When I was in high school and college, I thought that Chicago and The Guess Who and Blood Sweat & Tears were among the best rock bands around. I loved their horns (trumpets, saxes, trombones), and learned to listen carefully to figure out how many types of horns were being used. I learned how to play the brass parts on piano. Many Motown groups used brass to spice up a dance tune. Stevie Wonder’s “Superstitious” has that great horn riff, with the bass chasing it all the way. Even the Rolling Stones use horns on “Bitch” and the Who have used horns almost since their inception, mostly because John Entwhistle was a terrific French Horn player as well as an exceptionally talented bassist. Sax solos have long been a part of Rock’n'Roll, but I’m talking about the complete section.

So one of my dreams has always been to play with a full horn section. And I have done it twice, so far. Those of you that track our family adventures know that we organize and perform in our middle school talent show. Our kids have always played their saxes (or clarinet or flute) in these shows, but usually they were as solo instruments. Laura sings with one of the boys, I play bass and run the rehearsals.

For my son’s eighth grade year, I decided to see if I could pull together a horn section and produce a reasonable product. First, I recruited other eighth graders from the Jazz Band: my son on tenor sax, his friends on alto, trumpet and trombone. The important thing here is that they all can play pretty well, they can read music, and they get along with each other reasonably well.

The Jazz Band teacher told me where I could find the charts he uses, and I bought the charts for Get Ready and I Got You ($40 for each song, in case you’re interested). This is more expensive than standard sheet music, but it’s more complicated too. These charts have numbered measures and labeled sections, and they are arranged in horn-friendly keys.

Our third song was the blues ballad True Love by Pat Benatar (with the Room Full of Blues horn section), which I couldn’t find anywhere. I asked one of the guys at the local music school, and for $100, he wrote it for us. The song is pretty easy to transcribe, but he knew how to arrange the horns to build chords and harmonies correctly, so it was worth it.

I gave everyone a CD with the three songs, so they had an idea of what we were playing, but the keys were slightly different.

Now I have a couple of serious impediments to being a big-band leader; first I can’t play any horn, and second, I can’t sing (so I can’t fake the horn parts). However, I have lots of experience jamming, and I’ve learned how to teach band dynamics.

So at our first rehearsal I passed out copies of the charts (never give out the originals!), and we got started. Over the years, the way we play Get Ready has morphed from the original recording. So I tell the kids: “OK, we start at measure 33, play through 40, and then go to the verse starting in measure 9.” Needless to say, they looked at me strangely. But they played it, and it sounded fine.

As we got organized for True Love, I was explaining to our young drummer that I really needed her to keep the time true, as I would be focusing on my fretless bass line. We started playing, and I concentrated on my fingering and slides. Suddenly, this power chord grew behind me – the horns were playing the opening crescendo perfectly. I literally stopped playing and turned around. They all looked at me bewildered. “Sorry, but I wasn’t expecting that, and it was wonderful.”

We rehearsed three times, organizing solos and making sure our outros were tight. The night of the show, the kids did a great job, and we received praise from everyone. For the kids, it may have been just another gig, but for me it was a magical performance.

Four years later, my daughter is in eighth grade, and I decide to do it again. I followed the same routine, buying the chart for Just You ‘n’ Me, and having a different person create a full section chart for Moondance. I recycled Get Ready and we were off. I won’t bore you with the details, as there were many similarities, and some individual differences. In the end, we pulled it off, and the horns sounded great!

Pause for a moment of parental bragging: Our daughter Jacqui mainly plays alto sax, but she also plays the flute and clarinet. She played clarinet for the soprano sax solo in Just You ‘n’ Me, and played the “lead flute” on Moondance, switching to sax for her solo. Some of her classmates knew she played the other instruments, but they’d never actually seen her switch off in the middle of a song.

So if you’ve ever thought about playing with horns, I’m here to tell you that it can be done, and done well.

Here is a small video snippet from Just You and Me. The first part shows the harmony with vocals, and the second part show a pretty good soli-riff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQU1xWUg_h8

Places to buy horn charts:

• JW Pepper: Charts for Schools
• Bob Baader, horn chart arranger

Playing with Horns was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

When I returned, several players had changed, and the music had shifted from 80s rock to 70s Led Zeppelin. I was cool with that, and since the other bassist had to leave, I jumped in. Oh yeah, in my absence it had gotten a lot louder. We started playing Whole Lotta Love, and the woman standing next to me was belting it out with authority. Just before the bridge, I moved closer to the drummer so I could follow his lead through the changes. At the same time, the singer really screamed out the final words of that verse, clipping the monitor speaker next to the drummer. In less than 5 seconds, I knew I had done some harm to my left ear. It immediately felt plugged up, and the tonal balance had changed a lot.

Two days later, my left ear still didn’t feel right, and I had significant ringing in both ears in the morning for several days later. I hoped it would get better – BUT IT DIDN’T! Every morning, I wake up with a significant ringing in my left ear – it’s been over 6 weeks.

I’ve been to a zillion rehearsals, gigs, and concerts, and never have I messed up like this. I was 10 rows back for Aerosmith (the Pump tour) – it was so loud my heart was forced to beat in sync with the kick-drum, but I had my earplugs in and it sounded great!

For 40 years, I have prided myself on having very good hearing. I’m the only guy at work who can hear the computer monitors whine just before they blow. I can tell whether the ringing telephone is real or from the television. I can fix a live mix in under 10 seconds. In short, I’ve got good ears, and I just did them serious damage! So I promise you, this is not a 5th grade drug-awareness warning, this is the real deal (well, so is the 5th grade D.A.R.E class). Protect your ears!

Every time you walk out of a concert, gig, or rehearsal and your ears hurt, or feel stuffed up, you’ve done some harm to your ears. Usually, if it doesn’t happen too often, or the sound wasn’t dangerously excessive, your ears will recover. But if it happens every week, or you stand in front of the PA speakers without earplugs, you can – and will – damage your hearing permanently. The technical term is tinnitus, and you can learn more from www.webMD.com.

So let’s review some basic principals:

1) Every gig gets louder every hour. This is because our ears get used to the level, and it starts to sound dull, so we turn it up.

2) While extreme volumes will hurt your ears, distortion does harm much more quickly, and at lower levels. This is due to the higher harmonics and relatively long periods that they are produced. Such high-frequency energy would never happen in any naturally occurring music, including distorted guitars. The distortion produced when you clip a power amplifier or mixer/pre-amp is the nastiest sound possible in live music.

Note: Distortion from guitar amps is different than the distortion from a clipped PA amp or overdriven mixer input. Guitar amps and effects are designed to give a “natural” distortion, if that’s not an oxymoron. See the Guitar Noise articles on the Quest for Tone. The mixer and PA amplifier are designed to not distort at all, which means that when they are overdriven, it sounds terrible.

3) It takes courage to admit that everyone’s too loud, including yourself. And if you’re playing with strangers, it’s almost impossible to control it.

4) It used to be that people thought that earplugs were “un-cool”, but after the publicity provided by Pete Townsend, it’s now OK to have neon green corks sticking out of your head. The guitarist of The Who had such a bad case of tinnitus – the ringing in his ears was so loud – that he couldn’t hear whether he was playing the right notes.

5) Hearing protection is like safe sex – it’s your responsibility. Even though others may choose to risk the health of their hearing, you should not.

6) Even smart people make mistakes – arrggh!

For the Musicians

Here are some things to consider when you’re playing:

1) The drummer sets the level of most rehearsals and gigs. If the guitars are louder than the drums, turn them down!

1a) Drummers need to learn dynamics, just like the rest of us. Also, drummers should learn the difference between “louder” and “sharper”. I’m not a drummer, but I know there is a difference.

2) Vocals are the most important part of the music. If you are so loud that you can’t hear the vocals clearly, then you need to turn down. This will save your voice as well as your ears.

3) Dynamics are important too. If you have loud and soft passages, then the loud parts don’t need to be as loud. If you only have loud and louder, it’s a lot harder to keep it sane.

4) Keeping a lower volume at rehearsals is more important than during a performance. I’ve said this several times, when you’re playing in a small room, you’ve got to turn it down. As noted in Rehearse and Rehash, this is also a better way to run a rehearsal so you can hear each other clearly and work on dynamics and harmonies.

For the Sound Engineer

Here are some things to consider when you are engineering or buying PA equipment:

1) The #1 Problem is PA distortion. Remember these items when you are shopping for PA gear:

• Power: You need enough wattage to be heard clearly without clipping the amp. Bigger amps are not that much more money. Figure you need at least 200W per channel for vocals only for a small club. Much more if you need to add the drums or bass into the mix. Speakers need to be able to handle the power easily. Note that it is hard to “clip” a speaker, but if you over-power it, you can break it.
• Limiters: You should always use a limiter on the main and monitor amps. Note that many amps have integrated limiters, and those are even better because they don’t need to be adjusted. Limiters keep the loudest sounds just below the threshold of clipping, so no matter what, you can’t harm the amp, the speakers, or your ears.

2) Hearing fatigue. Our ears (like all of our senses) will get used to certain conditions if given enough time. Usually, after 15 minutes or so, you will no longer think the music is really loud, and if you are running the mix board, you will turn it up to make it sound “alive” again. Some simple things to combat this:

• Turn it down between each set. Let your visual clues help you. Where were the faders? How many yellow lights were lit during the first song? Be aware that your own ears can get fooled.
• Don’t use the smiley-face EQ (see Kelley’s article). Taking out too much of the mid-range fools you into thinking that the music is not as loud as you think. Leave the settings from 400-2KHz close to flat (0dB).
• Don’t let the house CD music run too loud between sets. This will continue to force you to get louder.

3) Learn how to use the mixer properly. Any clipping that occurs in the mixer with be faithfully reproduced by the power amplifier, and since it’s in the main signal, the amp’s limiter will not catch it. The gain stages should be arranged so that there is always plenty of headroom, so clipping is almost impossible. You can also use compressors on vocals and other dynamic channels to help keep the overall volume under control. Compressor/limiters are not that expensive. Several companies make 4-channel compressors for around $150; they’re not studio quality, but they’re good enough for your live gigs and rehearsals.

4) Mixing for the Monitors. Believe it or not, for many current road tours, the stage level is much lower than the front-of-house PA volumes being sent to the crowd. If you are playing bigger gigs, pay attention to this, and realize that the monitor mix can drive the stage volume too high. During the sound check, play at least one song with just the monitors on to get a sense for the overall level.

Last – and always – carry your earplugs – and wear them! I know I won’t forget again.

I welcome comments and suggestions on any topic. Email me at DGLasley@aol.com

Can You Hear Me Now? – Hearing Protection, and some Sound Engineering ideas as well was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

A while back, I was involved in a discussion where someone asked “What’s the difference between 3 / 4 and 6 / 8 time?” Then there was the follow-up question: “Well, since you play eighth notes faster than quarter notes, doesn’t it all work out the same?” Soon after this, I was listening to “Ordinary Day” from my daughter’s new Vanessa Carlton CD, and realized that I was pretty sure that it was in 12 / 8 time, and I later confirmed it from the sheet music. My daughter wanted to know how I figured it out.

All this suggested that there was a lesson to be written from these events. I realize that this is not really a bass guitar topic, but the bass line gives some important clues sometimes. As always, this is geared toward beginners; composers and music majors may find fault in the details, but these guidelines work for me.

First, let’s define some terms. I’m going to assume that you have seen real sheet music (not TAB) sometime recently. Way back in musical history, there was a lot of music that was written with four beats per measure, so the simplest note type was called a “quarter note” – it’s just a fat dot with a stick, and you can forget the stick if you want.

Later, some sick person created the waltz, which had three beats per measure. Now they could have called the fat dots “a-third” notes, but they didn’t. So a complete measure in 3 / 4 time is only 75% full. Confused? Me, too. It gets worse, because a “whole note” (open circle, no stick) can’t be used in 3 / 4 time, as it represents four beats, which is greater than the whole measure.

So lets simplify. Let’s just say that a quarter note is a “beat note”. So a 4 / 4 song has four beats and a 3 / 4 song has three beats. That’s easy.

OK, now back to 6 / 8 time. Is the eighth note half of a quarter note? Do you play them twice as fast? Here again, I’m not sure how this happened historically (“Damn it, Jim, I’m a musician, not a historian!”), but somebody realized that they wanted to create the triplet feel of a waltz, but combine it with the dynamics and transitions available in 4 / 4 time, so they realized that they needed more notes, and elected to use eighth notes.

