How to make a truly beautiful bassline

[rushbo]

13 minutes ago, Zach said:

Interesting point about context, definitely something I’m going to be considering. 
 

I’m not a huge rock listener so correct me if Im missing the bigger picture. But I find most rock lines lack any type of emotion but when I heard “Go your own way - fleetwood mac”, it’s working in a rock context but you can almost feel the heartbreak coming from the bass player in his line. Any thoughts? 

 

As much as I love the Bassline to "Go Your Own Way" (I've played it for years in a covers band) I've never really considered it as an "emotional" line. It locks the drums with the chords in an interesting, melodic and supportive way, but it doesn't add to the poignancy of the song, IMO.

 

I'm not a musicologist, but it seems to me that it's easier to convey emotion on a fretless instrument, or by bending notes, as they closer resemble the sound of the human voice. If there's a more mournful sound than the final note of Mark Bedford's Bassline on "Shipbuilding," I've yet to hear it.

Edited November 19 by rushbo

[Zach]

14 hours ago, itu said:

I would start from the simplest possible. It isn't easy to reduce the line to the bare essentials. Then if the song gives you any space, put some simple fills in there.

 

I cannot see that a simple line would lack emotion. Yes, it can be played like reading a phone book, or you can dive into the music. Phrasing is so important.

 

(Overplaying is so easy. How do I know? I bought a looper.)

 

In Gimme gimme gimme Björn och Benny wanted to make bass and drums sound like machines. They managed very well: where are those few fills? Still the song swings, and there's actually quite a lot of stuff to play. Lost in music is "relatively simple", but that groove! Everybody wants to rule the world is just the same pattern from the start to the end, and it still supports the song so well.

 

 A driving bassline can be pretty straightforward like in Let's dance. Or if you want to do lots of work, try to play the synth line from Like a prayer.

 

Melodic lines can be easily found from jazz. Jamerson was a jazz bassist, and he was able to transfer his chordal and rhythmic knowledge to Motown classics.

 

Why wouldn't you try A night in Tunisia, and So what?

Interesting viewpoint. 
 

I’ve briefly covered so what before but I one thing I didn’t quite like was the rhythmic regularity. Constant quarter note rhythm. 
 

I’m exploring how to use more melodic vocabulary but with a more diverse rhythm as well. 
 

[meterman]

You checked out any of the early albums by French double bassist Henri Texier? Some of what he was doing had bass as lead, rhythm and percussion instruments. 
 

Tracks like "L'éléphant" or "Les La Bas" are good examples of what could be taken at face value as primarily bass solos but are actually pushing the songs forward. He played what he was feeling, and it worked for the songs. 

 

Albums like "Amir" or especially "Varech" are great 👍

[Zach]

1 hour ago, JoeEvans said:

I think beauty in basslines comes from a sense of melody - not just defining the chords and rhythm by moving through the root notes, but finding a tuneful line that is compatible with, but different from, the main melody of the song. It's counterpoint, basically, so a study of that would be a good starting point.

My perception is that to feel beautiful, the bass needs to define a more complex chordal form - getting some seconds, thirds, sixths and sevenths in there as well as the 1-4-5. That means understanding harmony to some extent.

I think a study of basslines that feels beautiful would also pick up the use of ornaments and incidentals - extra little details that highlight parts of a melody and adjust the harmony temporarily.

Yeahh that’s the exact thing I’m on about. Do you have any recommendations of where I could learn about those topics? 

 

[Dad3353]

16 minutes ago, Zach said:

Yeahh that’s the exact thing I’m on about. Do you have any recommendations of where I could learn about those topics? 

 

Have you tried listening to some classical, orchestral music, especially the cello and double bass lines, or trombones..? Composers such as Saint-Saëns, The Schubert symphonies, Debussy..? There's a lot going on, often with 'simple' lines, but capable of genuine emotion. Listening, rather than studying, at first, just to absorb some of the vocabulary of these instruments in the context of the composition. Much cello work can be used directly on an electric bass, but a lot of music really only makes sense as a whole, not simply from any one instrument (well, maybe Saint-Saëns 'The Carnaval Of The Animals'...)...). Worth a listen..?

 

 

 

 

Edited November 19 by Dad3353

[JoeEvans]

11 minutes ago, Zach said:

Yeahh that’s the exact thing I’m on about. Do you have any recommendations of where I could learn about those topics? 

 

Counterpoint is a whole huge thing in classical music and I wouldn't really know where to start with that...

