standard I knew 4 ways.
Chords, melody, walking, soloing

I didn’t do the Joe Pass thing but did voice « colour notes » of the chords and extensions.
Also played some walking lines and chords at the same time. (With the roots of the chords. So root to next root using chords tones and chromatic or diatonic passing tones)

I never had a book to learn this, back then we used any harmony\arrangement book and apply it to every instrument.

Chord Voicing:
- So first would be the triads Root, 3rd 7th. (Omit the 5th)
- Then add 9th, 11th, 13th. (Natural extensions such as b9, #9, 11th......etc.....)
- Then colour the chords like a piano guys right hand or a guitar player. So that means you can omit the root (thats the bass players job )

So if the chord is for example F9 you could just play A, Eb and G (maybe have a chord of F9 playing along with you to hear the voicings, I would make cassette tapes with the old crappy Finale chart software looping the changes ad vitam aerternam)
Since you have a 6er, you can voice so many ways its nuts.

Then I got nauseous playing standards and went on another path of my own.

My 2 cents

"Then I got nauseous playing standards and went on another path of my own."

Epic quote. Lol. Love it.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

"Then I got nauseous playing standards and went on another path of my own."

Epic quote. Lol. Love it.

Patent pending.



Ill also add it was the "trend" that every guitarist was trying to be Rosenwinkl.
Piano dudes where trying the broken NYC vibe. (Quite aweful renditions I might add)
So they played so far off the original chord is was like a parody.

For example a simple a G7 when playing the melodie would be so extended it would become B dimished. It clashed with the melodie notes, was pathetic. Train wrecks.

One time a piano player was so far off the changes during a Bb rhytm change I played a V7 pedal on every A section going back to the bridge walking the circle of 5ths.
He was playing live for his masters degree.
(Facepalm). The judges sided with me when he went to bitch about his grade.

And I'm not even going to mention the Giant Steps Usain bolt speed versions. First one to the end wins. I played half note roots the whole time waiting for the sax dude to turn purple and ask when the top of the form was looking at me amd the drums.

My 2 dismished altered cents.

 

[Bob_Ross]

Do any of you play chord melodies on your six? You know when you listen to solo jazz guitar like Wes Montgomery or Joe Pass, and they play the whole damn thing, chords, with the melody over the top?

I don't do it a lot -- and I definitely don't do it for traditional jazz standards -- but I certainly use it as part of my box-of-tools. When I was a teenager back in the 1970s I played a lot more guitar than I do now, and I was into jazz guitarists like Joe Pass and Pat Martino and George Benson, and I had a fantastic teacher who taught me a lot of solo chord-melody arrangements, so it's in my musical DNA. Applying it to the 6-string bass wasn't so much a conscious decision as it was me simply knowing how to construct chords and having the facility to execute them and -- hopefully -- the sensitivity to know when to deploy them.

One interesting observation: When I play (or played) chord solos on guitar I'm always aware of the name of the chord at any given moment. "Here's an A-11, here's a D7b9b13, here's a Gmaj7#11..." etc. When I play these chord-melodies on bass I'm thinking of the individual notes that make up the chords -- "Here's a G, a C, an A, and a D on top, now here's a D, a C, an Eb, an F#, and a Bb on top..." -- and I'm thinking about voice-leading -- "jeebus, I need to make that Bb go to a B natural while retaining the F#..." but I almost never think of what to call those simultanaities.

There's a very brief passage in my composition "genuflect" from Debris' 1997 album Errata where the bass plays the "head" [sic] as a chord-melody (and then in the coda the bass plays that same chord melody only super-slowed-down as a harmonic backdrop to the original chord melody, now being played in real-time by two saxes & a guitar). That was probably my most effective use of the technique. I should see if there's a recording online...

 

[Spectrum]

On another note managed to fix my sy1 loop properly - now works with pedal both on and off as intended.

Any details on that?

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Any details on that?

Betcha 5$ it was patched in the opposite way.

Send and return inverted.

 

[emjazz]

Patent pending.



Ill also add it was the "trend" that every guitarist was trying to be Rosenwinkl.
Piano dudes where trying the broken NYC vibe. (Quite aweful renditions I might add)
So they played so far off the original chord is was like a parody.

For example a simple a G7 when playing the melodie would be so extended it would become B dimished. It clashed with the melodie notes, was pathetic. Train wrecks.

One time a piano player was so far off the changes during a Bb rhytm change I played a V7 pedal on every A section going back to the bridge walking the circle of 5ths.
He was playing live for his masters degree.
(Facepalm). The judges sided with me when he went to bitch about his grade.

And I'm not even going to mention the Giant Steps Usain bolt speed versions. First one to the end wins. I played half note roots the whole time waiting for the sax dude to turn purple and ask when the top of the form was looking at me amd the drums.

My 2 dismished altered cents.