So to review, there are two numbers in a time signature. The top number is the number of beats per measure, and the bottom number is the type of note that represents one beat.

Also, the tempo of a song determines whether it is fast or slow, not the type of “beat note”. The tempo is set in “beats per minute”, whether they are quarter notes or eighth notes. In a sense, a 6 / 8 song is twice as slow than 3 / 4 because it takes twice as long to play the six beats in a measure.

Now, back to the music. In normal 4 / 4 pop-rock, the drummer plays kick-snare-kick-snare, and the bassist might play root-5th-root-5th (I – V – I – V). The trick is that most often, the chord changes will occur on the measure boundaries, and the transitions will occur from the fourth beat leading up to the first beat of the next measure.

Oh by the way, I asked Paul Ortiz to make some “simple” MP3s to illustrate this process, but as you can hear, Paul only does high quality stuff.

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

In a standard 3 / 4 waltz, you might think of it as kick-hhat-hhat//kick-hhat-hhat (hhat=high hat cymbal), and the bass transitions would be after the third beat leading into the first of the next measure.

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Now if we mush these two together, you might end up with six or twelve beats. As noted above, for arbitrary reasons, the “beat note” is usually an eighth note. 6 / 8 time would sound like kick-hhat-hhat-snare-hhat-hhat// kick-hhat-hhat-snare-hhat-hhat. The song “Lights” by Journey (“When the Lights… go down… in the city”) is a perfect example of 6 / 8 time, and obviously it’s not faster despite the eighth notes.

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

So back to the Vanessa Carlton tune…I was listening to this and I quickly figured it was in 6 / 8 time. But then I listened a little longer and I noticed that there was never a transition or chord change after the six beat, but only after the twelfth beat.

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

So there you have it. In order to figure out what the time signature is, you need to listen to both the drums and the bass/guitar/chord changes.

Here is a short list of pop/rock songs that are not in 4 / 4 time:

3 / 4 Time:
Piano Man – Billy Joel

6 / 8 Time:
Color My World – Chicago
Lights – Journey

12 / 8 Time:
Ordinary Day – Vanessa Carlton

Strange Time Signatures:

5 / 4:
Take Five – Dave Brubek

7/8:
Money – Pink Floyd.

Enjoy!

Time Signatures – Bass for Beginners # 17 was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Despite the fact that frets were added to lutes and sitars centuries ago, the acoustic bass (also known as the “really big cello”) is still fretless today. And if it wasn’t for Leo Fender, the electric bass would be fretless too.

So there is a lot of history behind playing fretless. However, from the 50s through the 80s, it was very rare to find fretless players in rock bands. The goal was to get that solid, punchy sound and increase the sustain. And given the increased volume on stage, playing fretless was probably very risky, as you couldn’t hear yourself.

But as the 90s progressed, musicians became more interested in returning their sound to “the old days,” while looking for a distinctive tone. The acoustic guitar made a big comeback in rock, thanks to improved pickups and pre-amps. And the fretless bass made a quiet return as well. Tony Franklin made fretless fit on a hard-rock album with The Firm. And Kevin McCormack practically invented the early Melissa Etheridge sound with his slap & pop fretless work.

Others who play fretless include:

Sting, Mark Egan, Bill Wyman, Ron Carter, Mike Karn, Pino Paladino, Boz Burrell, Rick Danko(!), Jack Bruce (but not in Cream), John Deacon, Percy Jones, Steve diGiorgio, Billy Sheehan, Jeff Ament, Baghiti Khumato (Paul Simon’s Graceland). Thanks to the gang at ActiveBass for helping to compile this list.

What’s the Difference?

As explained in Tone Loco, the absence of a hard fret to anchor one end of the string causes the highest frequencies to be reduced. In addition, the string vibrating under your softer fingertip will have less sustain. In an upright bass, this creates a slightly thumpy sound, with little sustain. If you listen to some classic jazz, you may notice the bass player accentuating the lack of sustain by muting the strings, isolating each note.

Modern fretless basses benefit from better strings and pickups, so the tone is not quite so limited, and reasonable sustain can be achieved. I can get either a round, smooth sound or a warm, sax-like tone from my Jazz bass with my silk-wound strings. I often select my fretless just to get the best tone that matches the song. If you install round-wounds you can even get a bright rock sound.

Of course, the biggest difference is that you have to figure out almost exactly where to put your fingers to fret the note perfectly. Most fretless necks have locating dots on them at the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 12th frets, but even then it can be difficult to locate the right spot for the 1st or 11th fret. This requires a reasonably good ear, and practice. However, it’s not overly difficult to learn how to adjust.

Some necks come with fret lines embedded in the neck, usually with a similar piece of wood going cross-ways where the fret should be. I’ve even seen a neck where the fret lines were done with a maple (white) stripe across a rosewood neck. It looked ugly to me, but at least you know where to put your fingers.

Slip Sliding Away

One of the really fun things to do with a fretless is to slide. As shown in Two by Two, the bass riff for Walk on the Wild Side just begs for fretless sliding. But you can also replace a hammer-on with a slide. Sliding is always noticed (which is why trombones are cool, too), even when playing simple notes, so use it carefully. But, it can really improve a boring transition.

Remember that when you slide up, the volume gets louder, and when you slide down it gets softer.

Also, you can get a tremolo effect by wobbling your fingertip up and down the neck, just like the violinists do. (Hey, they play fretless too!) Be aware that this can reduce your sustain a bit.

Ever notice how lead guitarists bend their strings? Ever try to bend your bass strings? It’s very difficult. But with a fretless, you can get the ¼ and ½ pitch changes by sliding up only part way to the next fret location.

Slap Happy

In the current musical climate, slap and pop depend on bright strings and extreme EQ to produce a jangly noise created by banging the strings on the frets. But there are times when you may use these techniques for speed and range, not just to cut through the noise. Besides, you can still get a very cool sound by slapping on your fretless, as the string hits the entire length of the neck. It’s not going to be as “metallic” as a fretted bass, but it’ll be bright enough.

Some inventive individual has even designed a piece of brass to use as a strike plate. It mounts at the bottom of the neck, rising a tiny fraction of an inch above the surface so as not to buzz the strings when playing normally. I have not heard this, but it is an intriguing idea.

Some Details

As I’ve done in other lessons, I’ll recommend here a Jazz-style bass, as the two pick-ups give you much more flexibility for your tone. However, the classic P-bass and other single pick-up designs may match that certain sound you’re looking for. Read How to Buy a Bass Guitar for details.

Some people claim that you should never use round-wound strings with a fretless bass, because they chew up the neck. This is only partially true. If your fretboard is made of ebony or maple, then it won’t matter, as these are extremely hard woods. If you have rosewood or other material on your neck, you may find that round-wounds will leave grooves in it.

Of course, since you’re going to be sliding a bit, round-wounds may be a bit tough on your fingers. Ground-wounds, half-rounds, or flat-wounds are good. Traditionalists think that a single pick-up and flat-wound strings will give you that “classic” thumpy sound. I use silk-wrapped round-wound strings, which are brighter than flats or nylon tape wound, and feel nice under my fingers. Read the rest of Tone Loco for a more technical discussion of strings and how they affect tone.

Freedom from Frets

I would never recommend a fretless bass as your first instrument, but when you start to get a little bored with your fretted bass, don’t buy another fretted one; consider going fretless. I think it’s the perfect second bass, as it will broaden the range of music you can and want to play.

Fretless and Free – Bass for Beginners # 16 was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Note: David has gone over this thoroughly in the following columns: The Power of Three and Minor Progress. But I realize that as bassists, we tend to ignore what the 6-shooters do, so I’ve re-cast the concepts for us bottom dwellers.

The Important Chords

The 4 or 5 most common chords found in popular music are the Major, Minor, 7th, Minor 7th, and Major 7th. Here they are for the C chord.

As you can see, playing all the notes as you might on a 6-string guitar is difficult. Here is the position of the important notes, relative to the root on the E-string. ‘R’ is the root of the chord. ‘m’ means minor, and ‘v’ means one octave up.

However, you should observe that when you play these chords one note at a time, you get variations of a walking bassline (see The Box).

The Octave and the Fifth

It is always safe to play the octave, and almost always safe to play the fifth (there are some jazzy chords with a flatted-5th that can confuse things). I’ve discussed how you can use these as part of a “country” or “funk” bassline (see Riff Raff). But to play them as chords, you want to play both notes at the same time. For reference, you rarely want to play the lower 5th as part of a chord – the lowest note should always be the root. As you know from The Box, the 5th and octave are 2 frets up from the root note of the chord, one string and two strings over, respectively. Use a “pinch pluck” with both your thumb and index finger at the same time. Try these sequences:

Thirds

Major and minor thirds don’t get used as much, but they can add to the overall tone of some ballads. It is important to remember that the lower you play, the more dissonant chords will sound. Try playing a major 3rd, as shown here, and even if you are in perfect tune, it’s going to sound a little odd down low. Play it again up an octave and it will sound better.

Pedal Notes

An alternate way to play chords is to allow the first note to ring while you play the second note. Again, the octave shows this best. Play this riff, and don’t mute the bottom note when you play the octave. This works well when the note you want to sustain is an open string. For other notes, you may have to change the way you pluck the strings to avoid muting the root note.

Pre-Sustain

Another alternative is to use a transition note to set up a chord. Here I’m going from F to C, so I play a G as the transition note, and allow it to ring without muting it as I usually would. This adds a different feel to the chord, as the higher note (the 5th) was played first, so the lower note (root) dominates but the chord flavor is there.

The Wild Side

Often, I like to add a treat to these lessons, so here it is. In Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side, there are actually two basses playing counter-melodies, each trading off the root and the third as one goes up and the other goes down. This is very hard to replicate on one bass, and you’ll never get the tone right, as one is an acoustic-upright and the other is an electric. However, I learned a neat way to play it, and most people (well old-timers anyway) will know exactly what you are playing after the first chord. While technically these chords could be called 10ths, they are really just the root and the third, with the third played an octave up. This requires a bit of sliding while your hand is fixed in a rigid position, but the result is cool!

So, to summarize, it’s good to know how chords are made (so read David’s stuff – I do!), and it can be fun to play them. Be careful playing them down low, and be very careful playing 3rds. The bassline contributes to the rhythm, so think about playing pedal notes, or alternating between the notes of the chords (called arpeggios) without muting – let them ring!

My lessons are often in response to your questions and comments, either from the Forums or by email. Feel free to let me know what’s on your mind.

Two by Two – Bass for Beginners # 15 was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Note: these charts are the author’s own work, and are for teaching purposes only. Also, only portions of these songs are transcribed for teaching points.

Tone

As shown below, both of these songs are played very low, mostly between the low E and A. However, the tone settings are very different. “Riders” is a low rumble meant to sound like distant thunder. The tone controls are turned way down and the notes blur together, even though they still sustain the drive for the song. On the other hand, “Radar” has a brighter, snappier sound, with each note separated. Here you will turn up both the low and the high, and possibly turn down the mid-EQ. You might even play it with a pick, but then you’d have a tough time with the muting.

Timing

Both songs have a constant pulse of bass notes played at a similar rate, but in reality, “Riders” has a written tempo half the speed of “Radar”. This is because “Radar” is played with quarter notes, while “Riders” is written with eighth notes. Listen for the back-beat. When does the snare hit? On “Radar”, the snare is every other note, and you can even hear a little shuffle on the high-hat playing twice as fast (eighths), but “Riders” is every 4th note. I have marked the charts with a ‘v’ where the snare hits.

Monotony

Warning, both of these songs play the main theme for very long stretches. It requires a good deal of concentration to play these lines consistently with the right amount of energy and dynamics (or lack of dynamics in “Riders”). And of course, you can’t get so locked-in that you forget the changes.

Riders on the Storm

I searched the web for the TAB for this song, and found the transcription shown in the first line. So I sat down to play it as written and I found that the open A string was driving me crazy as it would ring when I returned from the A to the E. Also, my internal rhythm was out of sync as my fretting hand didn’t have to play every note. So I looked at the notes, and I thought about what I needed to do. I need to play all the notes at the same level, continuously “blurring” them together (called legato in music terms), but I couldn’t let any open strings ring. Hmm, no muting, but no ringing…

Well, since I don’t have a 5-string bass with a low-B, I couldn’t shift down a string and play everything from the 5th fret. But I could play the A on E-5. (See second TAB line) So by moving this one note, I was able to make a fretting pattern that solved everything. Now the first note in each 4-note sequence is the open E, and the remaining 3 notes use the same fingering pattern. I just move my fingers up and back 2 frets for each phrase. Plus, since I never have two open notes in a row, I don’t have to worry about muting – I automatically get legato and muting at the same time.

