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Thoughts on the bass "over-player"
- Thread starter QORC
- Start date
Well, there IS Les Claypool. He basically solos all the time.
345K follower, I think. Eric Clapton 9.1 million. Claypool is an acquired taste that I've never acquired.
No, I'm saying that the gear is readily available. Seriously, the path to bass soloist usually ends at your home practice space. And that's perfectly fine. The vast majority of people want to hear a more melodic instrument play melodies. You see solo trumpet acts in restaurants, but I've never seen a tuba soloist doing a gig. It's partially laws of physics and the more pleasing sound of the higher frequency and the ability to cluster the notes more closely.
Follower on what? What are we talking about? It's definitely an acquired taste. But if you're playing music to garner the most followers as opposed to playing music that YOU want to play, you're not playing for the right reasons.
Les is a - Apologies for cliche but- force of nature.
I will likely never competently cop more than a few of my favorite tunes but his style stands out as individual though he is capable of playing well within the realms of "standard, accepted bassery" - yet chose a vehicle to support HIS style.
To my mind, that is the way.
Play how you want- make your OWN music.
I started out as a #2, but over time (with experience) I evolved into #4. I think, when you extend a song in a live performance, e.g. increase volume and intensity, it is ok to change your style along with that. Moreover, in big band sheet music, often lots of the original phrasings such as dead notes, slides, etc. are not necessarily in the score. Moreover, there might be several recordings of the same song, so the decision is more or less yours... but it should be in groove with the drummer.
The ones that “overplay” ARE serving the song. Just not the way some people think it should be served.
Some people act like “serving the song” is some objective measure that we all agree on. It’s actually just some people trying to add weight to their opinion with some meaningless new age claptrap. IMHO anyway.
Besides, if we're being honest, we don't serve the song, the song serves us. If you play to make money, you're using the song as a vehicle to make money. If you are making music, you're using the song as a vehicle to express yourself. If you're really lucky, you're doing both at the same time. Either way the song is serving you.
Some people act like “serving the song” is some objective measure that we all agree on. It’s actually just some people trying to add weight to their opinion with some meaningless new age claptrap. IMHO anyway.
Besides, if we're being honest, we don't serve the song, the song serves us. If you play to make money, you're using the song as a vehicle to make money. If you are making music, you're using the song as a vehicle to express yourself. If you're really lucky, you're doing both at the same time. Either way the song is serving you.
It depends. I don’t mind flashy playing if it suits the song. For covers I tend to play pretty close to the original song though. Over the years I’ve recorded a lot of originals music with different bands and sometimes an entire song was just three notes. Like this
Song the verse is literally E,C,D and the chorus is C,D,E. Super simple.
sometimes i play what are essentially bass solos in the middle of a song. For example on this song if you listen around the 2:00 mark it’s basically a simple bass solo all above the 12th fret.
For covers like I said I tend to stay pretty close to the original. Sometimes things are changed to suit the singer. For example this song is played in a different key than the cranberries version and a little faster but the basslines are otherwise unchanged for most of the song.
Song the verse is literally E,C,D and the chorus is C,D,E. Super simple.
sometimes i play what are essentially bass solos in the middle of a song. For example on this song if you listen around the 2:00 mark it’s basically a simple bass solo all above the 12th fret.
For covers like I said I tend to stay pretty close to the original. Sometimes things are changed to suit the singer. For example this song is played in a different key than the cranberries version and a little faster but the basslines are otherwise unchanged for most of the song.
The ones that “overplay” ARE serving the song. Just not the way some people think it should be served.
Some people act like “serving the song” is some objective measure that we all agree on. It’s actually just some people trying to add weight to their opinion with some meaningless new age claptrap. IMHO anyway.
Besides, if we're being honest, we don't serve the song, the song serves us. If you play to make money, you're using the song as a vehicle to make money. If you are making music, you're using the song as a vehicle to express yourself. If you're really lucky, you're doing both at the same time. Either way the song is serving you.
Like all art, it's about communication and how your band wants to present the song. By 'serving the song' you are trying to play appropriately in the interpretation. If you are just playing for yourself, then you're pretty much masturbating people may get off on that, but you're likely not doing the band a favor. If it's intentional, fine, but you always should ask yourself what do you wanna do? Play for people or play for yourself. That's NOT saying that you shouldn't use lots of notes but it is saying, what is it getting you and is it intentional. Are you getting your message across? If you don't care, then so be it, people will tire and move on.
Your honest question will get you ten different answers from 5 different people.
It doesn't matter how you try to legitimize the "serve the song" BS, it's still opinion. What you see as excess, they see as appropriate.
Okay, but what about if your whole band tells you that you're overdoing it?
What if you are in a band that is ostensibly there to get people on the dance floor, but nobody's dancing?
At that point, it's arguably no longer just "opinion", but fact, and a bass player who is (hopefully) able to look at themselves objectively can concede that... if not, they should probably think about finding another band, and/or doing a solo thing.
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Quite the opposite IME. Real easy to tell... suggest they deviate but still play the song and watch what happens.
Playing note for note typically requires no creativity nor imagination... that was already done for you.
You might be in the wrong band.
I do like the idea that you can narrow down why people aren't dancing to one thing. Couldn't be poor song selection or any other number of issues, it must be the busy bassplayer. Couldn't be that the other musicians can't hang with him. And so on.
