What to play when a guitarist is playing 'bass'?

[deejayen]

I'm a very new beginner (I haven't even bought a bass yet), but I've been practising some bass lines from a book using my 6-string guitar. With the guitar, a lot of what I play will include some 'bass lines', and I'm wondering what a bassist would play to fit, and if there'd be any 'conflict' between the two instruments. For example, if I was playing something a bit like Chet Atkins would play on the guitar with a basic alternate bass pattern on the lower guitar strings. Or maybe a Johnny Cash song where Luther Perkins would be doing that boom-chicka thing on a Tele with a slap back echo. Would a bass player play exactly the same thing, or not…? Also, how easy is it to get the two instruments to gel (in terms of levels and frequency ranges) on a recording?

I've started to think about this because last night I was learning a very simple Motown bass line, and when I got tired of learning the bass I switched to playing rhythm guitar and found I was automatically adding almost the same bass line as written for the bass guitar with the same groove and feel on the main beats. One thing would be to simplify what I was playing on the guitar, and play strictly rhythm, but sometimes I might want to play what comes naturally, and the 'full range' guitar might be a fundamental part of the song.

[Bilbo]

Hooky?

[Bilbo]

Seriously, solo guitar or piano are different disciplines than playing in a band. The general rule is more players, play less. Don't get in other people's way.

[deejayen]

Thanks for that. I’ll remember the hooky line!

What’s that typical Johnny Cash song - Fulsom Prison or something like that? – the guitar is centre-stage, but it’s playing what I think of as a bass line, complete with some simple runs between chords. In that case, the bass probably has to fit around the guitar, rather than the guitar leaving space and filling around a syncopated bass groove. I just wondered if the bass would play something really simple – say the root note of the chord on the 1st and 3rd beat of the bar for example just to underpin the other instruments, or would it play pretty much the same as the guitar including the same runs to reinforce what the guitar is doing, or would it try to really drive things along by playing more of a simple ‘boogie’? I suppose I should buy a copy of the song and try to listen to what the bass is doing, but I’ve always found it difficult to pick out bass lines unless listening on a system that can reproduce them. Most of my listening is done in a Land Rover, and as you can imagine there’s not much bass response!

[Coilte]

In Folsom Prison Blues, as in a lot of C/W songs the bass generally plays the root and five, like in this link :


[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJA5umCU-k8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJA5umCU-k8[/url]

[deejayen]

That's brilliant! Thanks for posting that. I'm not sure I'd ever want to play bass in a Johnny Cash tribute band, though!

[Coilte]

[url="http://www.studybass.com/lessons/common-bass-patterns/"]http://www.studybass...-bass-patterns/[/url]

The above site is a great all round one for bass. As you are just starting out, my advice is to start at the very beginning and work your way through the lessons. This way each lesson builds on the information you have learned in the previous ones, so there are no gaps in the learning process.

In the above link I picked out the section that deals with basic chord patterns. In the exercise diagrams, if you put the mouse arrow over the notes, it gives the sound of that note, plus the fingering.


Another good series of lessons are Dave Marks "Walking Bass " ones (see link below). Before you delve into these, it would be best to go through the first few lessons on "Study Bass" first.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dave+marks+walking+bass+lesson+01&oq=dave+marks+wa&gs_l=youtube.1.0.0l2.5745.19218.0.21598.15.13.1.1.1.0.497.1678.7j5j4-1.13.0...0.0...1ac.1.zAVxtFV-vs8"]http://www.youtube.c...c.1.zAVxtFV-vs8[/url]

Edited February 28, 2013 by Coilte

[deejayen]

Thanks again - much appreciated. I'll read and work through the lessons. Thanks also for the tip about hovering the mouse pointer over the notes - clever stuff!

[fatback]

Seems to me there are two types of band anyhow, those that think about the sound and those where everybody just plays. In the former, people would make an effort to keep out of each others way, not just in general, like the keys going easy on the left hand, but in different parts of the song.

So for example, the bass wouldn't do widdly bits up the board during a guitar solo. Or for that matter do stuff that's too interesting over the verses of a song where the words really matter (or at least not over the first verse). So everybody consciously tries to make space for each other as the song moves along by watching both the register they're playing in, the complexity of what they're playing and the placing of the particular line in the song.

I can't say I always succeed in doing this correctly, but I try. I've been in a couple of bands where this was really well done, and live performance was like listening to a recording. Magic. No ego problems there, or it never would have happened.

Edited March 2, 2013 by fatback