And here I thought you couldn't do better than that last quote...and here you gave me even more great material...hahahaha. oh man. In the end those folks either leave their egos behind and decide to play actual music, or they end up moving on from music entirely. I've seen it over and over again. The beauty is as you move on in life as a musician you find that the one's left standing are great musicians who want to play MUSIC first. Well worth the wait.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

And here I thought you couldn't do better than that last quote...and here you gave me even more great material...hahahaha. oh man. In the end those folks either leave their egos behind and decide to play actual music, or they end up moving on from music entirely. I've seen it over and over again. The beauty is as you move on in life as a musician you find that the one's left standing are great musicians who want to play MUSIC first. Well worth the wait.

"the one's left standing are great musicians who want to play MUSIC first"

this x985768276825765565

Cheers my friend.

 

[Bob_Ross]

Giant Steps Usain bolt speed versions. First one to the end wins.

LOL. Erik Lawrence was one of my high school bandmates, and his father Arnie Lawrence was an even more renowned musician/educator. Erik told me that in the early/mid-1970s (before the infamous eponymous solo album and before Weather Report) Jaco Pastorius used to hang out with Arnie studying music and practicing, and that part of their regime consisted of racing through "Donna Lee" to see who could get to the end first.

I'm not sure what that was supposed to teach in terms of actual music, but I guess it explains how Jaco got that tune so ingrained in his fingers.

 

[Feral Feline]

I'll have cross country skied over 30 miles by the time this week's over. There's some white up here, now.

DUDE ! Yer kill'n meh... you and the rest of yas tellin' powder-fairy stories.

Born and raised on the prairies, been on cross-country skis since I was 7. I'm so freakin' jealous right now, even though I did go over to my friend's place to work on an amp in shorts and T-shirt this evening.

Cross-country to -15ºC (5ºF) okay, -20ºC (-4ºF) mmm okay, but only if I have to — and no wind-chill... Minus-20C downhill skiing sucked, the windburn...
Then again, I went snowboarding alone after a blizzard in -40 (-40)... well, okay, maybe it was still blizzarding a little, but it wasn't a white-out anymore. Walked over to the ski hill from my apartment, saw one person the entire outing, and he was driving a snow-grader. If I'd broken my leg or somethin' I'dabeenapopsicle. 'Twas fun at the time.

As mentioned, I'm going back to from whence I came...

 

[steubig]

I'm not sure what that was supposed to teach in terms of actual music, but I guess it explains how Jaco got that tune so ingrained in his fingers.

re donna lee:

a long time ago, on the internet group the bottom line, someone who knew/studied with jaco said that the famous solo was written out. he was using it as evidence that jaco was a great improvisor/soloist; to me it meant that was a composed, not an improvised, line. ymmv

 

[steubig]

chords: to me it’s all about voice leading.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

chords: to me it’s all about voice leading.

Yep, that is where conterpoint harmony is priceless.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Yep, that is where conterpoint harmony is priceless.

Yep, that is where conterpoint harmony is priceless.

re donna lee:

a long time ago, on the internet group the bottom line, someone who knew/studied with jaco said that the famous solo was written out. he was using it as evidence that jaco was a great improvisor/soloist; to me it meant that was a composed, not an improvised, line. ymmv

Written, improvised at this point I don’t really care anymore.
It’s a cool solo. I dig it.

IMO, for me at least, his legacy is that he wrote good songs, not crap to solo over.
(And yes, he could play a mean bass line as well.)
Was he the greatest improviser on bass, probably not. He’s still one of the greats in my book.

Ahhh the timeless to Jaco or not to Jaco.....that is the question.

 

[steubig]

right. it’s the hagiography i can deal without.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

right. it’s the hagiography i can deal without.

In the sense when people discuss him Jaco as a “God” that can do no wrong kind of thing??
Idol worshipping thing??
If so, then I’m onboard with you 110%

 

[Bob_Ross]

it’s the hagiography i can deal without.

In the sense when people discuss him Jaco as a “God” that can do no wrong kind of thing??
Idol worshipping thing??
If so, then I’m onboard with you 110%

We can hang. I wrote a letter to the editor of Bass Player Magazine 30-something years ago asking -- perhaps rhetorically -- if it was at all possible to discuss Jaco Pastorius' impact on bass playing without deifying him. Y'know, it is possible to identify someone as an important historical/cultural milestone without putting them on a pedestal...but a lot of fanbois don't seem to get that.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

We can hang. I wrote a letter to the editor of Bass Player Magazine 30-something years ago asking -- perhaps rhetorically -- if it was at all possible to discuss Jaco Pastorius' impact on bass playing without deifying him. Y'know, it is possible to identify someone as an important historical/cultural milestone without putting them on a pedestal...but a lot of fanbois don't seem to get that.

(Pays virtual drink of choice.)
We can definitely hang.

 

[monsterthompson]

A buddy just remined me of Jason Bieler, who was part of Saigon Kick. Not the most ambient of music, but he's always had an interesting sense of phrasing in the heavy guitar world and some great vocal harmony work. I'd put him in the bucket of heavier Vai and Devin Townsend, and "less odd" Mike Patton. A little guitar noodle-y for my current tastes, but it's one thing I liked about him in Saigon Kick. I'm not in love with his latest but it isn't bad. Now I've gotta see what he's been up to all these years.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

@lordradish
Pfffff American winter.
Hahahaha

Look at this view.