Bass line outlining a chord or triad two strings at a time (?)

[Trilobita]

Hello,

Lately some of my playing sessions have been dedicated to transcribing the entire album "Written in Waters" by the strange (and pretty obscure) Norwegian act Ved Buens Ende, which has some of the most interesting bass parts I have ever heard.

My question is related to the song "Coiled in Wings" - more specifically, to the bass line part repeated four times between 1:22 and 1:37 in the YT link below:



I have transcribed the aforementioned part as:

In the second half of the line there is clearly an underlying A major chord shape which is played bit by bit as the bass alternates between one-string and two-string outlines, until the part ends with two consecutive two-string halves of an A major triad.

Based on the music I usually listen to, I would say this is extremely unusual - I would even go so far as to say that I had never seen it before. Is it something I was just unaware of or is this half-harmonic, half-melodic approach to spelling out chords and triads actually quite unusual in a broader sense as well?

Of course, the entire question rests on the assumption that my transcription is accurate. Even though I am pretty sure that it is, feel free to make comments in that regard as well.

 

[mambo4]

Outlining Chord fragments with double stops or dryads is uncommon on bass but Not at all unusual on other instruments. Chuck Rainey bass lines come to mind.

 

[mambo4]

Dyad ,not “dryad”sorry. 2 note chords. Some argue that you need 3 or even 4 notes to properly call it a chord but that’s not a consensus by any means...

 

[Trilobita]

Thanks a lot for replying! I was puzzling over that line yesterday and noticed that, starting from the second low A, the notes played by themselves (as actual single notes) are root, high 3rd (10th) and 5th (in this order), which make up an A major chord in root position. And that this single-note, three-part spelling of the chord alternates with fragments taken from a parallel double-stop, two-part spelling of the same chord, so the overall structure of the bass line starts out like this:

[first third of the single-note chord] [first half of the double-stop chord] [second third of the single-note chord] [second half of the double-stop chord] [third third of the single-note chord]

Until the end of the second-to-last triplet, we have never got to hear the chord spelt out as consecutive parts of the same method of spelling it out (either as single notes or as dyads) - but, as the section comes to a close, the chord is spelt out a third time, now as two consecutive dyads in the last two strokes, the common note among among them being precisely the root, so that it goes like this:

[root + low 5th] [root + high 3rd]

Very cool stuff, and quite unusual, too (at least for me).

I also plan to check out Chuck Rainey as well - any particular songs you'd recommend?

 

[mambo4]

Well Street Beater (aka Sanford and Son) is the one I actually learned, but it just does it in the intro
http://www.lowdownbass.net/s/Streetbeater.pdf