neilmurraybass

Perhaps I can end this long-running topic by posting my transcription of what I played on Fool For Your Loving. Bilbo's transcription is pretty good, but having used the software/websites that separate recordings into bass, drums, vocals and 'other', it doesn't give a hifi separation of the bass part (though it's helpful) so is not to be relied upon 100%. I promise a video will follow - yes I know I've been promising that for years! More likely a play-through rather than a lesson where different sections are explained slowly. I have never claimed to be a virtuoso that can play 'perfect' lines at 1,000 mph so please look elsewhere for that. I try to play parts that suit the song, according to my own taste, if there is any freedom to do so. Fool For Your Loving NM tab.pdf

I have bitten the bullet, and I hope you don't mind, Bilbo, but I've used your transcription as a basis to adjust to something that's as correct as I can make it - unfortunately it's a steep learning curve regarding the notation software I'm using, and frankly it's much easier for me to play it than notate it! Bearing in mind that I have played Fool For Your Loving perhaps a couple of hundred times in the last 20 years, in my mind it is played in a definite way, sticking close to what's on the record, as I've had to play every note as strongly as possible given the volume that other band members play at! So I have to eat humble pie a little when listening to the original over and over, as some parts could indeed be classed as 'clinkers', in that they're not executed 100% perfectly as I would hope to do these days. However, the hunt for 'perfect' execution means that one plays safe, whereas when Fool was recorded I was 'going for it' (and trying to put some Jack Bruce influence into the bass part) so it was better to have a one- or two-take partly improvised performance rather than a part which was worked out note by note from beginning to end. On Live In The Heart Of The City, I go overboard trying to go one better than what I did on Ready An' Willing, and while some parts are impressive, a lot of it sounds too 'over the top' to me nowadays - very unrelaxed. It'll take some time to produce finished notation to my satisfaction, but I'll put it up on Basschat when it's done.

As much as I’d like to say that I’ll put videos, notation and tab up right away, here are the various reasons why it’s more complicated than that: To varying degrees, my parts are not written, and aren’t exactly the same every time I play them; Ain’t No Love will be slightly different each time, and playing it with a different band might require quite a different feel or groove, quite apart from changing parts around to keep it interesting for myself. So although I’ve played well-known Whitesnake songs over the years with different bands, the parts slowly change over time and I get used to the way I’ve played them recently rather than how they were in the late ’70s. Similarly, I would be unlikely to play Fool For Your Loving note-for-note every time, though I do tend these days to try to stay fairly close to the original. The point is, to reproduce exactly what I played 40+ years ago, with the same tone, with no mistakes, while videoing myself, is quite a tall order. If I am pernickety about other bassists doing not-totally-accurate covers, then I need to be totally accurate myself. If I play along to the original, it’s quite possible that YouTube will block the video for copyright reasons. If I reduce the level of the bass on the original, as it’s quite high in the mix, by technically reducing the volume of sounds that are in the centre of the stereo image, then the drums (and vocals) are reduced too, which makes it harder to play along too - very unnatural. There is a way of ‘remixing’ tracks to play to, but if they get blocked, there’s no point. Although I read music a bit, to transcribe the bass parts completely perfectly will be a laborious task, and even more so when it comes to tab, which I’m not a big fan of. It’s better to use your ears! Furthermore, if you said to me “play exactly what you did on Live In The Heart Of The City”, for example, I probably wouldn’t be physically able to. Apart from being 40 years older, I would need to have been in a touring situation beforehand, with my chops at peak level, instead of sitting around unable to play with anyone because of lockdown. Even back then, I’d had to have a hand operation just after Ready An’ Willing because of subjecting them to over-exertion, so there’s zero chance I’m going to attack the parts with the same energy I had back in 1980. [I think I was often over-busy on Live In The Heart Of The City - trying too hard to impress!] Playing and chatting to the camera may come naturally to Lee Sklar and Guy Pratt but it certainly doesn’t to me, let alone jumping around as if I’m on stage; if I think what I’ve done isn’t up to scratch or embarrassing to watch, I’m not going to put it out. I have done a few collaboration videos but I haven’t been happy with how I came across - my fault, no-one else’s. Shooting and editing videos to a good standard are whole extra skills to master in addition to high quality home recording which I’ve spent many years slowly getting better at. I’d still far prefer to be in a studio with experts taking care of the sound and vision. The living situation I’ve had to be in because of lockdown also doesn’t lend itself to being on top form or producing good work. Not saying I’m not going to, but it has to be good or I’m not putting it out. Same goes for a book!

Just checking - got to the 6th bar - already there's a mistake in the transcription, so I can see I'll have to do my own version! 🙂 I'm not in any way an expert at transcribing or using notation software, so don't hold your breath. Edit: There are 6 errors just on the first page, to be nit-picky.

I haven't checked them through yet, but I'm intrigued as to where someone would get an isolated bass recording of Fool For Your Loving. I'll admit to one 'clinker' but I'd need to be convinced that there are various others on the track.

I keep getting nagged to write a book, but it's such a big task. It risks being very boring to anyone other than bass players, or even to ordinary fans who want sordid tales of debauchery etc! It's hard enough to write a book - even harder to make it entertaining! It would be very easy for me to put down a long list of gigs I did, people I played with etc, which would be exceedingly boring to read. I do plan to make videos where I play the songs I'm mostly known for, though I'm not sure if they'll be 'tuition' videos as such.

That would take a very long time! I try not to customise my basses these days, as I made quite a mess of some of them with a chisel and soldering iron back in the day! I'm afraid that in general I haven't earned nearly as much money as you might think from the bands I've been in, and sometimes it's been very much feast then famine. I've tended to be in well-known bands at the time when they weren't having huge success, or in some cases other people got the majority of the money instead of it being fairly distributed. Playing in We Will Rock You for 12 years solid was the most consistent money I've earned but that's really hard work, extremely repetitive and not a creative outlet, obviously. Sadly, if I bought a high-end bass when I was flush, that would be the first to go when things got a bit grim financially. It's nice to have the best instruments, but frustrating if there aren't actually the opportunities to use them.