And if you look, there is a little magic in the pattern, as the G-to-B is the same interval as the A-to-C#. Looking back to David’s column on intervals (The Power of Three), I remembered that a minor chord is made up of a minor 3rd and a major 3rd, while a major chord is a major 3rd and a minor 3rd, and the bassline alternates between E-minor and A-major.

Radar Love

This is one of my favorite songs, but it requires a lot of attention to play it just right. Each of the F# notes must be distinct and clear, yet the timing must be tight and driving. Usually, you pluck succeeding notes by alternating between your index and middle fingers. As you do this, the “next” finger must rest on the string a little earlier than normal, to give a short mute between the notes. Then you have to play the eighth notes from the F# to the A. Next you have to mute the A before you play the quick E leading back to the F# (using a hammer-on). If you have trouble muting the A string with your plucking hand, try using your fretting hand, as it has nothing to do until you get back to the next F#.

In the second phrase, the transition from the F# to E is done without plucking the first E, just lift your finger off the F# and let the E ring (this is called a pull-off), then pluck it again on the beat. Then hit the grace note again leading up to the F#.

One comment about grace notes: technically, they take up no time, but obviously they must have some nanoseconds to be heard. In this case, you want to pluck the open E just before the beat, and then hammer the F# directly on the beat.

This is a lot of work for 3 simple notes in 4/4 time. I have practiced this for several long sessions, and I must say that it is a lot tougher than it looks. The subtle timing for the E in the second phrase, both leading in and leading out, is tricky. You want to make it sound like you are stretching the note, while at the same time you want to stay with the driving tempo.

As noted in earlier columns, the ability to play these types of basslines with confidence and the proper energy is what determines whether you are a serious bassist. Your performance isn’t measured by the number of notes you can play, or how quickly you play them, but by finding the right notes and playing them at the right time. If you can find the groove and lock in, then you are well on your way to outgrowing the “beginner” handle.

Let me know if there are any other songs you’d like me to discuss.

Get out there and play!

The Open Road – Bass for Beginners # 14 was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

The following snippets are items that I have come to enjoy when playing or listening to music:

• “Tutti” riffs, where as many instruments as possible play the same riff, either the same notes, or in tracking harmony. Stevie Wonder’s Superstition is a great example of this, with the bass tracking along. More recently, the riff in the Monkee’s tune I’m a Believer is performed that way in the movie Shrek.
• The “machine gun” snare in Elton John’s Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting.
• Dynamic changes in a song. The wilder the better. From Shout (Otis Day and the Nights) to Bring Me Some Water (Melissa Etheridge), dynamics can really spice up a song.
• David’s attempts to get me to laugh and lose my place. I get a real sense of accomplishment if I can finish the song without succumbing to giggles. David “wins” if I drop a note.
• Playing with a full brass section. I finally got to do this last Spring, and it was better than I had imagined. Listening to them punch out the chorus riff in Get Ready, with the saxes building tension and the trumpet pealing out on top was just fantastic.
• Santana’s Europa. If there is a more sensual song out there, I don’t know it.
• Harmonies. I still remember a time in 1984 when 6 of us were sitting in our living room singing folk-rock songs, and 4 voices, a flute, 2 guitars, and my bass all hit the perfectly balanced note, resulting in a “chord” that no one wanted to end. The song is supposed to have another reprise chorus, but we stopped on that sustained magic. Now if I could just remember the name of the song!
• Clever lyrics. From Billy Joel to Aerosmith to Melissa Etheridge, a well-turned phrase is lots of fun. The Kinks probably wrote the best of all, including Lola, Victoria, and Superman.
• Rewriting lyrics. David and Laura are very good at re-writing lyrics. David’s rewrite of the Beatles’ Don’t Let Me Down is hilarious: “Nobody ever loves me like I love me…” Trust me, it works for the entire song!
• Playing with Laura. We don’t get to do it often, but sometimes we hit that “magical moment” in a song, and it’s wonderful.
• Playing with our kids and their friends. They are so trusting and eager to learn, and they are very good musicians as well.
• Learning a new song, and coming up with the “perfect” bass line, or at least one that fits well.
• Dragging an old song out of the closet after many years. David, Laura and I recently played Fleetwood Mac’s Rhiannon for the first time in almost 20 years, and we were all a bit surprised to discover we remembered it.
• Finding a new “tweak” to the bass line for a song that I’ve played for years. I recently found one for David’s Winter, and it was good.
• Playing fretless. My mentor was right: “Fretless and Free!”. I don’t think I can ever play Moondance fretted again.
• Playing an old song a new way. I’ve played several mid-tempo rock songs as reggae, but my favorite was playing Tush as a torch ballad – 1/4 speed.
• Jamming. From major productions like the Riverside Jams to casual gatherings in the living room, I love to play with others. Of course this could be due to the fact that I’m a bass player and I can’t sing…

In the spirit of the season, think about your own “favorite things” and enjoy the music hear, and the music you make. Feel free to post some of your own bits of joy on the forums.

Get out there and play!

My Favorite Things – Bass for Beginners # 13 was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

The Decision

The first step is to decide that you really want to do this, and that you are going to be the host. It helps to have a really good reason, either as a charity event, or a chance to showcase your own band. This is not an easy decision, because even with the tricks I’m going to show you, it’s a lot of work. Although I have done this “for fun”, that’s not always a good enough reason. You also have to be willing to assume the up-front expenses and the possibility that you could lose money. You need to make this decision at least 3 months before the soonest show date. If this is going to be a charity event, then you must take it upon yourself to establish good communications with the charity organization as well.

The Place

Next, you need to find a time and place to play. Try to find a location that has a reasonably large stage. I’ve been lucky enough to do it in school auditoriums, which are perfect. Many schools are open and unused on Friday nights, so it’s not as crazy as you might think. Most schools will charge a nominal fee, plus the salary of one custodian. But don’t use the gym! There isn’t a worse place to play on the planet than the average school gymnasium. There are other places you might consider, including some bars on Sunday afternoons (if you’re old enough), halls where social groups like the Elks or VFW meet or even your church. Just remember that the bigger the stage the easier things tend to be.

The Bands

Once you have a time and place, then you will need to find some bands to come and play. Usually, you figure that each band takes about an hour, 45 minutes of playing and 15 minutes of set-up. So if you have 4 hours, then you can invite 4 bands. If you have more time, you can invite more bands. Alternately, if you know lots of bands, then you may have to cut down the playing time. Anything less than 20 minutes is a waste of effort, even for a charity gig.

Obviously, asking other bands that you already know is a good idea, but check around a little further too. How much variety do you want? Diversity usually means more people will come, but if it gets too eclectic, then some people will decide that there’s less to like. You want to do the recruiting in two steps: first get an acknowledgement that a band is interested, then later, you’ll need to explain the “rules” and get a firm commitment.

The Gear

As with any gig, you’re going to need sound equipment. If you’re lucky, the place you’ve selected will have a PA built in. Double check that they have enough channels in the mixer, and enough monitors. You may need to add some more to the house system just for flexibility. Be sure to discuss this with the house engineer. If there is no house PA, then you’ll have to get your own.

Make a list of all the stuff that is required. But you shouldn’t have to supply all of this yourself. You need to ask each band what they might be able to supply. Make a master list of equipment, and note which band is willing to supply which equipment. Usually, your own band will supply the core equipment, unless you know that some item is not “something to be proud of”, and then ask. Believe it or not, people who have higher quality gear tend to want to use it, and are often willing to share.

• PA: Since you are going to have to work with different bands you’re going to need to be flexible. So you’ll need a good mix board, effects and EQ, amplifiers, microphones, and main and monitor speakers. Plus, try to find a sound guy to work the board, or switch off with musicians who are not on stage.
• Drums: You’d like to use the best drums you can, but some drummers won’t want to share their kit. Each band must agree to replace any drumheads that should happen to be broken by their drummer (as rare as this is, you still have to plan for it!).
• Bass Amp: It is better to have an amp that is too big than too small.
• Guitar Amps: You should have at least 3 amps. Mainly for variety, as the guest musicians will want to get their best sound. So try to find different brands and styles.
• Keyboards: If one or more bands has keyboards, then try to settle on a common set. Usually one piano-type and/or one synth. You’ll need an amp for this too.

Getting Organized

So now you have a list of who is going to play, and what each band is willing to share. Now you write a letter (email is great for this!) to each band explaining what is what: No, you may not bring your own drums (you may bring your own snare and seat). No, you may not bring your own bass or guitar amp, you must use the ones provided and described here (but you can plug in all your EFX). Etc. Be as thorough as you can, as everyone will understand that “everyone else is sharing too”, which reduces the whining. Tell everyone to label everything!!! With several bands sharing their gear, anything that is unmarked becomes fair game for misappropriation. Cables and power cords are the most common items to be “misplaced”, but even the occasional EFX pedal, can fall victim to this, and petty theft (usually totally unintentional) can ruin this type of event.

Have an idea how long each band can play. Something like “Assuming everyone shows up, everyone will get 30 minutes of playing time”. If you have an obvious “headliner”, or you want to pull rank as the host, plan for extra time at the end. As mentioned earlier, plan on 15 minutes between each act for overruns and swapping bands. Write a chart with each band name, number/type of musicians.

Ask each band to agree to all of the above. Don’t tell them who’s going first or last yet, and don’t give them the impression that they can influence the line-up.

Logistics

Now that you’ve got most of the important musical aspects figured out, you need to do the logistics. How are you going to handle food and drink? If you’re at a bar, then that part’s easy. But if you’re in a school, then you’ve got to make arrangements, and remember no smoking or drinking on school property. If you’ve got a charity organization working with you, then let them do the food, etc. as they will be making the money and providing the volunteers.

Again, if you’re at a school, then you’ll need to handle security, parking, etc.

And get a couple of cases of bottled water. If you’re at a bar, explain that this is necessary because water is best for everyone, and plastic bottles don’t break. Seriously, don’t forget this.

And believe it or not, think about a logo and T-shirts. You can usually get a silk-screened T-shirt for less than $10 if you buy over 20. If you get a light-colored shirt, then people can sign them. This may seem hokey, but it’s actually pretty cool.

The Middle Period

There is a quiet time between the initial contacts and the week before the gig. Usually it’s a couple of weeks. Once you get experienced at doing this sort of thing, you can shorten up the time from start to finish by reducing this middle period. Don’t forget to rehearse your own stuff. During this time you should consider any advertising you may want, and follow up on some of your logistical issues. This is also a good time to review the sequencing for the bands. Usually, you want to save the best for last, or save it for yourself (even if you’re not the best!), but consider that the first band shouldn’t really be the worst either. Although you may not have a full crowd at the beginning, having a solid band go first is a good idea, as they give confidence to any of the weaker bands that follow.

The Week Before the Gig

Contact all the different people to confirm that they are still on target. Re-confirm with all the bands that they are ready to play, tell them what time they’ll go on, and how long they get to play. Tell all the people who are contributing equipment when and where you will want it delivered. Put up posters with the band names and approximate times. You will probably find out that someone has not done something they were supposed to do, and so you’ll have to scramble a bit to solve that problem, but because you found out before it’s too late, you can usually make it work. This is the time that you really need to delegate the specific tasks. Jimmy will get the PA. Jane will get the drums. Try and identify one person to be a “runner”, a trouble-shooter with no fixed tasks and a pick-up truck.

The Day Before

Decide what time you want to set up. Earlier is usually better, so that there is some relax time between setup and playing. But some bars won’t let you in early. Confirm (again!) that the various pieces of equipment will get dropped off on time. Draw a sketch of the stage and where you want the drums and amps and keyboards and PA all to go. Try to get some sleep! Turn off the phones after 10pm. If your gig is on a Friday, plan on taking the day off from work, or at least half the day.

The Big Day

The Setup

No matter who else is doing what, YOU need to be at the site on time, and stay there! Tape your sketch on the wall so everyone can see it. Meet and greet everyone as they come in – be the “host”. Tell them where to set up, and where to store the extra gear and cases. If you can, set up the drums first, the amps second, and the PA third. If there is a problem, decide how to fix it (including the option to ignore it and carry on!) and assign someone to get it done. Try to do as little as possible yourself. I know this seems odd, but the idea is to keep it organized. Alternately, plan to do most of it yourself. You fetch all the gear and set it up yourself. I find it very difficult to try and coordinate many people and do a lot of the work at the same time.

