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powerviolence, thrashcore, blackened hardcore technique

Dead Set Dave

Dead Set Dave

Guest
Sep 10, 2014
90
36
43
Perth, Australia
#1
As per the title I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on playing in these styles. The extremely high tempo can make things tricky. Do I play whole notes, emphasizing the beat, play 16ths or whatever. I tend to tremolo pick, but lately have moved to playing less notes (maybe whole?)

Anyway, I'm just looking for advice. Trying to open my style up a bit.
 
#2
Although I don't play hardcore (more of a DM man myself), it depends on what you want to do within the context of a riff. Here's the main chart I use:
Rapid, Tremolo Picking Spider Riff- Whole or Half Notes, hit hard and fast
High Tempo, Melodic Riff- Double guitars
Slow, crunchy riff- double guitars, occasionally using counterpoint

Also, sometimes it's cool to slightly syncopate your playing, and so on any beat where the guitars aren't playing, you are, which had a "filling out the sound" effect to it. This is just my two cents. Hope it helps!
 
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#6
soong said:
Can you explain what power violence and blackened hardcore mean exactly?
Click to expand...

power-violence is a (typically) particularly fast version of punk, it's kinda of death metal crossed with punk and hardcore. The idea being that every instrument is basically going as fast as possible. Although many PV bands mix it up by having grind and that sort of thing in the mix too. It's very influenced by crust punk, often dropping into crust style riffs.


Most PV songs are short, often less than a minute, down to 15 seconds and such. It comes in close with Thrashcore, which is very similar. Thrashcore generally sticks to blast beats. Grindcore is pretty similar too, but generally considered to be PVs metal counterpart.

Blackened Hardcore is hardcore that has elements of black metal, or the reverse. The meshing of these elements can be very cool.

Genres are hard, and often silly but they exist. It's a very fun style of music :)
 
#7
Felix Riley said:
Although I don't play hardcore (more of a DM man myself), it depends on what you want to do within the context of a riff. Here's the main chart I use:
Rapid, Tremolo Picking Spider Riff- Whole or Half Notes, hit hard and fast
High Tempo, Melodic Riff- Double guitars
Slow, crunchy riff- double guitars, occasionally using counterpoint

Also, sometimes it's cool to slightly syncopate your playing, and so on any beat where the guitars aren't playing, you are, which had a "filling out the sound" effect to it. This is just my two cents. Hope it helps!
Click to expand...


that's very helpful, if you had any examples of playing counterpoint riffs I'd appreciate it, I'm thinking that means to play a counter melody?
 
#11
For power violence, I use a pick to play on the down and up strokes. The key to playing very fast is keeping the wrist relaxed and using fine motor movements. My arm is relatively stationary. It's hard work and that's why the songs are short.
 
#13
Dead Set Dave said:
I'd use an Ibanez Soundgear all things considered, but for anything derivative of punk a P works pretty great
Click to expand...
Well, you killed the joke there but.... I'll leave a pic of my P bass. :grin:
ImageUploadedByTalkBass1417999830.316970.jpg
 
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#14
I'd take Felix's advice. I listen to some of these bands and similar like shag On The Beach, Charles Bronson, Capitalist Casualties, Mass Graves, DOOM. Most of the time I think they just tremolo pick the roots of the guitarist's chords but that might be a good time to branch away from the pack. Try some experimental bass lines over the chords; usually if the guitarist is staying on one chord for awhile but is grinding away I'll use that opportunity for Minor Pentatonic, Aeolian, or Phrygian mode inspired fill before changing to the next chord. If the guitarist is just tremolo picking away and the drummer has a back-beat instead of a blast beat maybe a groove locked in with the kick drum would sound cool for you to play.
 
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#16
MattStonewall said:
I'd take Felix's advice. I listen to some of these bands and similar like **** On The Beach, Charles Bronson, Capitalist Casualties, Mass Graves, DOOM. Most of the time I think they just tremolo pick the roots of the guitarist's chords but that might be a good time to branch away from the pack. Try some experimental bass lines over the chords; usually if the guitarist is staying on one chord for awhile but is grinding away I'll use that opportunity for Minor Pentatonic, Aeolian, or Phrygian mode inspired fill before changing to the next chord. If the guitarist is just tremolo picking away and the drummer has a back-beat instead of a blast beat maybe a groove locked in with the kick drum would sound cool for you to play.
Click to expand...

Matt, that's great man. Thanks so much. That's what I am trying to get my head around, and you made it make sense. Thank you dude
 
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#17
Dead Set Dave said:
holy cow, that is an awesome bass dude!!!!!!
Click to expand...
The things you find on eBay for $45... I have approx 70 bucks invested in it, after a restoration, months of getting the neck into playable relief, and TLC, it is an awesome player now. It's an old/vintage rogue bass. Not sure when it was made, but the side markers are yellowed, and the original wiring was rusted.
 
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#18
There was a video someone had posted in a thread called "Bassists that play like a guitarist" and they had a video of Lemmy featured. Lemmy's style of bass playing during songs like Ace of Spades and Overkill is similar and has a little bit of that Discharge inspired D-beat punk that the grind you listen to evolved from. You can see how he throws little things in here and there and sometimes it almost seems a little sloppy with the pentatonic type runs. It works for him though.
 
#19
Another mention would be that I don't see many bassists in those genre's using a lot of effects but some added extra in those genre's might be a killer overdrive or fuzz pedal and maybe a bass wah if you wanted to add some ear piercing elements during some bass fills. Gotta get the right sound on the wah though.
 

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