Hello, All ! To me, it seems as though the bass player & drummer must ALWAYS be the, "adults in the room", meaning that their combination must ALWAYS be solid, and accurate for the band or song to sound proper. Meanwhile, other musicians, notably singers, and guitarists can get away with off-keyed, and even outright sloppy performances ( which they sometimes call their, "style" ). Any thoughts or observations on this ?
The very foundation of music. They carry the rhythm and heart. A poor of either one is less than desirable.
Nope. If you are providing the solid foundation for a singer, guitarist, keys, mandolin or whatever that cannot cut it, you might be a good rhythm section, but the band as a whole = Not Good!
My observation is, in a dance band setting at least, that you can get away with almost anything if your rhythm is tight. That goes for horns, singers, guitars too. When wrong, play strong, but never miss a beat. Trumpet botched their solo? I bet no one will care too much if the rest of the band got it right. That's not a universal truth however, and may change drastically depending on your genre and style. If you've got a run of the mill cover band, the singer's performance will matter a lot. Though I've seen enough examples to the contrary to easily believe otherwise.
Vocals and stage presence don't get butts off seats. The rhythm section provides a foundation and if it kicks butt, the melodic instruments have a lot more free range to work with. But let's not get carried away. Nobody wants to hear out of tune instruments or out of tune vocals. They may not understand why they don't like the sound, they may still tap their feet if the rhythm section is solid, but they're not going to walk away from that thinking they just heard the best band ever or even a band they ever want to hear again.
At one time i was half of a rhythm section that was the basis for four bands. One country, one guitar driven rock, and two blues bands. We also worked with a BL who would book jobs and put a band together for them. Before that we spent over a year jamming just the two of us and hitting any open jam that would have us. It was really fun then my drummer buddy moved to Atlanta for work and his kids got older and...life, but it was a straight up hoot while it lasted.
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