Thanks for the nice comments! I don't go on Basschat nearly as much as I should - mostly when I'm buying or selling basses! I bought that bass in spring 1975 as a late '60s P-bass body (had been resprayed black, which I stripped and varnished) already with a Tele bass neck (maybe 1968, can't remember, and it's in storage so I can't check). Immediately I added an EB3 mini humbucker at the bridge but as the pole piece spacing was narrower I had to use Mustang bass saddles pulled together with a piece of thick wire. I used it like this with Colosseum II (Gary Moore, Don Airey etc, 1975-6), mostly using both pickups, and National Health (1976-7), generally just the J pickups, but I think in 1977 I changed the EB3 pickup for two J pickups wired as a humbucker. The P-bass pickup was still as standard then but I don't have any pics that show it in this configuration. I removed all the frets in 1977 (Jaco! See photo below from rehearsals for the Bruford album Feels Good To Me, standing in for Jeff Berlin who was the actual bassist in the band) and sometimes had to borrow other necks or basses for particular songs, sessions or gigs. I had it refretted in late 1977 or early 1978. Soon after joining Whitesnake in early 1978 I needed to change from the mid-heavy tone of the EB3 or J bridge humbucker to a more full sound, so I started using the P pickup (at this time and in Colosseum II I was using flat wounds for more definition - the treble of round wounds was swamped by guitars, cymbals etc. Later with Whitesnake I changed to La Bella Quarterwounds then La Bella Hard Rockin' Steel) but wasn't very satisfied by the tonal difference between the two halves of the pickup. I discovered there was a type of replacement P pickup (Mighty Mite, I think) which had a single polepiece under each string, like Sandbergs today, so the coil size wasn't as wide as in regular P pickups, so I could shave the ends of the bobbins and put two coils side by side, similar to the two coils in a Di Marzio J pickup. I made a cover (as seen in the photo above) with two pickups (4 coils) underneath, and wired it so I could try the various combinations. Until halfway through 1978, it was my only bass, and to make changes to my gear required me to make modifications to that one, as I couldn't afford to buy new instruments. I discovered that I preferred the sound of the coils wired in 'reverse P' configuration, which wasn't a thing then, though Yamaha started doing basses like that soon after. So that's how the bass was when that photo was taken. I used it on the Whitesnake Snakebite EP and Trouble LP, through a miked-up Peavey cab and no DI. After that I moved to Kramer then Aria, plus a borrowed Alembic for some albums. Later, with Black Sabbath in 1995 I reinstated a normal Precision pickup (Bartolini) for some touring, and I used the bass for periods during my 12 years in We Will Rock You in the West End. I shaved down the back of the Tele bass neck during the 70s as I found it too chunky, but went too far and exposed the truss rod! So that neck was retired in the 90s and I've had a couple of different P bass necks on there since then. By the way, there's a version on the net of that photo up above that has my hair sticking up on top and looking very odd, which is a digital mistake I guess, so I'm glad you used the better version! Cheers, Neil

A very faithful rendition, in many ways - perhaps 95% correct. It would be almost impossible for me to play the song all the way through exactly the same as the original, partly because I've played it so often since then, and although I stick closely to the album version, I improvise a little. So well done Troy! I have previously recorded the bass line on its own, sticking almost 100% to the recorded version, but that required many drop-ins! Any video would require the same technique, though obviously I could do slowed-down passages too. He uses all four fingers, whereas I mostly use three, bringing in the little finger only when necessary. This is because I play hard, often with heavy or stiff strings - a compromise between ease off playing and the tone needed to cut through two guitars, keyboards & drums. Having read some of the comments under his video, some are good, but some are the typical American obnoxious haters who are intent on slagging anything and everyone, usually from a position of ignorance, which is another reason why I've been slow to put videos up on there. Bah!

I do have a YouTube channel, though there's very little on it - nothing so far of my playing (just tried to insert a link to it but Basschat didn't appear to allow that) - look for neilmurraybass, or put Neil Murray in the search bar and scroll down until you find me, ignoring the other Neil Murrays! Shooting my own videos, as with recording at home, is not something I'm very comfortable with - would much prefer to play with others, with a great engineer and cameraman looking after the technical side of things. Not that I can't do it, it's just a lot more clinical and unstimulating. Requests for particular songs or aspects you'd like to be covered will hopefully spur met on to actually do it!

For some time I've been planning to do 'play along' YouTube videos where I do the bass lines that were on the original tracks, starting with Whitesnake, and that's getting a lot closer to coming to fruition. HOWEVER, it seems that Universal Music Group, who own the rights to Whitesnake songs, are the most notorious company for either getting videos taken down or not permitting anything to be earned from them (ad revenue etc), so I'm now debating whether it's workable, or else find a different way of doing it. As far as I know, they use an algorithm which compares the video's audio with tracks in their database, so theoretically if one changes the speed or the key (not very helpful) it might be possible to get round that. On a related matter, a US journalist did a very accurate transcription of the live Fool For Your Loving from Live In The Heart Of The City, and had it accepted, along with an article that I was interviewed for, by US Bass Player magazine. Then the publishers refused to give permission for the transcription to be used, even though I came up with the bass part, not the composers of the song. That was that, then this year the idea was submitted to UK Bass Magazine (who now own Bass Player), but just with short extracts instead of the whole transcription. The extracts were too similar to what I actually played, so now the article might come out, but with no transcribed parts at all, which is a bit pointless.

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