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Bass lines that almost everybody plays wrong...

You can call me Al - Paul Simon. Saw a wedding band a few years ago play it close to perfect until the 3 second bass solo. Bass player just stood there as the drums did an extra long fill. (the shame on the bassist face told i all. He wanted to crawl into a hole.) Saw the same wedding band a few months ago, same song - same stupid drum fill - same shame. I cant play it either, but I would have a least given it a shot.
It's a really difficult solo to nail.
 
For all of you saying that nailing a part isn't important, just pick up a guitar and play the intro to stairway wrong. Or better yet sweet home alabama.
People are gonna notice!

...yeah & that's why we play bass. ;)
FME, guitarists (emphasis on Rock guitarist) will not have the same latitude as us.
Most people will notice a wrong chord...sometimes, even the guitar solo gets heavy scrutiny by the casual listener.
OTOH, the bass part (unless it's "the hook") pretty much gets a pass.
 
nice thread.

On a slight diverging thought.. regarding re-arrangements instead of
mis-learning

regarding "Superstition"

That is obvious. However, a synth bass line is still a bass line. If you transcribe a synth bass line and do it incorrectly, you would be playing the line wrong.

Well there is the famous keyboard bass line which is what people recognize and remember, but there is a bass guitar part as well..



Is that bad?

Unless you have enough players to do all the overdubbed parts, arrangements have to be made. eg. on the record of some song, the guitarist could overdub two rhythm tracks and lead track, but live, he'll play 1 rhythm then lead, and so during lead the bassist might shadow the rhythm guitar track rather than the bass track because it sounds better in that particular song. Choices have to be made.

Of course the best choices are made if one properly knows all the parts, the bass, the guitar, horns, voice, drum, keyboard, everything. Then we'd be able to re-arrange the piece to fit the current ensemble better than we'd be able to do so if we only know our own part, or 'sort of know' our own part.
 


Now there's a perfect example of a cover song but done with the instruments and musical capability on hand.

Jazz players routinely play "standards". There's never any worry about sounding like "the original" (in many cases the "original" is not exactly known).

Why should rock music be different? Just play the song and play it well - like a musician, not a machine.
 
You guys are overlooking something.

A lot of folks enjoy watching a band do their OWN interpretation of a song. Heck, Social Distortion's version of Ring of Fire isn't quite like Johnny Cash's. And Cash's version of Hurt isn't quite like NIN version.

I dont WANT to hear a bassline note for note... not less it's something like Money or Another One Bites the Dust. Who cares if someone does a walking bassline on Tush (I personally think it would sound cool as hell).
 
You guys are overlooking something.

A lot of folks enjoy watching a band do their OWN interpretation of a song. .... I dont WANT to hear a bassline note for note... not less it's something like Money or Another One Bites the Dust.

Agreed. Performance and transcription skills are just not the same thing. If someone doesn't play an exact note for note copy of a song doesn't mean they don't know they're doing it and even if they didn't "Happy" accidents often account for some great music! :)
 
Agreed. Performance and transcription skills are just not the same thing. If someone doesn't play an exact note for note copy of a song doesn't mean they don't know they're doing it and even if they didn't "Happy" accidents often account for some great music! :)

I agree.

And you know....I happen to have noticed that the Allman Bros., Bob Dylan, and Grateful Dead (among many others) play their songs different EACH time... and hardly EVER like the album.
 
This:
True, the riff played by the bass doesn't change in the place where people typically play the C7, but the change is implied by the melody (head), and the piano accompaniment appears to change during the solos if not the head. Whether the piano is playing C7 or not, dunno ... that'll need to wait till I get my hands on an instrument.

+ this:
You guys are overlooking something.

A lot of folks enjoy watching a band do their OWN interpretation of a song. Heck, Social Distortion's version of Ring of Fire isn't quite like Johnny Cash's. And Cash's version of Hurt isn't quite like NIN version.

I dont WANT to hear a bassline note for note... not less it's something like Money or Another One Bites the Dust. Who cares if someone does a walking bassline on Tush (I personally think it would sound cool as hell).

= truth. Somewhere along the line people confused memorizing and imitating with actually knowing and playing music...
 

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