The Break

If you’re lucky, you’ve got everything set up at least an hour before the first band goes on. This is a good time to relax, have a seat, chat with people. Absolutely no playing of instruments! If you have time, grab a shower, or at least change your shirt – wear one of the event T-shirts! If there are any money issues, now is the time to resolve them.

Show Time

One of the biggest problems for the host of these events (or any elaborate party) is the host doesn’t get to enjoy it. You should try to stay relaxed and spend as much time meeting and greeting the various musicians and other guests. If you appear relaxed, others will derive confidence from you. Hopefully, the arrangements will be obvious enough that everyone will know where to set their guitars, and where to get a drink.

One way to get the show started promptly is to have your own band go first. (Note: if it’s a long show, you can go again last!). This way, you get to check out the PA and the rest of the set-up with a band that you know. The problem with this is that you are not around to greet people and trouble shoot any other start-up problems. A lot depends on how well you know the other bands, and how experienced they are.

In any case, try to get the first band started on time. And pay attention to the clock. If a band looks like they’re going to run over, walk to the edge of the stage and tell them that the next song is the last one, pointing at your watch. If a change-over takes too long, tell the next band that they’ll have to cut back a bit, but try to spread it out (if you’re 20 minutes behind, take 7 minutes from each band). It’s good if you can play CDs during the change-overs, but not too loud, as it makes it hard to think on stage.

Problems

We all know Mr Murphy, and he always gets invited to these parties. The best thing is to stay relaxed and just work to solve the problem as best as you can. Don’t panic or become frantic. Just solve the problem as professionally as you can and move on. If you have done a good job preparing for the gig and you’ve set up a good stage, then you are probably going to be fine, and the biggest problem likely will be related to the food or parking or other minor (!) issue.

Tear Down

For the most part, tear down should be easy to organize. If everyone takes away whatever they brought, then there will be nothing left. In reality, you will probably have to lug a lot more than you did during set up, but that’s OK. You don’t have to organize anything anymore. Just make sure that all the money issues are resolved.

If you are so inclined, it’s a great idea to collect some of your closest buddies and head out for food after it’s all done. Go to a local diner (or my favorite – Mexican!) where you can get food and relax. You may not realize it, but you’ll be exhausted. So sit, eat, and bask in the knowledge that you succeeded in running your own mini Lallapalooza.

See, it’s easy!

Get out there and Play!

Battle of the Bands was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Disclaimer: While I believe that outdoor gigs are fun, remember to invite your neighbors so they don’t complain, and have someone there who is sober and in charge of party-crashers. It never hurts to let the local police station know that you are doing this either. Also, you should have a plan for if it rains, including postponement.

Setting the Stage

For this example, the band is a 3-piece “power trio”, consisting of guitar, bass, and drums, and they want the minimum PA possible, as this is a free gig.

As often happens on a small stage, the drummer will set the volume. You don’t want to mike the drum kit, and you need to balance out the instruments. In most cases, a 30-50W guitar amp will work well with a standard drum kit. For the bass, 200W is about what you’ll need, although you can get by with 100W if you aren’t playing hard rock. If either amp is noticeably smaller, then you may want to get some help from the PA. If your amp has a “line out” jack, connect that to the mixer, otherwise, you’ll have to put a mike in front of the amp.

Look at the diagram below. Set up the stage with the drums in the middle, and the amps each of the back corners (green = bass, orange = guitar), so the drummer can hear them. This way, each of you can hear the balance of the instruments at the front of the stage, which will be similar to what is heard by the audience.

Renting the PA

So now you just need a PA for your vocals. For this you can rent any 200W/ch amp and a mixer. The older Peavey’s or newer Mackies are good for this, as they are combined mixer and amplifier, and they have internal reverb as well. But just about any combination will work. Be sure to get a good 2 channel EQ as well (the new Mackies have this as well). Get 2 full range speakers with mounting poles. JBLs are probably the best, but just about anything will do. You’ll need one microphone (yellow) for each singer, plus a spare (read “Expect the Unexpected” below). Don’t forget to get all the cables, including a long power cord and a multi-outlet strip.

Warning: Do not use home stereos or guitar amps as a PA. Home stereos are not designed to handle the continuous overdrive of live music, and guitar amps can’t provide the range or clarity needed for vocals.

Set the mixer (purple) on a table on one side of the stage, closest to whomever feels most comfortable making the adjustments. Set the PA speakers (blue) on their poles just in front of the stage. The speaker closest to the mixboard should point diagonally out to the audience, the other speaker should point diagonally back on the stage to be your monitor. The monitor should be far enough away from the stage that the person closest to it doesn’t get blown away. If you have time, set up early and get a friend to help you set the levels. The trick is not to get louder than the drummer.

The last step is to clean up the stage and your cables. Bundle all of the cables together and use duct-tape (or gaffers tape – it’s better) to hold them in place. Put a carpet over the power cable so that no one can trip over it. Check that no one can get hung up on the speaker cables either. Make sure that everything is neat and stable on stage, be sure that you’ve left room for your guitar stands and effects pedals, and tape down those cables too.

Expect the Unexpected

Now all of this sounds real easy, and most of the time it is. But here are a couple of common problems you may run into. First, the kick drum almost never has the oomph to be heard. You should plan on miking it as well. Second, since you are outside, the EQ is going to be very different. You may need to boost both the mid-bass (200-300Hz) and the mid-high (4-8KHz). If you are miking either the bass or the kick drum, you may need to extend the low end down to around 100Hz. Remember that it’s not good to keep any low end range that you’re not going to use. Also, without any walls to reflect the sound back at you, you’ll need to add more reverb than usual. Last, if you have a stereo amp, use the pan pots on the mixer to keep the bass and kick drum out of the monitor speaker, and only put in the guitar if you’re having trouble hearing it on stage, otherwise, just put the vocals into the monitor.

Note: To save you some serious embarrassment, I will remind you that the jack labeled “Monitor Out” on the mixer is not intended to drive a speaker. This is a line-level signal that must go to another amplifier to drive a monitor. The set-up I have described above does not require a separate monitor channel, and you should only need a true monitor system when your stage gets bigger and louder.

All-in-One Mini-PAs

Recently, Fender and JBL (and others) have re-invented the all-in-one PA. These units have a 4 or 6 channel mixer, with extra inputs for CDs, and come with a pair of powered speakers. These systems are wonderful for low-volume rehearsals or acoustic gigs at the local coffee house. All of the components are is designed to work well together as a system, and the sound is pretty good. However they are essentially a “consumer” product, and I do not recommend them for any heavy duty tasks. If you are going to get loud, especially playing with a drummer, or in a large or outdoor space, I would suggest getting a more “professional” PA. The JBL system I heard sounded very bad when it was overdriven, and it just wasn’t as loud as was needed.

Other Places to Jam

While your backyard is a good choice, not all of us are blessed with the acreage (or climate!). I do not recommend playing in your garage or basement at any serious level (eg with a drummer) as it’s really hard to sound good in such a small space. Here are some other places you can check out that may be free or at least reasonably low cost:

• Local School auditoriums
• Church basements or meeting rooms
• VFW, Elks Lodge, or other community halls
• Teen centers or coffee houses

So if you and your band have been practicing for months on end, but you’re not sure how to get that first gig, throw it yourself! Get out there and play!

Your First Gig was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Combo vs Separate Head and Cabinet

Every speaker needs an amplifier to drive it. You can not plug your guitar cable into the back of a speaker cabinet and expect any sound to come out. So every guitar amp (or PA!) must have a pre-amp with signal processing, a power amplifier, and one or more speakers.

The truth is that there is very little difference between a combo amp and a separate head and speaker cabinet. The “head” is the electronic part that has the pre-amp, signal processing (effects and EQ), and the power amp (Watts!). A combo amp is just the two pieces bolted together in a common box. Combos tend to be a little bit cheaper than buying the items separately, and

some combo units have fewer ins and outs, but it has very little to do with the sound quality.

Speaker Cabinets

The main attribute of a bass speaker cabinet is that it needs to move a lot of air. This means that the speaker diameter needs to be very large, and it needs to move in and out a long way. One problem when you do this with a standard guitar speaker is that it builds up enough momentum that it actually wants to jump out of itself. This is one of the reasons behind why a bass cabinet must be sealed or ported. At the lowest frequencies, the speaker needs to have the air inside the box push back a little to keep it under control. The size and length of the port tube helps the speaker stay under control at even lower frequencies.

This is why you do not want to play your bass loudly through a guitar amp. Most guitar cabinets are open in the back – part of their tone comes from allowing the speaker to move freely.

Big Speakers vs Little Speakers

Since we need to move a lot of air, you would think that bigger is better. But there is a problem: even the bass guitar creates higher frequencies. All those good harmonics from a warm J-bass, or from slapping and picking, need to go through the speaker as well. And for a large speaker to create high frequencies, it needs to be flexible. It’s just not mechanically possible to move the entire 15″ speaker at 1KHz, only the central few inches can move that fast. This is OK, but it creates a dilemma for the designers. For good tight low frequencies, you want a stiff speaker, but to get higher frequencies, you need a flexible speaker cone. In addition, in order to make a big speaker rigid, it becomes heavier, which makes it harder to move quickly. They are more expensive to build too, because it takes more power to move those huge cones, requiring bigger coils, frames, and magnets.

One solution is to use several speakers. Two 10″ speakers have about the same area as one 15″ cone. By designing the speaker to be able to move in and out more (a longer throw), it is possible to use these 10″ speakers for the bass. But because the area and radius is smaller, it is easier to make it both light and rigid, and thus able to produce the higher frequencies as well.

Here is a table of areas for different types of speaker cabinets:

In most cases, you will find that a 2X12 or 4X10 is more than enough, and it will sound much better than a 1X15 or 1X18. Note that the different manufacturers have become very adept at getting the most from their speakers. SWR is very good at getting a very clean low sound from a single 12″ speaker.

Amplifiers

For most practice or rehearsal rigs, you can get by with 100W or less, but for your new amp, you should be thinking about 200-400W. Low frequencies suck up a lot of power, moving those big heavy speakers back and forth. In this power range, you should be able to get a good range of features including dual-channels and several patch points.

Dual channels are nice because you can set up two different EQ and effects chains – say one for ballads and the other for hard rock – and easily switch between them. Having two gain controls are helpful if the internal overdrive is desired, so you can turn up the distortion and turn down the volume with these two controls. Usually the EQ will be either a simple 3 knob version, or a more sophisticated parametric or graphic EQ may be available.

As noted above, this applies the same whether your amp in part of a combo, or it’s a separate head.

Monster Rigs

If you have determined that you need the biggest and loudest setup available, you can get a 4X10 with a 1X15 under it, or even a 8X10, but these are huge, and heavy, and expensive. And you can drive this with 600-1200W. If you go with the split 4X10 and 1X15, I recommend using a crossover and two amps (300W each), because you don’t want to send the high frequencies to the 15″. Many people drive both speakers with the same amp, but I think the mid-highs will not be as clear as you’d like. This is the type of rig you might consider if you’re playing on a large stage and you have to compete with several guitarists and a manic drummer. As noted in my Sound Engineering columns, I am not a fan of extremely loud stage levels, but if you want it, you can get it.

Brands

Oh my, there are so many different brands of bass amps, and they all look exactly the same, and yet they sound different. And the cost range is incredible. A Carvin 4X10 cabinet is $399, and the same thing from SWR is $799. Most people agree that the SWR sounds better, but TWICE as good? And there are many 1X12 and 1X15 combos made by Fender and Ashdown that sound pretty good. So it’s really a personal choice.

There are only two things I will warn you away from. First, don’t get a folded horn cabinet. The sound doesn’t properly form until about 10 feet in front of the cabinet, so you can’t hear yourself on stage. And second, be very careful with Hartke speakers. The cones are made from aluminum, and while some people like them, I have heard several reliability concerns about that brand.

Recommendation

My personal preference would be for a 4X10 with a 300W head, made by Carvin or Peavey or Ampeg. This is going to be loud enough to cut through when I need to, have a wide range of features, and still be cost effective. If size in a problem, I think that SWR gets the most sound out of a small package.

And as always, I’d buy it used!

Let me know what kind of bass amp you own, and what you like about it. I look forward to hearing from you.

List of brands:

• Ampeg
• Ashdown
• Carvin
• Bag End
• Crate
• Eden
• Fender
• Gallien-Krueger
• Hartke
• Marshall
• Mesa-Boogie
• Peavey
• Sunn
• SWR
• Trace Elliot
• Yorkville

And several other smaller brands…

Buying Your Second Bass Amp – Bass for Beginners # 12 was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Rehearsing

As I’ve told the kids on my soccer teams for many years, the way you practice is the way you play. So let’s review some ways to improve your rehearsals.