I think I'd suggest finding beautiful melodies in any type of music and learning to play them on the bass, as the best place to start. Nobody but you can find out how to create music that you find beautiful.

It might not be your cup of tea at all but have a listen to a band called The Gloaming. The fiddle player is a guy called Martin Hayes who is a genuine genius at finding extraordinary beauty in simple melodies. His album The Lonesome Touch (not with The Gloaming, just him and a guitarist called Dennis Cahill) is up there with Kind of Blue to my mind.

[BigRedX]

1 hour ago, OliverBlackman said:

Well you just need to know and understand; chord tones, passing tones, chromatic notes, modes, rhythm, phrasing, articulation, stylistic nuances, all the notes on the fingerboard and transcribe a whole load of melodies (not necessarily played on bass).

 

No you don't. Just sing. IME singing puts the least number of barriers between "intent" and "performance".

 

And when you have sung something that you like, play it on the bass.

[Dad3353]

2 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

No you don't...

 

True.

 

...

 

But it helps.

 

...

 

It helps a lot.

 

...

 

An awful lot.

 

...
 

[OliverBlackman]

4 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

No you don't. Just sing. IME singing puts the least number of barriers between "intent" and "performance".

 

And when you have sung something that you like, play it on the bass.

“Play it on bass”. And how do you do that….. by knowing the fretboard and scale patterns you accelerate that process.

 

Also “just sing”. How do you arrive at the ideas without having heard them previously whether consciously or subconscious. You do not possess magical talent that derives the ideas from thin air, no one does.

 

The OP asked specifically about what’s going on. I’ve never read anything to suggest James Jamerson sang his lines, but lots to say he constructed them from chord charts after years of playing jazz. 

[jonnybass]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

 

No you don't. Just sing. IME singing puts the least number of barriers between "intent" and "performance".

 

And when you have sung something that you like, play it on the bass.

They are different tools, to create something like whats goin on properly, you need to understand it, analyse it as @OliverBlackman is stating, maybe not to the level of transcribing and working out the harmonic relationship of the bassline/chords/melody, but well enough to at least mimic it. To just create something out of nothing, you might be able to sing it, then you might be able to just play it.  

 

The problem is there isnt one way of creating anything.  Artists work differently even when they use the same medium, music is the same.  If not we'd all be the same as Jaco/Jamerson/Cliff/Sir Paul/Nolly/Flea.

 

Jonny

[fretmeister]

4 hours ago, Zach said:

Interesting point about context, definitely something I’m going to be considering. 
 

I’m not a huge rock listener so correct me if Im missing the bigger picture. But I find most rock lines lack any type of emotion but when I heard “Go your own way - fleetwood mac”, it’s working in a rock context but you can almost feel the heartbreak coming from the bass player in his line. Any thoughts? 

 

There's a lot of isolated bass tracks available on youtube.

 

If you listen to the bass parts alone, 99.9% of the time you won't feel the heartbreak from the bass part. That emotional content is due to the interplay between everything you are listening to at the same time. If you changed the guitar or the vocals or even the drumming style in "Go your own way" then the bass part would not be as effective in being moving to you. Without the rest of the instruments in that song there is no context by which the bass part can be interpreted as having heartbreak.

 

Sometimes a very simple root note only bass line is exactly what is needed to make the entire arrangement have that emotional content and if a busier bass part was used that emotional content would be ruined.

 

Lots of people think "support" for other instruments is somehow limiting or otherwise diminishing the role of an instrument. It really isn't - that is the difference between say "just" a guitarist or "just" a bassist as opposed to a musician / composer.

 

There are wonderful solo pieces for Double Bass that several bass guitarists have done a great job with for solo bass guitar, and then there are people like Michael Manring and Zander Zon who have built careers from playing solo bass. But that approach wouldn't be right in a Jackson 5 tune (lots of James Jamerson in Jackson 5 tunes) - it just wouldn't work.

 

The best approach is not to think like a bass player - think like a composer and that all the instruments are equally important for the song. Try swapping parts round. If you have an idea for a guitar part, see what happens if the bass or keys, or sax plays it instead.

 

It's up to the composer to decide which instrument (including voice) is going to carry the main hook of a song. Sometimes that is the bass (Chic's Good Times for example), sometimes it is the guitar (a lot of metal), sometimes the Vocal (Aretha Franklin for example).

 

It's the composition that gives any individual part it's emotional content.

