The ‘Bassists are underrated’ thread

[Seeker of Rock]

A buddy who reads music and can play classical guitar (not too complicated but he can read and play) is at 52 now getting into electric guitar and self recording on GarageBand. He lives musically for The Cure and Pink Floyd as well. When I moved back to Indianapolis last Winter …yeah what was I thinking?) and our mutual friend and one of my best friends (also a good guitar player) , the three of us like old times…he’d been getting the electric bug but James and I jamming together in front of him with no sheet music and just vibing together like musicians do, sent his electric/home recording bug into lust.

I explained and he bought a MIM J bass. Awesome!
Then, and since, I’ve tried to explain to his rigid analytically inquisitive ass that ‘bass’ is usually not just replicating the lowest note a guitar or piano is playing, then explained wannabe bass players (mainly o the ‘80s and again nothing wrong with that and first Felony BP was and still is that way…solid, in the pocket low end, but not what I would consider bass as an instrument or role.

I was jamming to The Who on a road trip the other day and heard John Entwistle not only expanding simple townsend root notes but changing and walking with Moon’s beats ((yeah hi even that are all over the place but still). Yesterday Witchy Woman comes in the radio and paid attention to the actually bass notes instead of the song as whole, and beautiful. So many great bass parts are the same way…it’s not a guitar with 4 strings meant to follow the guitar or keyboard’s root note, it’s an instrument of itself; highly underrated, misunderstood, and underappreciated

Roger Waters (not in Gates of Dawn and took him a few years albums) played some of the most beautiful, bridging bass lines.

So. Trying to explain to my bud that bass is not something you should tap on the GarageBand app. It can be depending on the tune, and moreso for his fav Robert and The Cure but wayyyy less so for classic Floyd. Even Flea, when he’s not going crazy because of the crazy mood of a tune, plays beautiful bass and seems to hit the perfect notes at the perfect times. Geddy and Steve Harris and acheus Squire and Cliff Burton and Geezer Butler are heavier players and more in a lot of their tunes but not always. Just because they can the good ones know where they shouldn’t.

Played with some talented bassists but most have been 4 strings guitarists at varying levels. The better ones solid low end, always hitting percussively in heavier tunes and they were awesome (and somewhat rare to find a bass guitar player that good). Then the virtuosos that are impressive (one could play Charlie Brown theme hammering on the bass line and hammering/lightly strumming the piano chords in the high frets simultaneously. Damned impressive. But there are sooooo many great bass players in rock history that have played indiscreetly geniius parts to songs that just wouldn’t have been the same without that track.

 

[Eric V]

You mentioned Chris Squire of Yes - he was/is my favorite.

 

[RFR]

Paul McCartney does a great job of making the bass its own instrument, rather than merely following the kick drum

 

[Eric V]

Paul McCartney does a great job of making the bass its own instrument, rather than merely following the kick drum

Another top favorite.

 

[grimtraveller]

‘bass’ is usually not just replicating the lowest note a guitar is playing

Although it can be.

it’s not a guitar with 4 strings meant to follow the guitar or keyboard’s root note

Although it can be.

bass is not something you should tap on the GarageBand app

Although....

It can be

 

[grimtraveller]

it’s not a guitar with 4 strings......but most have been 4 strings guitarists at varying levels

I'm reminded of an interview Anthony Jackson once gave in which he emphasized that a bass guitar is just that, a bass guitar. I have spent many years thinking this through, as well as my own discoveries and way of playing and I can see where he was coming from. Even before I read that statement in the '90s, I thought this, but I've thought it more since ¬> the bass guitar is possibly the most versatile instrument in existence, in its role in various genres, in its tones, in its ability to seriously alter how a song goes and how the listener can feel from one moment to the next and the beauty of it is that it achieves these things so often without the listener having the faintest idea.
The bass guitar is the spy that every espionage agency should have working for it . It's the little thieving street urchin that Fagin should have employed instead of the Artful Dodger !
It literally can be a bass guitar, that is, a guitar playing in the lower regions. Or it can be the bass, that is, that low-end thump that gives a song a bottom that one feels rather than hears. Or it can be that lovely low-ish melodic counterpoint that carves out a harmony/counter-melody, almost a song within a song. Or it can be that twangy, bouncing noise that somehow connects everything together, giving all the other instruments their day in the sun while remaining there but not there, yet just you take it away and see how the song/piece becomes a completely different creature. There are so many different things that the bass does that surprisingly, other instruments like the guitar and various keyboards don't, in the same versatile way.

 

[dogooder]

Base and drums, the rest is window dressing.

 

[DM60]

Base and drums, the rest is window dressing.

I am more and more leaning to this way of thinking.

 

[dogooder]

I am more and more leaning to this way of thinking.

As long as the bass and drums are holding it down you can put just about anyone with some talent in front of them playing any instrument and they will sound good. Take the bottom away and if the top isn't solid it will topple.

 

[grimtraveller]

Base and drums, the rest is window dressing.

Remember though, that window dressing is what the punter sees, what draws the punter into the shop and makes all of the difference in whether any shop actually will have punters. So window dressing is not the irrelevance you paint it. To really give your point legs, you need to explain the nuance in the statement, which you haven't done at all.

 

[grimtraveller]

As long as the bass and drums are holding it down you can put just about anyone with some talent in front of them playing any instrument and they will sound good

Personally, I don't agree with that as it stands. While i solidly agree that the bass and drums are foundational in a song, and a lot more besides, it's the combination of the bass and drums with other elements that gives the juice its flavour. No one piece is more important than any other, but the bass is the one element that, if taken away, severely affects many songs. Not necessarily for the worse either.

 

[grimtraveller]

That all said though, I'd rather have a shitty "other instrument{s}" than a shitty bass and drums.

 

[Track Rat]

I "kinda" disagree. I knew who the players were back in the early 70's and even thou I aspired to be a guitar player, I got a Ric 4001 cause I wanted to do it all. I've always dug the bass players

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

Chris Squier, Geddy Lee, Sting

 

[dogooder]

Remember though, that window dressing is what the punter sees, what draws the punter into the shop and makes all of the difference in whether any shop actually will have punters. So window dressing is not the irrelevance you paint it. To really give your point legs, you need to explain the nuance in the statement, which you haven't done at all.

With a bad rhythm section i don't care how good you are, you are going to sound like shit.

 

[markmann]

IMO, every element is equally important. If any one fails the music as a whole fails.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

Contrapuntally, the voice is the 'star' of the show.

A good vocalist can carry the whole band. Specially in the beginning.

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

A good vocalist can carry the whole band. Specially in the beginning.

A bad vocalist kills it.

 

[Seeker of Rock]

Although it can be.

Although it can be.

Although....

All of these are true and there are bass lines that are probably better off that they didn’t overcomplicate themselves, but generally speaking I find (when I track bass) I like to begin with a different approach of what the tune needs to make it gel on the low end. That’s just my approach. But I never like to start by limiting myself to ‘what is/are the main guitar track(s) playing and let me start with the same thing an octave down.

 

[Seeker of Rock]

Chris Squier, Geddy Lee, Sting

John Entwistle, Flea, Robert Trujillo, Les Clapool, Steve Harris, so many good ones though many of these I mentioned can on occasion overplay; it’s when they’re in the pocket that I appreciate them best and working their parts but not competing with the rest of the band. Winon’a Big Brown Beaver Claypool runs lines to signal changes but overall here is beautifully there with percussion putting down that low solid end. Flea can get radical and deviate (especially early stuff) but later he tamed down his extremes somewhat and when he’s low and and accenting it is pure and tight and perfectly executed.