Before you even start, you should have a pretty clear idea of what you need to work on at this rehearsal. It is a waste of everyone’s time if no one knows what songs you are going to learn. You don’t need a long list; if you can learn two songs, and put time into three more that you already know, that’s a pretty good practice session. As discussed below, it can take some time to work through a new song, so don’t try to do too much in one session.

Occasionally, just before a gig, you may want to do a “dress rehearsal”, where you have the set-list, and you play through it without stopping. There should be a minimum of discussion between songs (“that works”, “let’s do it a bit slower next time”), but don’t play anything twice.

Depending on the personality of your band, someone may have to be “the boss”. Other groups can get by with a consensus decision at the start of practice. Sometimes it works well to discuss the plan for the next rehearsal at the end of this one. Figure out what works best for you and try to stick with it. This is the “work” part of playing in a band.

The next important item is to remember that you are “rehearsing” the song. This means that you don’t have it down perfect yet, and you need to make adjustments. You should decide how you want to play each song. Do you want to sound “just like the album”, or perhaps change the style a little (or a lot)? Does the album have parts that are hard to replicate live? After you have made these stylistic choices, you need to focus on three things: structure, harmonies, and dynamics.

A note about volume: you should never rehearse at volume levels that make your ears ring. You should always be able to hear the vocalists clearly, and they shouldn’t have to strain to be heard. If the lead guitar or drummer (or whomever) want to play loud, wait until after rehearsal is over. Loud wastes time and patience.

Setting Up to Practice

First, everyone should be able to hear each other pretty well. Most of us have limited space to practice in, so you have to use all the tricks you can to keep it sane. Everyone should be in a circle facing in toward each other. Remember to get the guitar amps off the floor (except the bass). They should be at least waist high, and shoulder height is best. Put them on a chair, or on top of the bass amp.

If possible, group all of the singers together on one half of your circle, and put your monitor speakers on the opposite side, with non-singers standing near the monitors. Again, the monitors should be shoulder high.

In this picture, the drummer is in the upper right, and I have assumed that she sings. In the upper left is the bass amp (green) with one of the guitar amps (orange) on top. The other guitar amp is along the left wall, and the keyboard amp is along the bottom wall. The blue diamonds are the monitor speakers. The crosses are the musicians, and I have assumed that the 3 on the right side sing (mikes in yellow). One of these will also play guitar, but it’s better to have his amp on the left wall with the others. Obviously, you need to rearrange this to suit your own personnel, but the idea is that the singers all go on one side, and the amps and monitors go on the other side.

Structure

There are 3 important places to focus on for structure: the intro, the outro, and the breaks. The verses and chorus will usually take care of themselves because the words and melodies tend to hold everything together.

For the intro, it is often easiest for one musician to start each song, with the others joining in at the appropriate time. It is harder, but more impressive, if you can begin a song from a cold start.

For the outro, is the ending sharp or sustained? Remember that you can’t (well, it’s difficult) do a “fade out”. If the ending is sustained, who keys the punch-out? It’s important that you all end together.

For the breaks and solos, you should work carefully on the transitions. How do you get from the last chorus into the solos? Is the solo of fixed length, or can it be extended? In one of my bands, we had a very “self-aware” lead guitarist. We had several songs that could have extended solos, and so we agreed that Mikey could play as long as he wanted, but he had to tell us when he wanted to get out. It took some practice, but eventually we were able to wait for Mikey to nod his head, and then the band would work the transition from the solo-verse into the chorus, and Mikey had prepared a flourish to complete his solo as we exited – it sounded like we knew what we were doing, but in reality we were ad-libbing.

You should always do your structure work at low volume, because you are not looking for tone, you are building the song’s foundation.

Harmonies

One of the things that helps turn a good band into a memorable band is the ability to harmonize. And harmonies require practice. Unfortunately, practicing harmonies can be boring for the non-singers, so many bands never do it. It may be a good idea to give some of the non-singers the afternoon off. As always, this type of work should be done at low volume so you can think and hear. Usually, the song can be driven by just a rhythm guitar, while everyone sings their parts. There are some songs where harmonies are not on the original, but your vocalists can find a place for them. (Laura throws in a one-line harmony in James Brown’s I Got You – “and I Fee-eee-eeelll”, right behind the male vocalist, it sounds great!).

After you’ve worked out the harmonies for a few songs, bring the rest of the band back together and practice with everyone. This is your opportunity to take the harmonies to the next level, by having the instruments work with the harmonies. If you have a keyboardist, he can choose voicings that are complimentary to the vocals. The bass player can often adjust the transitions to match the vocals as well (see Playing Along, and the guitars can add their bit as well. It is possible that this can get too busy, but it can be really exciting too.

One important part of working with harmonies is that once you’ve found your part, you have to stick to it, as everyone else is depending on you to do what you did last time. Be careful about ad-libbing during group harmonies.

Dynamics

One classic sign of a newly formed band is that they haven’t worked out any dynamics. Dynamics are the variation in volume and enthusiasm in different parts of a song. The simplest method is to play softly during the verse and loud during the chorus – many songs are done that way. But there are more subtle ways to do this as well. For example, the drummer can add a rapid hi-hat riff during the final verse, which can change the energy of the song without changing the volume at all. Or the lead guitar can run a series of scales behind the vocals which could add some interest to a boring passage.

The goal of adding dynamics is to keep the audience interested in what you are playing, without changing the song enough to annoy them. It is a subtle way to show off your talents without being obnoxious.

Dynamics should be practiced at or near full stage volume – which doesn’t mean loud enough to fill a stadium, but loud enough that the drummer can play normally.

And, of course, adding dynamics to any song requires practice.

Gigs as Practice

In the old days, our band had to know 60 songs of what is now called “classic rock”. We played 4 sets of 15 3-minute songs from 10pm to 2am. Other than mixing up the ballads and up-tempo songs, we also worked on some songs that were not quite ready to go. Usually we would open each set with 2 or 3 strong songs, and then we’d sneak in one that still needed work. By forcing ourselves to play before we were ready, it made us focus harder on the song; this was no time to be lazy. Many times, we would play the song better than ever. Occasionally we would bomb, and someone would make a self-deprecating comment to the audience. But most often, the added energy you get when playing live brings out the best in everyone’s abilities.

So don’t over practice a song. Work out the structure, harmony, and dynamics, and then put it on your set list and go play it.

Follow-up

After your gig, it’s a good idea to get together and review the good and not-so-good points. As a bass player, I’ve been known to say “I really liked your lead guitar in that song, can you keep it that way so I can write a counter-point to it?” You should try to remember other key points from your gig, and then make them the first item of business for the next rehearsal.

I hope this helps you use your rehearsal time more efficiently, so you can get out there and play in the bars and clubs – we want to hear you!

Rehearse and Rehash was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Coincidently, I recently got into an “argument” over at another bass site, where we were discussing the merits of jamming vs practicing. I proclaimed that “one hour of jamming or gigging is worth 10 hours of practice” by which I meant that you learn more playing with others and really get a good feel for the rhythms and melodies. And besides, it’s more fun, which means it’s inspiring too. Well the reply was “Yup, I practice about 10 hours for every hour I gig.” I decided that this was not a happy person.

I have also been in long discussions about how the only way to get better is to learn all the scales and modes, and then “practice in the shed for 2 hours minimum every day”; they even gave it a cute name – “shedding” – as in chopping wood in the woodshed. But a lot of these bassists never get out of the shed.

But in all the lessons I have written so far, I have never discussed serious “shedding” or doing scales. I have always advocated playing songs and using “tools” to create your basslines.

So let’s have a sanity check…

If you can’t find all 12 notes in at least two places on the fretboard, you need to find them. That requires a bit of learning and practice, and some simple scales or songs can help. Good old “Do-Re-Mi” is a wonderful way to learn the notes of the major scale in a melodic fashion.

Disclaimer: This is the work of the author and is intended for learning purposes only.

So here is the major scale for the key of A, start with your middle finger on the E-5:

and here is the beginning “Do-Re-Mi” in A:

and the first long riff:

As always, you can change the key by starting on a different fret. Also note that I have shown the TAB to start on the 5th fret, not using any open strings.

As I have noted before, learning the finger patterns without any open strings are important, as they give you the freedom to play in any key. However, you should know some of the common keys that include the open strings (E, A, D, G, C, F). Here is the key of G:

Don’t forget that a lot of rock music prefers the dominant 7th over the major 7th. But this is good, as it makes the pattern easier to remember – the ring finger never plays anything.

And let’s not forget the minor scales – there are 3 of them, called the natural, harmonic and melodic. The natural A-minor has the same notes as the C-major scale, which means that it has the dominant 7th (G). The harmonic minor uses the major 7th (G#). The melodic minor uses F# instead of F, which means that it’s the same as A-major except for the 3rd being C instead of C#. In 90% of the music out there, the natural harmonic will be fine. But if you are curious about how all this works, check out David’s columns on theory (that’s what I do).

So here is the natural A-minor scale. Start with your index finger on E-5:

Now, from a practicing point of view, you should be able to play these 2 scales (3 if you count the different 7ths) forwards and backwards at a reasonable and constant speed. You don’t need to play it fast, nor should you beat yourself up to play it over and over for hours on end. However, playing scales is a good way to focus on your technique. Practice your hammer-ons by going up the scale and only plucking each new string once. Practice your pull-offs by going down the scale the same way. Practice your rhythms, etc. The idea is that once your fingers have memorized the patterns, you can work on other aspects of your playing.

I can hear you all screaming: “Wait a minute, you said we don’t have to practice scales and such, but that’s all you’ve written about!”

Let me ask you, is there a difference between “learning” and “practicing”? The answer is yes, your brain can learn something without practicing it, but your fingers can’t. So learn these patterns and teach your fingers.

But the real answer is that these things are important for playing songs! And not just “Do-Re-Mi”. The ELP classic Lucky Man has a wonderful descending octave scale leading into the break, and Cat Stevens’ Wild World has one too. Many of the transitions discussed in earlier columns were made using the scale (eg Somebody to Love – Playing Along).

And the last part is that melodies come from scales, not chords. And melodies make wonderful basslines. In the song “Moondance”, there is a transition from the Am7/Bm7 verse into the pre-chorus (or whatever you want to call it) which is usually played straight by the bassist, but I decided that I was going to follow the melody, so I looked at the Am scale and figured out a bassline that goes with the melody. It looks like like this:

So now when your guitarist buddy starts talking about practicing scales, you can say “Yeah I do that too” – for about 30 seconds! Practice and learning are related, but they are not the same. You should know how to play a major and a minor scale, and you should practice often enough that your fingers are confident when you play. But don’t feel that you must play scales for 20 minutes every day. Your motivation should be to be able to play the songs you like as well as you want to. Scales are just another tool you need to make you a better bass player.

I will repeat what I have said all along, the most important thing is to play songs, and to play them with others. That way you can show off how well you can play your scales – heehee!

Scaling Mountains – Bass for Beginners # 11 was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

The point of this column is not to discuss how to play this song (nor how to deal with those bandmates!), but to realize that you need to know how to handle these situations. And even though a band claims to be “hard-rock” or whatever, they probably play a lot of different genres (consider Van Halen did Ice Cream Man and The Who did Squeezebox).

Early this month, we had the second annual Riverside Jam (pix to be posted soon!), and I realized somewhere in the middle of all that fun, that was I playing about as many different genres as I knew. I played straight rock, riff-rock (luckily I knew the riff), country, folk, ballads, and Motown. And all because I knew the standard basslines for these genres. And so do you, because I’ve outlined many of them in my earlier columns. There are some songs I know and play very well (“Moondance” and “Somebody to Love”), but on many other songs, I play a very simple line based on the “generic” genre.

And strangely, on one song that I didn’t know, I stopped playing halfway through the first verse because I knew that I wasn’t playing anything useful.

One method for defining genres is to compare the rhythm and the instrumentation; the only thing that differentiates Country from the rest of Rock & Roll is the presence of a steel guitar and/or a fiddle (plus all those worthless spouses!). But they all have bass players, so you’d best be ready for anything. Which means that as a bass player, you need to understand the basics of several genres.

So for country (including the light Eagles), you play the alternating lower-5th. For Straight Rock, you play the root with transitions between each chord. For folk, you play the root almost all of the time, because the songs are usually written for one guitar. If you know the song, you can do some simple transitions or add melodic phrases. Oddly, the slower the song, the fewer notes you play.

