It's what's best for the song....

[Bilbo]

‘Its what’s best for the song’

Yes, we all get that. Flashy fusion bass all over the average wedding gig is not ‘de rigueur‘. Yes, we get that double thumbing through ‘Annie’s Song’ is bad form. Yes, we get that functional is often what is necessary to deliver a professional performance.

But Keith Harris and Orville are professional (well, Harris is. Orville is a puppet). Su Pollard is professional. The late Leslie Crowther was professional. As are Des O’Connor, the Cheeky Girls and Timmy Mallet.

Doing the right thing professionally is often the same as ‘good enough’. But ‘good enough’ and excellence are not nearly the same thing and, frankly, ‘good enough’ is not what gets me excited. What happened to ‘the best it can be’? What happened to interesting, to innovative, to intriguing or provocative? What happened to exciting, challenging, emotional, scary, flying by the seat of your pants?

Every third post on this forum is about mature musicians ‘doing the right thing’ as players and ‘delivering a professional job’. Hurrah. But what about risk taking? It’s the difference between walking along a well-worn footpath and climbing over a fell in extreme weather (topical, eh?). Or between painting a landscape for a chocolate box or throwing paint at a canvas from 12 storeys up just to see what happens.

I get that people have certain professional standards and want to deliver but please let’s not forget that playing something out of left field offers some new flavours, some new experiences. If we all just play ‘good enough’, nobody will ever get better.

[wulf]

Hurrah for gigs (and, indeed, bandmates) that offer the opportunity to try something different and discover something new.

Wulf

[mcgraham]

I share similar thoughts and have often voiced great dissatisfaction with this element of the practicing (or not, the case may be) musician in today's culture.

One of my greatest regrets was listening to the 'good enough' advice of a few decent musicians when I first picked up my instrument (I've told this story before). Their 'don't bother learning that, it's useless' advice, and 'what the hell is that? that's crap, don't do it' impeded my development, prevented me from experimenting and understanding music for myself. When I started to play along with albums, transcribe stuff and just have fun experimenting with things, the more bizarre the better, the more I developed and understood what I could do.

The difficulty is, we've got to take our egos out of it to at least some extent, and serve the song. People then think this means 'just do the basics'. What people don't realise is that this doesn't mean you can't be adventurous, that you must play it safe. On the contrary! It makes it even [i]more [/i]interesting to take unusual, unique, and perhaps even completely bizarre sounding ideas and make them fit into different songs, to make those ideas your own and contribute to the song, without destroying the intended feel of the piece, but without sacrificing artistic experimentation in the process.

Mark

[Tait]

yeah... but you have to play something that fits. perhaps we did try something imaginative, but who said it worked. i found in my last band (punky grungey stuff) that when i tried anything more than messing around with the major scale and the minor pentatonic scale it just didnt sound right. and tbh id rather sound like part of the band than a cocky show off who does whats best for himself by proving he CAN do slap or double thumbing or do stupidly complicated basslines, even if they sound awful with the rest of the band. just because you CAN do it doesnt mean you SHOULD.

saying that, i do always try everything i can to find a bassline that fits with the song and is more fun than roots. the way i did it when my band wrote songs was to begin by following the guitar exactly, then as i become more comfortable with the song, put a ryhthm to it to give it feel, then slip some notes in. it used to take me weeks to come up with a bassline i was happy with. i would also often go to rehersal and play the same line as i played last week only to find myseld thinking - this is too much.

[johnnylager]

Root note 8ths.

EDIT: Maybe the odd 5th & octave after a drink or two.

Edited October 27, 2008 by johnnylager

[Dubs]

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='315617' date='Oct 27 2008, 10:26 AM']Doing the right thing professionally is often the same as ‘good enough’. But ‘good enough’ and excellence are not nearly the same thing and, frankly, ‘good enough’ is not what gets me excited. What happened to ‘the best it can be’? What happened to interesting, to innovative, to intriguing or provocative? What happened to exciting, challenging, emotional, scary, flying by the seat of your pants?[/quote]

I think commercial success is a significant factor for a lot of people, or to put it another way, selling out pays the bills…

[MoJoKe]

I do sincerely hope that [b][i]I'm[/i][/b] not being seen in the "whats good enough" camp here!!

