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Bassist=idiot

#21
Koog said:
My advice is to keep pushing your skills to the next level, while being humble and patient with those that give you a bad time. Another poster referenced going back to recordings to check your accuracy when another player says you didn't get it right on covers. This happens to me every now and again with our front man, who is playing rhythm and is a former bass player. When I suggest we go back and listen, a fair amount of the time I've done it correctly. When I haven't, I learn something and am glad for it.

I was at a jam session the other night and a cat who is a great blues lead player got up and was going to show the house how to really create a groove for the blues on a bass. Turned out on bass he forgot the feel and grease of the blues and was a stacatto root note player with no grease at all. Go figure.

Moral of the story: Keep working hard, learn something every day and don't let it get to you. And, if it does get to you, find some other cats to play with that appreciate what you're doing.

Good luck.

Koog
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This is great advice regardless of how long you've been playing. If you stop learning and growing, you stop living. Apparently true mastery of anything takes a minimum of 10,000 hours of practice (check out Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers, for more on that - fascinating).
 
#23
I've had the experience of rehearsing as a fill in with a band where I added a few embellishments to a song and was told it was "too busy" (it wasn't). I responded by playing the basslines from their recordings VERBATIM...still too busy. The guitarist finally said "all I want is roots, nothing else". :rolleyes:
 
#24
elavate7 said:
i love how when playing with a band, the bassist is always targeted s the guy that dont know how to play or dont know what hes doing. like everyone in the band constantly has thier eyes on me or telling me what notes to play....dose anyone else have this problem?
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Not one bit... but maybe because I choose bands and bandmates who understand music, and know what a bass player does, and they know and they see I do it well.

If you have that problem, either you need to practice more and improve your ability, or you need a new band...
 
#25
elavate7 said:
i love how when playing with a band, the bassist is always targeted s the guy that dont know how to play or dont know what hes doing. like everyone in the band constantly has thier eyes on me or telling me what notes to play....dose anyone else have this problem?
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You're playing in the wrong band. I've never been treated like this and would never let myself be treated like this. There are many ways to offer suggestions without being condescending. It doesn't matter how much better the other players are than you, if they don't treat you with respect, take a walk.
 
#26
grisezd said:
It's no secret that in the "skill required to just get by" category bass is the easiest, at least in a rock context.
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I don't mean to be rude, but that is a big generalization of a rock bass player. In a pop punk or pop rock band, more often than not the bass player will end up playing root notes of three or four chords. But it's entirely different if it's a metal or prog rock bass player.

Some rock/ metal songs are NOT at all easy on bass. But it is true that most people believe rock bass players to be "root note lovers".
 
#27
here's the thing, a lot of times, in a lot of music, being simply a "root player" is exactly the right thing to do. I was in a band where playing the root was about all i did. I grew a lot from that experience as I used to try and fit a billion notes in each bar, it sounded like bass puke. Was playing the roots all I knew? was that the absolute threshold for my talents? Of course not. But the power of bass lies in long held bass notes and small tasteful deviations from an overlying groove. OP, these guys who are insulting you do not understand your power over their sound so either quit or live with it.
 
#28
I prefer to be a "root player"... grab the groove and hold it for hours. I used to want to play a lot more in my early 20's, but I prefer to strip it back to the basics and just make sure every note I hit is in the right spot. It also makes it easier for me to sing backing vocals when my progression is simpler. My guitarist always wants me to "put more in there" or "Take that bass line for a walk"
 
#30
I'm very fortunate to be playing with some very open minded musicians at church. We offer suggestions to each other all the time and no one takes offense. Of course, it does help that no one comes across rude or as a control freak when offering a suggestion to another player. I've made suggestions before and yes, things have been pointed out to me as well. If that's what it takes to make it shine....who cares?
 
#31
elavate7 said:
i love how when playing with a band, the bassist is always targeted s the guy that dont know how to play or dont know what hes doing. like everyone in the band constantly has thier eyes on me or telling me what notes to play....dose anyone else have this problem?
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Usually that's got nothing to do with skill level or what notes you play. Looking confident and playing a really simple part, or even screwing up, works much better than doing a great job playing a complex part and looking like you're not sure about it. Really, that's about 90% of it. If you can't look confident, looking scary is a good substitute.

That sounds vague, though, so here's a bit of specifics. I would say the drummer here does a good job of looking confident. Keeps his head up, looks relaxed, sways his whole upper body a bit and not just his head, and made an effort to dress up which helps too.

I've seen this happen a lot of times... for example people from the audience at one band's shows keep telling me the pianist and drummer aren't as good as the singer and me, and it's not that they aren't good, it's they just look nervous, terrified and downright nerdy. I also had a singer from another band tell me that the bassist who replaced me in yet another band is only 10% as expressive as me... the poor guy improvises a lot more, uses a lot of vibrato and doesn't robotically play a few notes over and over again like I did, but I made it look expressive and he can't.
 
#33
I never get targeted.......its never happened. In our band its the keyboard player. But he's the one who tends to be the least prepared and is constantly trying to "improve" the song by faking it. Uh. If you're getting targeted, the problem is probably with you, at least IME.
 
#34
My main band I get to play with guys who are twenty, a hundred times the musician I am. Lucky me. We play "jazz", rip off a few grooves, come up with our own on the spot, general controlled mayhem. Our byline: "It's Jazz, Jim, but not as we know it" tm.

I sometimes wish we could just stop so they could teach me but we're more than a little busy playing. A fair chunk of what I'm playing is roots, or not far from the root, but I'm free to play what I feel at any time. Sometimes I'm so busy it scares me.

The pianist leader is keen for me to take the groove wherever I want to take it. Big responsibility for a member of the mediocre bassist's club. I'm playing with a drummer who can play anything and a pianist who will throw a beautiful medodic solo over anything you play him.

Works for me.
 
#35
I know what the OP is referring to. It's that old joke that get's thrown around in heavily guitar driven bands, (You know, bands like: AC/DC, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, etc.) that goes: "If you ever need a bass player, call the pizza boy." Because they don't really understand the impact a good bass player can have on a piece of music, they just think of it as a lame version of a guitar that just plods along on the root and fills up the low registers.

I think most people here have never dealt with that stereotype because they're good bassists and can quickly disprove that misconception within the first five minutes of jamming with a new group.
 
#36
In my band the guitarist and drummer are both big Jazzheads...they know ALOT of theory, we used to have a bit of band banter with me being the subject of the jokes, but since I have put a lot more practice in and strive to keep on improving my playing they respect me more and let me do my own thing.

In essence don't worry about it and just take it as a motive to push yourself to the next level
 
#39
I surround myself with pro players no one has ever pointed fingers in my band. In the past I was in original project put together by myself and had all day audition in a place I rented to find the right people for the project. At the time I had already 10 years of private bass lesson under my belt as well as creative writing and theory so I treated everyone as = and steered the ship.
 

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