So you may not like a certain genre (I really don’t like most punk, perhaps because my fingers get tired of playing the root 16 times per measure), but you should be familiar with enough different styles to be able to put down a reasonable bassline. If someone wants a better performance from you, then you need to have time to work on it, but you still need to have a good idea where to start. As always, playing with others will broaden your horizons.

In the long list of genres, there are two important ones that I haven’t really covered yet: Motown and Reggae. Now both of these styles depend a lot on the bassist, and it’s easy to become intimidated (I know I do).

For Motown, which leads to Funk, the octave and the 7th are very important. Of course some songs have a signature riff or pattern (ex: My Girl), but many others depend on the 7th. Here are the signature riffs for Get Ready and James Brown’s I Got You (I Feel Good):

Reggae also uses the octave a lot, as well as a funky tempo (and loose knees!). Here are two reggae basslines, supplied to me by David Hodge, who graciously transcribed these while he was doing his own Reggae column.

In summary, be aware of as many different styles and genres as you can, even those you don’t like. In most towns, there are not very many bass players, and you may be asked to play almost anything.

And when you are settled into your own band, you can have a lot of fun with classic covers by playing those songs in a different style.

Until next time;

Generic Genres – Bass for Beginners # 10 was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Bass Player magazine has put together an excellent glossary and diagram of bass guitar parts, and I recommend you check it out.

The Reference

The Fender Precision Bass is the grand-daddy reference bass guitar for all time. Check this link History of the Bass to learn more about it. Predictably, some people consider the Fender Bass in the same class as AOL, Chevrolet, or MicroSoft; an enormous number of people use them, but people complain about them anyway.

The Fender Precision has a single set of pickups located mid-way between the bottom of the neck and the bridge. It has two simple controls for volume and tone. The neck is fairly thick. The body is solid, medium weight, and has symmetric “hips”. With flat-wound strings, this guitar produces the classic “thump” sound that was so common in early rock and Motown music. With the advent of brighter round-wound strings, it remains popular for many types of music.

The Fender Jazz Bass is very similar to the Precision, with the following changes: it has two pickups with 3 controls, the neck is thinner, and the body has asymmetric “hips”. The extra pickup allows a greater range of tones, from a warmer “jazzy” sound to a rounder “folky” sound. Read Tone Loco for more about pick-ups and tone.

Most bass guitar manufacturers have a variation of the P-bass and/or the J-bass. Lets review the various parts of the bass and how they can affect the sound and playability.

The Neck

The neck is very important for how well you can play the bass. The thickness, string spacing, total string length, and finish all combine to give you speed and flexibility you need to play well. And smaller is not necessarily better. Players with large hands may find a bigger neck more comfortable. Narrow string spacing is good for small hands, but it can make slapping and popping more difficult.

Necks are usually bolt-on, which means that they are connected to the body by 3 or 4 screws. A “through-neck” uses a single piece of wood (or a set of laminated pieces) that continues all the way through the body. Thus the bridge mounts to the bottom of the neck, instead of to the body. This method is usually more expensive and harder to maintain, but it can be argued that it should sound better without the bolt-on joint between the two ends of the string.

The standard bass guitar neck is 34″ long, from bridge to nut. Longer scale necks are available, as well as smaller size basses for students. Note that the ¾-size double-bass cello is about 34″.

How Many Strings

The standard bass has 4 strings, tuned E-A-D-G. Recently, the 5 and 6-string bass have become more popular, as some of the current music has very low basslines, and more bassists contribute to the melodies on the higher end of the scale. The standard 5-string is tuned B-E-A-D-G, and the standard 6-string is tuned B-E-A-D-G-C. Some 6-strings are tuned E-A-D-G-C-F (don’t tune it like a 6-string guitar E-A-D-G-B-e, or you will get a lot of criticism from other bassists).

With each additional string, the neck gets wider, which makes it more difficult to reach across the neck.

As with anything, higher string counts can be taken to the extreme, and you can find semi-custom basses with 7, 8, or even 9 strings (and probably more out there somewhere).

Unless you know that you are going to be playing “grunge” or other punk music that goes very low, I don’t recommend getting more than 4 strings for your primary bass.

Frets vs Fretless

The original double-bass cello was of course fretless. The Fender Precision got it’s name because it has frets for “precise” fingering. Frets also provide a hard termination for the string, which allows the highest harmonics to sing undampened. Playing fretless produces a warm tone without being overly bright, and it’s fun to slide up and down the neck. It does help to have a good ear so that you know when you’re in the right place.

Personally, I have a fretted P-bass and a fretless J-style bass, and I use them both about equally.

The Body

In a perfect world, the body of a bass guitar is infinitely rigid, so that all of the energy remains within the strings, thus providing maximum sustain and the broadest range of harmonics. In reality, the weight and type of materials used to make the body will have some impact on the tone. This effect is more noticeable with the bass than the electric 6-string, as the lower frequencies need more body mass to work against. The real question is whether you can hear it. If you were to rank the contribution of the various parts of the bass guitar to the resulting tone, the body would come in dead last.

Most solid-body guitars are made of wood, usually a strong hardwood such as maple, ash, or alder. Other exotic woods are sometimes used for their beauty and strength. Cheap guitars can be made from plywood.

Since the invention of epoxy, there have been attempts to make guitar bodies out of various rigid polymers, with generally poor results. Recently, the material “luthite” was developed specifically for electric guitars. Traditionalists tend to frown on these materials, but I assure you that no one can tell if it sounds different in front of 100 (or 100,000) screaming/drunk fans.

One of the advantages of the solid body guitar is that the shape of the body contributes (almost) nothing to the sound. This allows people to get very (overly?) creative with body shapes. And back in the late 70s, the Steinberger designers decided that the body was superfluous, and reduced it to almost nothing.

As you are shopping, you should check the weight and balance of the body. Do the “waist” and “hips” fit naturally against your body? Does the neck tend to pitch downward when you let go of it? Do you like the way it looks, the color and finish?

Pick-ups

As discussed in Tone Loco, an electric guitar works by converting the movement of a steel string over a magnetic rod into an electrical signal – this is done by the pick-up. A pick-up is essentially a coil of wire wrapped around several magnetic rods. As you might imagine, the shape of the magnetic rods and the style of the winding can affect the efficiency and tone of the coupling with the wire.

The most obvious difference in coil design is “single-coil” vs “humbucker”. A single-coil pick-up can also detect the 60-cycle noise generated by stage lights and amplifiers, but the tone is generally bright and the noise is not usually a problem. A humbucker is made with two separate coils that are wound in opposite directions, which cancels out the 60-cycle “hum”. In general, a humbucker is wider than a single-coil pick-up, and it has a slightly warmer tone, but this varies with manufacturers.

Active Electronics

Recently, musicians have been demanding newer and bolder sounds from their guitars. To achieve this, manufacturers have employed on-board electronics to act as the pre-amp and tone controls. Usually, there is an improvement in sound quality, and a reduction of noise (no long cable between the pick-up and the pre-amp). These active electronics are usually more expensive (and don’t forget the battery!). As with everything, some people prefer the sound of passive pick-ups.

Hardware

There are two important mechanical parts on a guitar. The tuners (or machine heads), and the bridge. Unless the bass is extremely poorly made, the tuner shouldn’t be a problem. They are designed mostly for cosmetics.

The bridge on the other hand, is very important. It sets the height of the string, and improper design will affect the tone and reduce the sustain. Many Fender owners will replace the bridge immediately after purchase. Other manufacturers will create sophisticated pieces of machinery, with lots of screws and other moving parts. There are a few brands of after-market bridges, and sometimes it’s a good thing to do. You can ask your guitar shop if they recommend replacing the bridge on your particular bass.

Where to Shop

My personal preference is to find a guitar shop that you really like and go there often. The big stores like Sam Ash and Guitar Center can be difficult for beginners, but they often have a much broader variety of guitars and amps, and generally better prices for new equipment. If you can find a medium size store (we have the East Coast Music Mall in Danbury CT), you may find they are more willing to help you out. If you are in a band, try and get everyone to agree on one or two stores to patronize. You may be able to save a little money by shopping around and searching the internet, but you still need a guitar tech (we all do) and someone to rescue you when you have an emergency – like a big gig tomorrow! Support your local merchants.

In the real world, some stores are really pretty bad. Don’t shop at a store where you do not get a reasonable amount of product selection, quality service, and respect for your ability and situation. While I am not a fan of shopping for major items on the internet, it’s better than giving good money to a bad store.

How to Shop

Before you go shopping, think about what type of bass you are looking for. How many strings? What style of pick-ups? Do you want low and dirty or warm and jazzy? Frets? What color (seriously)? Search the internet for various guitars (see the list below) and read all the words. You should have a general idea of what you like and don’t like, but do try not to go in with preconceptions. You may find yourself missing out on a great deal for the silliest of reasons.

And try to figure out how much money you can spend.

I recommend the “two trip” approach. On the first trip, you are there to learn, and that’s what you tell the salesman – don’t tease the salespeople! You are not adversaries, you both want you to buy the best bass you can afford. Music stores (all stores – except maybe car dealers) survive because of repeat business. They need you to succeed as a musician and as a band, so you can come back and buy more stuff!

If you can, try to avoid the really busy periods (after school, Saturdays), and set aside a block of time to really talk and listen and learn from the store keepers. You should let the salesman play the instruments first, don’t play them yourself. The salesman should show you the various tones, and explain the features of each guitar. He should always play through the same amplifier, and without effects. Later, you should “try them on” for weight and balance, but don’t spend a lot of time playing them. You need to decide whether you can hear the different tones, and which ones you like best.

Before you leave, ask to see any used basses that are similar to what you have been looking at. Don’t be nervous about this – they need to sell the used stuff too, they just don’t get quite as much profit from them.

Try and come away from the first trip with the names of 2 or 3 basses that you could be happy with. Get the model numbers and prices, and any literature.

Go home and check the internet for reviews. Post a question on our Forum, or search the archives over at ActiveBass. Check eBay! for the current auction prices for used models. Remember that the prices you see on the Internet may be 10-20% lower than in the store, but don’t forget the absence of professional service, and the shipping charges.

Armed with all this information, plan another trip to the store – this time with the intention of buying a bass. Try and find the same salesman (if you liked him), and tell him which 2 basses you are most interested in. Have him pick out the best of the used basses as well, if there is one. Make it clear that the question is not “if” you’re going to buy, but “which one”. After he shows you the features of each guitar (including the bridge), you should play them yourself. Don’t try to get fancy – you’re not there to audition. You should have some songs or riffs in your head that are easy to play. Play them casually, listening to the tone, noting how the neck feels. Play standing up, so you can compare the weight and balance. Play the same songs on all the guitars you are considering.

It is helpful to bring a friend to help you evaluate the various characteristics if each bass, but the final decision should be yours.

When you have selected your bass, let the salesman know, and tell him that you need a case, and a new set of strings (you have no idea how old the existing ones are) and whatever else you want. The more stuff you put into this purchase, the easier it is for them to discount the total price. (Note: some salesmen do the opposite; they discount the bass, and charge list price for the accessories – pay attention) If the price for the bass is a lot more than you found online, mention it to the salesman. A 10-20% difference is typical; much more is probably too much.

Be sure that your purchase includes one free set-up. Ask if they recommend that the set-up be done right away, or after a couple of weeks. I know it’s tough to buy a guitar and then leave it in the store, but it’s worse to bring home your new axe and get frustrated by fret buzz or high strings.

Enjoy your new bass!

Next time, I’ll talk about buying a bass amp (hint, I’ll recommend used stuff).

Shop Till You Drop – How to buy a Bass Guitar – Bass for Beginners # 9 was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

David has written about Feelin’ Alright, which is a very simple song, consisting of two chords: E and A. Whether you prefer the Dave Mason or the Joe Cocker version, you will remember that the song has a lot of dynamics in it, which makes it feel like there are more than 2 chords.

Disclaimer: The following charts are the work of the author and are intended for educational purposes only.

Where to Play

On the bass, the E and the A are always in the same relationship to each other: same fret, one string over. This pair appears in several places on the fretboard. The ‘E’ can be found as the open E-string and the A-7, D-2, G-9, and E-12, plus a few more above the octave (12th fret). As described in Tone Loco, the notes will have a different tone depending on where you play them.

So when should you play where? When in doubt, start in the middle. So the basic verse riff might be played on the 7th fret of the A and D strings. The rhythm pattern is solid and a bit funky, with a lot of quiet space during the 3rd and 4th beats.