To my mind, being "professional" means two very different things:-

a. It might mean that you have made a living out of playing/performing, or

b. Nothing more than having an attitude of professionalism and pride about being able to be depended on when it comes to turning up on time and being committed to what you love to do! Always remember the seven "P's"... Proper Pre-Planning Prevents P*ss Poor Performance. No more and no less!!

I did "A" for a bit, sure, but for Ch**st sake put me into the B group!! I would [b]never[/b] advocate the "playing safe" route! I also paint, and I don't know many people who, like me, have been threatened to be "taken outside" at an art exhibition I recently exhibited at for doing and speaking my mind, and challenging others dull limitations!!

I say bring on the 13th storey!!!!

[Kiwi]

For me, finding the space. If everyone in the band gives each other space, it makes things sound so much tighter and more meaningful.

[The Funk]

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='315617' date='Oct 27 2008, 10:26 AM']‘Its what’s best for the song’

[...]

I get that people have certain professional standards and want to deliver but please let’s not forget that playing something out of left field offers some new flavours, some new experiences. If we all just play ‘good enough’, nobody will ever get better.[/quote]

I agree with you but I don't think this should really be characterised as a complaint against bass players for not taking risks - I think it should be a complaint about bland, inoffensive, mechanical songwriting. If what's best for the song is usually something that fits well, then if the song is boring and derivative, what fits better than a boring and derivative bass part?

[tauzero]

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='315617' date='Oct 27 2008, 10:26 AM']Doing the right thing professionally is often the same as ‘good enough’. But ‘good enough’ and excellence are not nearly the same thing and, frankly, ‘good enough’ is not what gets me excited. What happened to ‘the best it can be’? What happened to interesting, to innovative, to intriguing or provocative? What happened to exciting, challenging, emotional, scary, flying by the seat of your pants?[/quote]
Have you been writing the advertising copy for Honda by any chance?

There's a time for everything and everything in its time, be that 4/4, 3/4, or 15/16. I don't go exploring the fretboard at cover gigs (except in "Dance the night away", lest I die of boredom). But I will happily push the boundaries, and play at least one in four bum notes, at open mic nights, and like making diddly diddly bass lines at ceilidhs rather busy (I normally manage to play the right notes too) - the challenge is to provide the rhythmic framework for the dance and supply a melodic part that doesn't conflict with the two other melodic parts that are also playing.

[MythSte]

Is this just a posh way of telling us we all need to play [i]jazz[/i]

[Tinman]

[quote name='MythSte' post='315912' date='Oct 27 2008, 03:44 PM']Is this just a posh way of telling us we all need to play [i]jazz[/i] [/quote]
My thoughts exactly

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='Tinman' post='315995' date='Oct 27 2008, 06:17 PM']My thoughts exactly [/quote]

+1.

I get annoyed if a guitarist w*nks all the way through a song, and I'd expect the same treatment..

I'm all for pulling something out of the bag, but... economy is king.

[thisnameistaken]

I get forced to take odd approaches to some tunes in my current band because I'm sharing bandwidth with a trombonist. But I don't know if I often make the most of it to be honest, and usually I'm just a bit irked that I can't play a "normal" bass part.

I think I'm getting old.

[Oscar South]

A lot of people have a problem with adventurous bass playing because they simply don't know that it can and does work in a band context. I used to 'play what’s best for the song' in all the bands I played in, then I started doing solo bass performances here and there and some of the people in the bands saw what I could do. Now I get asked to go out on a limb with fancy trickery because they know I can do it tastefully and add to the song.

[deaver]

[quote]What happened to exciting, challenging, emotional, scary, flying by the seat of your pants?[/quote]

That's me. Every time I play. But that's because I keep forgetting what I'm supposed to be doing and just make it up as I go along

[BassInThePlace]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='316092' date='Oct 27 2008, 07:23 PM']I get forced to take odd approaches to some tunes in my current band because I'm sharing bandwidth with a trombonist. But I don't know if I often make the most of it to be honest, and usually I'm just a bit irked that I can't play a "normal" bass part.

I think I'm getting old. [/quote]

You know - i'm like that at 27!!

Sometimes, it's good to go out on a limb, but playing Entwistle-syle bass parts over a "Mamma Don't Allow" type song just won't work.

It's all in the feel.



Always.