Hello, I've written a short survey asking questions about playing the bass and I'm interested in hearing people's opinions on writing fills and a few other things. If you could answer it for me then I would be very grateful as it would help with my research. Live Project Survey Research
Some clarity is needed for your questions. 1.) The term 'score' often refers to a page with all the instruments and voices. Is that what you mean? Or do you mean writing out the part you play before you play it or after? Does this apply to improvisation? 2.) Probably some kind of reference including the music before, or after space you are filling would be good to know about. This is just vague. 4.) Again vague. You seem to be asking about the point of the fill and how it applies to the music. 5.) Here the style of music is very important as that will impact the bass part. Are you talking time, or specific rhythms? Some music allows (expects) the bass part to be it's own melody independent from the guitars, others demand strict co-ordination. I hope that helps. As it is, people can answer, but you might not be able to use all the different answers.
Yeah, it's basically meaningless to me. I normally read a lead sheet with chords, and I normally play the chord roots (Celtic music for the most part, I might occasionally add a fifth, but essentially my job is to put the root in there and be more or less of the rhythm depending whether our drummer has something else he'd rather be doing.) When faced with no chart, I will keep it moving so as not to play the wrong note too long and try to figure out what works by ear, but it's not exactly satisfying or comfortable .vs. everybody being on the same page. I do often write (or re-write) the sheets, as it's too typical in traditional music to have a 15th generation copy of a crappy pencil-written part, and reading those drives me nuts, so I'll make a clean copy with big fat chords so any chord player can read over the shoulder of a melody player if need be.
Thank you for providing feedback on my survey; you make some very good points. I am going to apply some changes to the survey based on your observations and I appreciate you pointing these things out so I can get try and get results that may be more helpful to what I'm trying to find out. 1) I'm specifically talking about writing out the part you play before you play it or after and yes, it also applies to improvisation but it doesn't matter too much on whether it's written down or not. 2) I will try and grab an example to attach to the survey. 4) I will also try and grab an example and come up with a better way to phrase that question. 5) I'm mostly wondering about the Indie-ish Rock style and I'm wondering about timing mostly.