OK, so you have to pay attention to the beat, and the ‘B’ in the transition is good, but this can get old quick.

Note: there are many songs where the bassline is BORING! However, if you start to get “creative” when the listeners expect “simple” it can backfire. One of our bands played a few Fleetwood Mac ballads, which would sometimes make me very drowsy. But the girls could sing it really well, and the rhythm guitarist played all the little fills (the lead went for beer), and the audience loved it. So I had to play it, and keep the energy and timing correct – hey when you’re only playing one or two notes per measure, you better get them right! Sometimes you have to take a back seat to the song or the rest of the band.

Having said that, there are still some things you can do. First, play the verse in the different places mentioned above. Play it on the 12th fret when the verse is soft or low energy. Play the open ‘E’ when you want that low growl, or you’re starting to build the energy heading into the chorus. Sometimes you can do the reverse; play it low and soft to provide the “foundation” for a soft vocal, or play it high and bright to call attention to the energy you’re adding. But don’t mess around with the rhythm too much during the verses. You’ll get your chance during the chorus and solo break.

Playing the Riff

Most songs have a recognizable riff somewhere. Feelin’ Alright may not have a “signature” riff, but the Joe Cocker version has the brass parts which certainly suggest a good line. This is pretty fast, but it’s entirely based on the Box, so you can handle it.

Taking the Fifth

Just as the bass walk is a “classic” for rock and roll, the lower 5th is very common for folk songs (and polkas!). The normal method is to play the root of the chord on the first beat of the measure and the lower 5th on the 3rd beat. As it turns out, the lower 5th is on the same fret as the root, one string lower (so you have to play the root on the A or D string. Here are some examples showing a couple of ways to play it.

Polkas are played twice as fast (and often in 2/4 time)

Here is one song that has made good use of the lower 5ths and turned it into a nice little bass sequence.

So now you have even more tools to work with. As a beginning bassist, the trick is to apply these tools to the different songs you learn. The more you play, the more you will see that most of these tools will work on many songs, and you will be able to sound very good on a song you’ve never played.

Good Luck!

Nice and Easy – Bass for Beginners # 8 was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Fingering

You can change the way your bass sounds just by how and where you play the strings. Here are some simple examples. You should set your tone controls to their brightest settings for this (usually fully clockwise).

Play an open D string. Now play the same D note on the 10th fret of the E-string. Note that they sound very different. First, if you plucked the string with the same force each time, the E-10 D was likely to be louder. Second, the E-10 D should have sounded “smoother” or “rounder” or whatever term you like to describe having less overtones. Playing above the 7th fret will always sound different than playing below the 5th fret. The higher you go, the smoother it sounds.

Next example: Play the same D on the 5th fret of the A-string. Pluck the string with your fingers over the bottom of the neck. Now continue to play while slowly moving your plucking fingers way from the neck, toward the bridge. You should hear the tone change from “round” to “bright”. I like and use this effect so much that I installed a continuous thumb-rest on my fretless; it goes all the way from the neck to the bridge.

See, you’ve made significant changes to your tone without touching any knobs on your guitar or amp.

If you play with a pick, you will add some “scraping” sounds as well as make the strings sound a little brighter. Playing with your fingertips deadens some of the highest tones.

Different string types can also change your sound. The technical reasons are discussed below, but the simplest rule is that flat-wound strings sound – well – flat, while round-wound strings are generally brighter. Different brands make different claims, but it’s not just hype, they really do sound different.

You can also change the tone significantly by “slapping” or “popping” the strings. These techniques move the string vertically and force it to hit the frets, which creates all sorts of higher tones. The techniques for fast “slap and pop” playing are not what I consider beginner level, but you can play around with slapping low notes with your thumb (just bounce your thumb on the string, resting your wrist on the bridge) and popping some high notes with your index finger (hook the string and pull it away from the neck). Be careful, as both of these techniques can get loud unexpectedly.

Controls

In addition to the volume knob, most guitars have a simple tone control. Turning this control reduces the amount of high frequency sounds that are passed to the amplifier. Often you will turn down the higher sounds to produce a very mellow sound, or to reduce fret noise.

If your bass has two sets of pickups, then there will likely be two volume controls, or some sort of balance control. The pickup nearest the bridge detects more of the higher sounds, while the pickup nearest the neck detects more of the lower sounds.

And of course, your bass amp has some tone controls, which can change the sound as well.

Note that the tone controls on your amp and your guitar can’t really change the balance of high and low tones produced by the strings. They only control the balance between specific fixed frequencies, thus setting your tone control mid-way will make your higher notes rounder, but won’t affect the lower notes. The only way to change the sound that the string produces is to change the way you play it, as described above.

String Theory

CAUTION – The following has been known to induce headaches in intelligent people!

As often seems to happen, David has written a column recently on a similar topic (guitar harmonics – Harmonic Convergence), and I recommend that you read it, just for the knowledge. In summary, every instrument creates overtones when you play it. Every environmental detail, large and small, affects the balance between these overtones (also known as harmonics). Each overtone is a multiple of the fundamental, so an ‘A’ note that has a fundamental of 440Hz (rate of vibration in cycles per second, called Hertz), and harmonics of 880 (also an ‘A’), 1320 (‘E’), 1760 (another ‘A’), etc. All musical instruments create overtones in differing proportions, that is why an oboe sounds different than a trumpet. The flute is usually considered the most “pure”, having the least amount of overtones.

As we know, sound is created by the string vibrating through air (or over a magnetic pickup). And we know that the shorter the string, the higher the note. But the opposite is true as well; the higher the harmonic, the shorter the “wave-length”, or equivalent string length. A string on a guitar (or piano, or violin) vibrates at all these different frequencies at the same time. When the balance between the fundamental and each of the overtones changes, you get a different sound. Unfortunately, it’s more complicated than that. For example, if you pluck the string exactly 1/3 of its length from the bridge, you will put more energy into the 4th, 5th etc harmonics, and a bit less into the fundamental, but no energy at all into the 3rd or 6th harmonics; you muted them with your finger – go figure. Here is a website that has a bunch of physics and math, but also has an animation that shows how it works.

As described at the top, when you pluck the strings closer to the bridge, your fingers are creating a shorter string length on one side, thus putting more energy into the overtones, and proportionately less into the fundamental.

Arrgggh! This sounds so technical!

The point is that the higher overtones occur at different places on the string, and so the amount of string movement differs at different places, which means that the pickups see a different balance of harmonics depending on where they are placed on the guitar. The classic example is the Fender Stratocaster: it has three pickups which you can select; the closer to the bridge, the higher the tone. The closer to the neck, the mellower the tone. If you select the middle pickup, you get almost none of the 4th harmonic from an open string! So it’s not just distance from the bridge, it’s the location relative to the harmonics.

This is why the ‘D’ played on the 10th fret of the E-string sounds “rounder” than the open-D. The higher harmonics are all still there, they are just not centered over the pickups, while the fundamental has moved to be directly over the pickups. A fair amount of engineering goes into the placement of the pickups to get the best balance of all the harmonics. It’s also why some bass guitars give you two pickups in different locations so you can shift from a “round” to a “bright” sound.

Fender makes two classic bass styles. The “Precision” (or P-bass) has two half-pickups grouped half-way between the neck and the bridge. They found the best place to put a single set of pickups. The “Jazz” bass has two pickups, one closer to the neck, and another close to the bridge. This allows you to selectively change the balance between the fundamental and the overtones. Different guitar makers connect and control the two pickups differently, but the added flexibility is what is desired. (Note: there are other differences between the P-bass and the J-bass as well)

It gets worse. The mechanics of a wound bass string are more complicated because the windings prevent the string from acting like a pure wire. It’s actually good that the heavy bass strings are made up of several lower gauge wires, as a single thick wire wouldn’t flex enough to generate the shorter wavelength harmonics. That’s the reason different string types sound significantly different. And when you play fretless, your fingertips reduce the highest harmonics but not the middle ones, which gives it a really warm feeling without sounding boomy.

Confused? Don’t worry about it. Just remember that almost any and all of the different tones you want can be created just by playing the guitar differently.

And then there are the effects boxes, which is another topic all together…

I’ve been getting a bunch of emails, which is great! Keep on sending them in.

Tone Loco – Bass for Beginners # 7 was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Before we get to the charts, let’s discuss the dynamics. Dynamics is the art of changing the energy level during the song. The simplest method is volume, but you can also introduce dynamics by changing the complexity of the arrangements (add harmonies or brass), change the vocal range of the melody, change the chord patterns (usually called a bridge). In the recording business, it is usually the job of the producer to take the songwriters chords, lyrics, and melody, and determine how to build a complete song out of it, and to make it energetic and fun to listen to often.

In this song, the bass provides an indication of the energy level of the song. At the beginning, there is no bass at all. The guitarist sets up the rhythm and the singer starts to tell the story. Halfway through the first verse, the bass comes in fairly strongly, suggesting that this is not just another boring ballad. As the song progresses, the intensity of the bass increases and decreases to provide almost a tidal change in the song. Since there are only two chords all through the song, changing the energy level is the only method to break up the sections of the song. The band “America” also uses the addition of harmonies and some minor changes in the guitar strumming, but the bass provides much of the “control” for the song.

Note: The following is the author’s own work, and is intended solely for research and instructional purposes.

OK, time for some notes. The two chords are Em and Dadd6add9 (read David’s column about that one!). Let’s break down the parts of the chords:

Em = E G B

Dadd6add9 = F# A C# E G# B D

As played on the rhythm guitar, the C# and G# are left out of the Dadd6add9, so we can either choose to add them back in or leave them out. Since the G# “conflicts” with the G in the Em, we’ll leave that one out as well. We’ll decide about the C# later.

Now let’s check The Box. First, in order to give us some extra flexibility, let’s decide to play the ‘E’ on the 7th fret of the A string. So the Box gives us the following notes, from lowest to highest: B C# E F# A B D E

OK, we want to play this somewhat like the album, so we know that it goes E for 4 beats, F# 2 beats, something lower for 2 beats, with a little riff to return to the E. As you can see, a good choice for the lower note would be ‘B’, and indeed that is correct. Using the Box, we would guess that the C# would be part of the return riff, but it doesn’t sound right. But D is another available note (10th fret, E-string), and it sounds fine. (So I guess we’ll pass on the missing C#) Here is the chart for 90% of the song. Note that the 8th notes are played with a “swing feel”, which means that any note that falls on the beat is a little longer, and any note that falls between the beats is a little shorter and later, closer to the next beat.

A note about a “driving” bass line. This is where the bass player seems to be playing ahead of the song. This makes it seem like s/he is trying to make the song go faster (but doesn’t), which adds a bit of tension and energy to the song. Probably the best example of this is in Radar Love, where the bass literally drives the song. This is a subtle skill, but it’s a good one to practice.

Midway through the later verses and/or chorus, the bass player throws in a riff to fill the space left by the lyrics. The lead note is fairly high, and by testing and listening to the 5th (C#), 7th (E), and octave (F#), you can hear that the lead note is the octave F#. Using the F# box (starting on the 9th fret), the riff is fairly simple, although you’ve got to be quick to get back to the lower E.

There are two other sections in the song. First, there is a instrumental solo section, where the bass player wanders around a bit. I am not a fan of these types of solos, preferring the melodic or walk-oriented approach, but that’s OK. Since this song was written a while back, it’s possible that the producer wanted to include a “psychedelic” aspect (Horse? I can be so naïve!), or perhaps thia “lost and wandering” section is a reflection of the “lost in the desert” motif. You can play just about anything here so long as you stay in key and remember to return to the E occasionally.

The second section is at the end of the last verse. Here the songwriter chose to extend the verse to accommodate the last phrases, which are important to the story. This is a subtle method for building tension in a song, as it depends on the listener to have gotten used to the song, and thus be expecting the chorus after a certain number of measures. By extending the verse over where the chorus should have been, it brings extra attention to those lyrics. Starting with the phrase “Under the cities…”, the song builds a crescendo, and it continues to move upward melodically, with strong harmonies. Here the bass goes along, playing these notes twice per measure: E F# G A. As you can see, the G and A are the minor-3rds of the Em and F#m chords. This is a “neat trick” about paired minor chords (think about Am and Bm in “Moondance”), you can slowly walk up the entire scale, alternating between the two chords: E F# G A B C# E F#.

That’s all for this song. I hope you have fun with this.

