Straight up, I am not sure I could maintain that playing for the whole song...my hands started hurting just listening to it, but dang it is nice.
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Over the top bass playing or tastefully done?
- Thread starter bearhart74
- Start date
Not overplayed, IMO. Not a fan of the tone, though -- rolling off the highs a bit would help.
Not long ago I was at a show where the opening band had a bass player who overplayed on every song. It was so distracting, which is a shame because otherwise the band was really good.
Not long ago I was at a show where the opening band had a bass player who overplayed on every song. It was so distracting, which is a shame because otherwise the band was really good.
Tough crowd! What's Going On is a standard now, and in my book can be open to artistic interpretation. The band sure didn't seem to mind.
I thought it was fine cover, enjoyed the bass line, but this is valid criticism
If I were covering Gaye and Jamerson, I hope Folks would be dancing!
Comparing the feel of the Donny Hathaway version with the OP , Will Lee's interpretation makes me want to move more
The OP version feels like there's a constant subdivision and no place of rest or contrast
Makes me miss the double dotted half notes that were so painful to read in SITSOM
I do think those longer sustained notes have a respectable role in the feel of the song
edwinhurwitz
Supporting Member
The problem I hear with this rendition of the bassline isn't so much it being too busy, but it lacks development. It starts busy, stays busy, and doesn't really go anywhere else.
Music exists in the time domain. It has narrative, even if it's not with words. We start our story, and then something happens, and then some more stuff happens. A bassline that doesn't change with those evolving feelings is like having a character in a story that never has anything happen to him, never changes, never learns anything, etc. It can work, but IMO it needs to be calculated.
So, if I were playing this, I'd be coming up and coming down with the song and illustrating contrast between the low moments (backed-off, simpler playing) and the high moments (strong, bright tone, fills, more interplay with the drums or vocals, etc)
I do think this is a challenging one to do though, as the source material has a lot more going on to dictate melodic motion. The original has a lot of melodic action going on with the strings, and to a lesser extent the vibe and backup vocals. In this rendition, we have an organ laying down mostly static harmony, and the occasional interjection from the guitar. I forget the horns are even there sometimes. The split lead vocals and the backup vocals don't quite hit the same spot as the original. It's a full mix in the frequency spectrum, but in terms of melodic movement, there's not a lot going on. If the organ or the guitar player won't do it, the bass player might as well. I would go as far as saying that, if the bass player had been playing closer to the original with no other changes to the arrangement from the other instruments, this wouldn't be as good of a cover.
Music exists in the time domain. It has narrative, even if it's not with words. We start our story, and then something happens, and then some more stuff happens. A bassline that doesn't change with those evolving feelings is like having a character in a story that never has anything happen to him, never changes, never learns anything, etc. It can work, but IMO it needs to be calculated.
So, if I were playing this, I'd be coming up and coming down with the song and illustrating contrast between the low moments (backed-off, simpler playing) and the high moments (strong, bright tone, fills, more interplay with the drums or vocals, etc)
I do think this is a challenging one to do though, as the source material has a lot more going on to dictate melodic motion. The original has a lot of melodic action going on with the strings, and to a lesser extent the vibe and backup vocals. In this rendition, we have an organ laying down mostly static harmony, and the occasional interjection from the guitar. I forget the horns are even there sometimes. The split lead vocals and the backup vocals don't quite hit the same spot as the original. It's a full mix in the frequency spectrum, but in terms of melodic movement, there's not a lot going on. If the organ or the guitar player won't do it, the bass player might as well. I would go as far as saying that, if the bass player had been playing closer to the original with no other changes to the arrangement from the other instruments, this wouldn't be as good of a cover.
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It's 2024, not 1970, so the sound of a "funky bass" has changed, and we should expect that people hearing covers of that song are going to expect today's idea of what a funky bass sounds like - if you try to play it exactly like Jamerson, you aren't an artist, you're just someone imitating him (at best). We also have to remember that James was so drunk he couldn't even sit on a chair - he recorded that song literally lying on the floor - if he had played it the next day, when he'd sobered up, it would have sounded different.
Would I have played it differently? Of course, and I would have gone for more groove, but I wouldn't have tried to play it exactly like Jamerson. It's not 1970 anymore.
Would I have played it differently? Of course, and I would have gone for more groove, but I wouldn't have tried to play it exactly like Jamerson. It's not 1970 anymore.
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Anyone who has ever played in a cover band (works for a lot of other genres as well) knows that what you see happening in front of you is very important - if you're hired to provide entertainment, you can tell if you're succeeding by what is happening in front of you.
Well sure, but that's about being in the room. An cinematographed video like this is an account of a thing that happened, yes, but it may not be true-to-life. There's a lot you can do in both pre and post to emphasize or de-emphasize elements that may have been painfully subtle or obvious in the room.
However, I still think the original observation is a stretch. This is still a supremely danceable groove even with the busy bass part, and any lack of dancing, real or perceived, is hardly the fault of the bass player in particular.
I think what we're seeing is a video of a regionally successful soul band with a central lead singer figure who is largely the focus of this video and of the band's marketing, as I've seen on a cursory Google search. Another thing that's important: when backing up a Lead Singer Figure Whose Name is the Band's Name, your best bet is to stand there, do your thing, and be inoffensive. That's been a dominant mode of several big genres for a long time. It conditions the audience to want to look at the singer, their dynamics, their presence, and their expressions, and while you may politely acknowledge the band's existence, their energy is functionally not core to this experience. I mean, watching the video front to back, the only time the lead vox aren't the focus of the frame is one, maybe two 3-4 second cuts to a side cam on the drummer.
Speaking of the editing, the way this video is edited make it difficult to get a sense of the band's energy. Most of the shots are quick-cut, narrow-angle focusing on the lead singers, with the band either out of frame, out of focus, or obstructed. I mean, the bass player himself is only in frame, in focus, and unobstructed in a couple of shots throughout the entire video, despite him having such a front-and-center role in the music.
Ever been to a gig with a great band, and most of the band and the crowd just stand there like Easter Island statues? Me neither.
Because of the thread title, I was getting ready to vote that it was too busy, but all I could think was how wonderfully the bass was following the song, just like dancers out on the floor.
Very enjoyable player to listen to.
Very enjoyable player to listen to.
Awful lot of speculation about people without any real evidence and some gaslighting in your comments. If you think it's great then that's fine. No need to get insulting just because somebody doesn't agree with you. There's room for differing opinions when it comes to bass lines.
Same here. Also, the pops were quite unnecessary in my opinion. Other than that, it's magnificent and fits the arrangement like a glove.