 

This is the isolated part for "Go your own way"

 

 

 

 

it's a great part - but I know the song so well my brain is filling in the rest of the instruments in my head. It's quite an easy part and JM is keeping the pulse of the music - thus supporting everything else - giving the bridge between the drums and the rest.

 

Here it is just adding the drums:

 

 

 

See how massively different it sounds just because it now has some context?

 

If you haven't got it I really recommend you get the Moises App for your smartphone / tablet. You can loads songs into it and then adjust the levels of each instrument at will. You can listen to loads of tunes with and without other instruments to see how your impression of the bass parts changes when the other elements change too.

[fretmeister]

John Deacon (Queen) was a master at using different pulses to change the entire feel of parts of a song.

 

In "One Vision" he starts by matching the guitar part. Same riff, leaving space. Then for the pre-chorus he's thumping crotchet notes in the first half of the bar and then quavers in the second half. The song tempo stays the same but it suddenly feels slower and more deliberate but still giving a hint of what is coming next... Then he's up to straight quavers. The song feels faster and more urgent again even though the tempo hasn't moved.

 

Then he's back on the main riff while Brian May has a bit of a solo.

 

Now try to imagine how different (and crap) the song would have sounded with JD only doubling the guitar throughout, or only playing quavers like a traditional punk band might.

 

That's where the power of the bass is... but it still needs context from the rest of the arrangement.

 

 

[Dan Earp]

Lots of interesting and correct ideas here, for me what matters is expression and timing. I strive to play a  bass line to lead the listener on harmonically to what’s happening next, and pushes them along rhythmically, together with the drummer so they can’t help tap their feet. 
Then after a while, if things go well and the groove really working I may move further up the fret board for a verse, or with a good drummer play around with the rhythm. 
Don’t forget, two people can sing the same tune, one you really like and want to listen to, another you can be happy they’ve stopped, same notes, but one is in the groove, puts the right expression in, and the doesn’t communicate in the same way. 
so in short, there is a lot in it’s not so much what you play, but how you play it..

[lowdown]

Ray Brown creating on the spot during Quincy Jones' production of 'Killer Joe'.

 

 

Edited November 19 by lowdown

[StickyDBRmf]

All of the above, plus:

 

It's not a chord until the bass says so.

[martin8708]

I must be easily pleased , there are 100’s  of beautiful bass lines out there . 
 

When the venue is heaving , the drummer sober and on time , the guitarist is playing beautifully and the singer is belting out the tunes , I will give each bass line 110 % in effort , timing and punctuation.  That’s when I close my eyes , tilt my head back , and get sucked into that beautiful whirlpool of becoming part of the song / band .

The more effort / emotion you put into even a simple bass line , the more it will reward you .

 

[MrDaveTheBass]

I think most of this has already been said, but here's my tuppence worth, in no particular order:

 

Most of the time don't worry about being emotional; worry about being in time with your drummer.

 

For a song with room for emotive bass, consider a fretless.

 

Play less notes, and let each note breathe. 

 

Do something with each note; slide, bend, slur or add vibrato.

 

Don't do the same thing on every note, or let your vibrato become syrupy. 

 

Play it like you're singing it.

 

Listen to the vocals and try and play a counter melody; think of it as a duet with your singist. 

 

Don't be overbearing; enhance the singer's performance, don't overwhelm them.

 

Use dynamics; be quiet in some places and louder in others. A slow build/crescendo through a song to its peak can work wonders.

 

Less is more.

Edited November 19 by MrDaveTheBass

[Leonard Smalls]

As I said, listen to Bootsy! Here's a fine example - bear in mind it's a PFunk show so it's often daft and/or cheesey with jokes galore, both musical and lyrical. There's very occasional tasters to build the mood, then eventually it becomes this huge thing that is Bootsy's bass. I saw him on this tour, and it was awesome, in the true sense of the word! Sounds best loud...

 

 

Edited November 20 by Leonard Smalls

[meterman]

14 hours ago, lowdown said:

Ray Brown creating on the spot during Quincy Jones' production of 'Killer Joe'.

 

 

It's funny, I was going to mention this album - "Walking In Space" - I'm a big fan of Ray Brown generally but side one of that album has some sublime bass playing on it, upright and Fender. 
 

Another favourite would be Wilton Felder's playing on "Root Down (And Get It)" by Jimmy Smith. That was a live jazz club recording and the bass is freestyling a lot of it. The off the cuff fills and spur of the moment melodic runs and changes are brilliant 👍