Horse With No Name – Bass for Beginners # 6 was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

I am going to focus on the two classes of riffs that I call “walking-riffs” and “octave-riffs”. This will leave out some of the classic bass lines, such as Riders on the Storm, Another One Bites the Dust, and Peter Gunn.

Note: Everything (almost) is charted in the key of A. This is so that you can easily see the similarities and differences. Besides, I’ve long forgotten what key they are in on the albums, which may or may not have been the key I played them in.

Disclaimer: The following charts are the work of the author and are intended solely for teaching purposes. Which means I sure hope I got them right!

Walking Riffs

Note: As previously discussed, chords are noted in Roman numerals (I-IV-V), but the notes within a chord are noted by the ordinal number (1st, 3rd, 5th). So C# is the 3rd of the A-major chord. And C is the 3rd of the A-minor chord. This is always true, whether the A is the I (root-chord), or the IV in a song in the key of E.

These riffs are all based on the 1-3-5-6-7 bass walk, either scrambled or syncopated. The 7th is the dominant-7 (G) typical in rock and roll (remember to play the major-7 (G#) if the chord explicitly asks for it). Note that you should start this A-scale walk on the 5th fret of the E-String. You could play it from the bridge, but then you wouldn’t learn the patterns and be able to play it for any and every chord. The fingering pattern looks like this:

G----------------------------------------------
|    |     |     |     |     |     |     |
D-----------------6----7---------8-------------
|    |     |     |     |     |     |     |
A-----------------3--------------5-------------
|    |     |     |     |     |     |     |
E----------------------1-----------------------

Refer to my earlier article (The Box) for a description of how to play a standard walk. That one was written in the key of G, but you know by now that the key doesn’t really matter, so just slide your hand up two frets and try out these riffs:

Octave Riffs

These riffs all start off with an octave jump, (in this case from a low A to a high A) and then work their way back down to the root. There are many variations of the blues walk that do this as well. My example is Steve Miller’s Swingtown intro, which isn’t really a bass-line, but it’s a good one to know anyway.

If you are old enough to remember disco, you may recall that the only good thing about it was the wonderful bass lines, many of which involved the use of octave jumps. I have included one here. Note that this is in the key of ‘D’, so you can still play it on the 5th fret.

So after you’ve practiced these for a while, you should be able to add them to your set of tools and use them for all sorts of songs that need a fun walk. After a while, you may get good enough to hear the intervals clearly and come up with some really funky walks that play with the 5-6-7-8 sequences. It’s fun!

Dan’s Favorite Low End Riff

When evaluating a new guitar, most people focus on how it sounds up above the 7th fret. So they play a bunch of quick riffs and scales up high and comment on how clear the tone is, or how fast the neck is. All of this is fine, but what about the low end? This is a bass guitar after all. I have found that the bass riff from the outro in Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain is great for determining how well your bass and/or amplifier will respond to the very low end. In this case, you play it on the zeroth fret, so the ‘E’ and the ‘A’ are open. The progression from ‘A’ up to ‘C’ and back down to ‘G’ should be fast and clear, without sounding muddy. When you land on the bottom ‘E’, you should be very happy with the growl, and it should be sustained. When you slide up from the ‘E’ to the ‘A’ (5th fret E-string), it should sound powerful without being boomy. Then you play the open ‘A’, which deadens the E-string. This is also a good test for experimenting with different tone settings on your guitar.

Next time, I will go into much of the practical and theoretical aspects of the tones that you can get from your bass. Until then, feel free to email me with any questions or requests to dissect a particular song.

Also, David has started a songwriting series (Putting Things Together), in which he asks readers to submit melodies to go with a chord sequence he has provided. In the coming weeks, I will be asking you bass players to create bass lines for these songs.

Riff Raff – Bass for Beginners # 5 was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

So, in a round-about way, I asked my old buddy Kyle. Kyle was the drummer for Fat Lewy (one of the bands David played in – and I did sound for), and he taught me how to mike the drums. So here is his response, with some limited edits:

Q What is the best way to mike a drum set?

A: Well, I’m hardly an expert. “Best” is partially a function of what kind of sound one wants, what setting (ie a stage, a studio, an outdoor space, etc.) and how one sets up one’s drum set. What I used to do for Fat Lewy is set one mike between the snare and hi-hat, one generally above the two mounted toms (which also covered the ride and splash cymbals), one over the floor tom (which also covered my crash cymbal). The one thing that I did which was unusual is put the mike for my bass drum next to my foot pedal, rather than in front of the drum, but that was because I had a front head on with no hole and putting a mike up there made it WAY too boomy. It is best to try to keep the mikes “in phase” meaning all pointing in the same direction (although that was not the case for the bass drum mike near my foot-pedal).

Jazz drums would not get “close in” miking. When I recorded jazz groups for my radio series a few years back, I typically just did an overhead stereo pair and one on the bass drum just to give it a little extra boost.

Thanks, Kyle. One point of clarification about the kick-drum. Usually it is best if you have a medium-size hole in your front head, so that you can put the mike on the inside, up close to the rear head, on top of the pillow. This will give you the best combination of “slap” and “thump”, and it will be in-phase, as Kyle suggests. In addition, the front hole will reduce the amount of time that the drum resonates, which is also good. If you have a double-sealed head, then Kyle’s method is the best; put the mike near the kick-pedal, not on the other side.

Note: you have just added 4 mikes on the stage, probably back near all of the amplifiers. Just based on proximity, you may have miked all those guitars as well, including (especially!) the bass. Remember to turn down the low tone controls on those channels (except the kick) and you may need to move the amps around a bit to reduce this unexpected pickup.

Last, if you have a mix-board with “group” faders, it is a good idea to assign all of the drum mikes to one group, and then control the overall drum level with just one fader. Once you have the balance between the various drum mikes set the way you want, you shouldn’t have to change those settings at all, unless there is a special song with unusual adjustments.

Q: How do I set up in a church?

(note: the following is intended to be irreverent, but not disrespectful)

A: Play outside and put the PA speakers inside – just kidding! Playing in a church is about the most difficult place on earth that has electricity. A church is designed to not need amplification. The walls are bright and reverberant, the ceilings are high and often curved or domed to reflect the sound back down to the parishioners. Even the pews aren’t padded! The reverb decay times can be several seconds long!

The biggest problem with bringing in amplified instruments is that they raise the minimum volume level very quickly. And drums will make it almost impossible; any drummer in a church should be playing with either brushes or chopsticks!

So if you’ve ignored all of these cautions, here’s what you do:

First, if the weather is nice, open all the windows. You’ve got to get the sound out of the room.

Second, place the amplifiers along a side wall; don’t put them up where the choir sits. Turn the amps to face the musicians and threaten them with eternal damnation if they crank it up. If you must have a drummer, put her in front of the first pew, and off to the side (note: don’t block the aisles needed for fire exits!). Put foam dampers on the cymbals.

Last, put the singers up toward the alter, and have them stand close together. They should not need a monitor. Put the PA speaker (just one!) just in front of the first pew (by the drummer), off to the side, facing diagonally across the congregation, just about standing eye-level high.

If you can, set up your mix board in one of the pews about 2/3s back in the hall, on the same side as the PA speaker. If you can’t put the board there, then ask someone you can trust to be your “ears” in the audience. Arrange some hand-signals or other method so you can know when it’s too loud, or just right.

The most important part of the music will be the vocals, so keep them as clear as possible (don’t add reverb!), and keep the low end out unless you have a basso singer.

Try to rehearse at least once so that the musicians can understand that you’re serious about keeping it low.

Q: But we have a big-time gospel rock “Sister Act” church. What should we do now?

A: Hire a pro. Seriously. There are professional sound guys who know how to set up a PA in a church. You may need to add sound dampening materials to the walls or ceilings, and you may find that you have to mike the choir and all the podiums, but it can be done quite well.

But remember that even the pros hate to work in churches – it is just a tough place for loud music.

I’m sorry if this sounds too negative, but a church is a place where every voice is meant to be heard without assistance.

I look forward to your questions and comments.

Miking The Drums was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

The first thing you have to figure out is what is the role of the bass player in this particular song (remember that the “role of the bassist can vary from song to song” (Waxing Philosophic)). Are you just playing the roots of the chords, or do you have to provide a melody? Do you have to support a funky rhythm, or just play it straight.

My first quick example is the Rolling Stones Satisfaction, which of course requires the following:

Disclaimer: The following charts are the work of the author and are intended for educational purposes only.

In this song, the bass follows the lead guitar, echoing the riff and reinforcing the punchy 1-2 beat. But if you listen closely, you’ll hear that the bass is not playing exactly the same riff as the lead. Both the notes and timing are different. There is an extra note inserted. Now this is where some knowledge is required, as well as some listening. The chord change is D-G, and the song is in D-major (at least in my band). The guitar riff is D-E-F, so I would start by using the E to get from the D to the G (which is using The Box). But we need an extra note. It seems likely that it is either F or F#, and since we’re in the key of D, let’s try F#. Sure enough it works. You’ll need to review some theory to figure out why the guitar plays an F and the bass transitions with an F#, but it doesn’t all fall apart. Let’s just simply say that the guitar’s F makes a G7, which is a common rock/blues chord, but the bass wants to stay in the key of the song. Also note that the bass “arrives” at the G on the 1-beat, while the guitar gets to the F a half-beat before the measure. The guitarist is using “anticipation”, and it is very common for the vocal or lead guitar to use it, while the bass generally does not. Here is the chart:

Somebody to Love

I learned this song in 1979, and I have played it and taught it to others ever since. It is a perfect beginner’s song because it is high-energy, has powerful chords, and can be adjusted to almost any vocalist who is willing to use her power. But the last best reason is that no one would ever play it “just like the album”. This song was made back when it was common to put everyone in a room and “go for it”, but the technology wasn’t up to it. So the original is very compressed, muddy, and if it wasn’t for Grace Slick, it’d be almost boring. I have listened to this song numerous times, and I still don’t know what the bass player is trying to do, other than wander around a lot. Some musicians think that this is a problem: “What should I play?” I like to think of it as an opportunity: I can play it my way and no one will ever know if it’s “right”.

Since it was David that taught me the song, it’s only right that I suggest that you read his interpretation of the song. He wrote about it in the bottom half of Pictures in Dorian Grey.

In the charts that follow, I show how I built up the bassline that goes under the verse. The verse chords are Em – A, repeated 4 times. So the simple “play the root” chart would look like this:

Notice that I play the ‘A’ a half-beat early, using anticipation, contrary to what I said above. The main reason for this is that the entire rhythm section (including drums) follows the vocals. This is a hard-driving rock song, but not a dance song, so it’s OK to de-emphasize the 1-beat on the ‘A’ measures. Throughout the song, the vocal rhythm overrides the straight-four beat.

So now that we have an idea for the rhythm, we need some more notes. Starting slowly, we look at the Box, and add the F# to transition from E to A. Notice that the way I’ve done it, I’ve cancelled the anticipation. This probably won’t work for long.

Having listened to the album, I know that the Jefferson Airplane’s bass player is much busier than this; he’s playing all the time, almost ignoring the rhythm of the song. So I know that I could/should do more, but I disagree with ignoring the rhythm, which is strongest at the beginning of each ‘Em’ measure. So I decide to start the transition earlier in the measure so I can add more notes. Also, I realize that I can use the same transition in both directions.

Note the similarities between this and Satisfaction above – must be doing something right!

So once you get this riff down, the next question is: “Can I do even more?” The transition already includes all the available notes between E and A, so where can we go? Well one option is to overshoot, so I added a B to the riff and started even earlier in the measure. After some practice, it worked out pretty well, but it sounded a bit muddy. That’s a lot of notes in pretty rapid sequence, so I tried it up an octave (not charted). By starting with the E on the 7th fret of the A string, you will find this sounds good, and is easier to play as the frets are closer together. You are actually using the Box, with your pinky hitting the G in the riff.

For the chorus above, I went through the same process. Chords first, then echo the vocal rhythm, then add transition and accent notes. Note that each phrase of the chorus is played differently. The “Don’t!!!” is one of Grace’s patented strong wails, so I accent it with a high-ish note. The “wouldn’t you” transition is lower with more “syllables”, and my drummer does a fill on the low tom to go along.

I hope that these examples show you how you can create your own basslines, adding complexity and flair by following the guidelines and tools I’ve described.

My next column will review the 1-3-5-6-7 patterns and point out a wide variety of songs that make use of it. In the mean time, I would like you to send me some specific questions about basslines and songs that you think are interesting.

Playing Along – Bass for Beginners # 4 was written by Dan Lasley for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise