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Bass Solos?

R

Rinton

Apr 10, 2008
15
0
#1
Afternoon, Talkbass. Longtime reader, seldom poster.

I play in a party and event band out of Phoenix, AZ (check us out at http://www.partymcfly.com ) called Party McFly, and frankly we've been doing great for ourselves. One thing that's irked me though, is that while both of my guitarists get to take long, drawn out, admittedly bad ass and mostly appropriate solos, I don't take ANY other than a few measures during our introductions.

Now, I feel that while I'm not the best bassist in town (there's a lot of talent out here, and I'm relatively young) I'm certainly capable of laying down a solo. The problem is song choice. We're a cover band, specializing in high-energy performance. We play any and all kinds of music with the necessary energy to keep our show "up", so you'd think finding a great song to solo on wouldn't be difficult. Well, it is. Maybe I'm just not an experienced pop soloist (I've done jazz combos/bands and what not in the past through my college), but it seems like it's really hard to find room when I've got 2 guitarists taking up so much of my mid and upper range.

What would you suggest?

To narrow the answers - I'm specifically looking for songs, or ideas I can pitch to the band to open up for a bass solo. I personally specialize in a rock/blues style, but the problem there is that we keep to extremely well known pop music. I can't pull out "Lemon Song" and while I keep pushing the band I don't think "YYZ" is going to happen. On songs like superfreak I feel like if I remove my bass line the song will fall apart.

Ideas?
 
#4
Greetings from a fellow AZ bassist,

You could try to do a tap solo in Sweet Home Alabama, where you play the bass line with your left hand and the piano solo with your right. I'm still trying to work that out, myself...
 
#10
Thanks for the quick replies guys :)

Superfreak is technically retired currently (we had a chick singer and she loved the lesbian angle she could give the song and we're still recovering from letting her go so we haven't actually brought that one back in with a male singer) but I'll definitely bring it up when we start gigging with it again.

Bass solo's can get really tacky, I agree. That's one of my biggest problems with finding a place or song to throw one in. Some of my favorite tracks have had great bass solos or highlight a particularly cool or difficult bass line, but any of those songs I try to name fall into the category of "to obscure for Party McFly." I don't slap (just decided I didn't want to be one of those youtube slap bassists. It's like the tacky guitarists that only learn the most intense metal riffs. It's cool, but there's more to music... I'm more interested in the notes right now than how to slap and pluck octaves really fast. That's a generalization on slap bass, but oh well...) or atleast not well, so while songs like Jimmie Olsen's Blues might seem appealing for a solo, I have enough trouble just keeping the groove with finger style.... I don't know, I figure if I'm going to play 4 hour gigs then I want to atleast show off a bit.... right now I've got a reputation for being crazy on stage, but that's because pop music bores the hell out of me sometimes and it's a lot more fun if I'm dancing around like an idiot :) I know it's a lot to ask as a bassist who doesn't slap, but getting noticed for my playing by more than just other bassists is always nice...

The sweet home tapping idea is pretty cool actually, and I don't do a lot of tapping in general, so it might be great technique practice. I'm going to check it out. It might be a cool way to break up an otherwise boring song. I have a good time grooving under the solos, but frankly that songs essentially V IV I the whole way through so it might be fun to do something melodic like that. I'm going to go check it out right now.

Any more thoughts?
 
#12
elavate7 said:
thats what i say. i dont hate bass solos, but it just seems out of place. i say love the pocket and make the music sound good :D
Click to expand...

I saw Rush last weekend at Jones Beach. Geddy was absolutely amazing. If ever there was a guy who should solo I'd say it would be Geddy. He didn"t. He just played his lines and did some fills; albeit some some of those fills had crazy 32nd note triplets in them but they were all done in the context of the tune.

Neal Peart on the other hand....

Ever hear the joke about the drums stopping in the jungle....?

The punch line is "Oh No! Bass Solo!":help:

A lot of truth there
 
#13
Star Spangled Banner - Looking into it.

My Generation - We've looked at this song forever, but I think we ditched it in favor of a who medley we're working out right now. I'm playing with the idea of trying to force it into the medley, but we've got to work out transitions first and find a place for it.

Unfortunately Everything Is Everything is a bit too far off the pop path to be able to suggest. This is the lame part about playing in an event/party band. You make money at the cost of not getting to play all the cool tunes you'd REALLY like to play. Sick solo though, good suggestion.
 
#17
Make your own solo in a song you like, where the guitar(s) plays background for you. Maybe right after the guitar lead. Really work it out and practice it.

Scratch the National Anthem. Boring, everyone does it,and bass is not necessarily set up for all the squealing they always do to replicate Hendrix. If you just play the notes properly---well, so what?
It has become, well...trite.
 
#20
Another one bites the dust by queen?

It's a popular song, would keep your audience pumped... it's a bassy song, but no bass solo in it (as I recall), but it would be easy to write one in. Do your own solo.

Or come up with an entwistle style solo in that who medley you're working on.
 

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