• Why would I choose to play bass over guitar?
• How do I change the strings on a bass guitar?
• What are the notes on a bass guitar?
• What would I gain/lose from a fretless bass?

Why would I choose to play bass over guitar?

The problem with starting with the bass is that it is not a very good instrument to play by yourself. Many bassists I know started because their band needed a bass player. Most would never go back. Since you love lots of music, and I assume you sing, I think you would get more pleasure from the guitar (or piano). However, you can play more than one instrument, it just takes a little more effort (and money).

On the flip side, there is nothing wrong with starting on the bass (or flute or violin), and it is pretty easy to become a solid beginner in a short time. And it is satisfying to make those warm tones and low growls.

So make your choice according to what your goals are. Either way – you win!

This answer can be edited and improved by you on the Guitar Noise Wiki. Go to Choosing bass over guitar and select edit to make improvements.

How do I change the strings on a bass guitar?

First you need the following items:

1. a new set of strings
2. a tuner
3. a wire cutter

Step 1: Open the pack of new strings. Notice that they have a size or gauge labeled on each sleeve. The biggest (thickest) string is the E string, and the next smaller is A, followed by D, and the thinnest is the G. Write the name of each string on the sleeve.

Step 2: Unpack the new D string and examine each end. One end will have a bead or loop, the other will have come thread covering the wires.

Step 3: Turn the tuning head on your bass to loosen the D string.

Step 4: Continue to loosen the D string until it comes off the tuning head. Notice how the string was inserted into the tuning head.

Step 5: Remove the string from the guitar by pulling it through the hole in the bridge. This may be on the front or rear of the bass body.

Step 6: Insert the new string in the same hole. Pull it all the way through until the ball or bead seats on the bridge.

Step 7: Extend the string up to the tuning head. Measure 4-5 inches past the tuner and cut the string.

Step 8: Insert the string into the tuning head the same way that the old string was there. Hold the string against the body and turn the tuner until the string becomes straight but still floppy.

Step 9: Remove the other 3 strings.

Step 10: Repeat steps 5-7 for each string.

Step 11: Gently increase the tension on each string until the strings are no longer resting on the neck.

Step 12: Using a tuner, tune all of the strings up to their correct note. Use the following sequence: D-A-G-E.

Step 13: Re-tune each string again. You will also have to tune them a few times until they “get used to” the tension.

That’s it!

This answer can be edited and improved by you on the Guitar Noise Wiki. Go to Changing bass guitar strings and select edit to make improvements.

What are the notes on a bass guitar?

Learning all the notes on your bass fretboard is an important early step for the beginning bassist. Knowing where all the notes are will help you while playing along with others and improvising.

This chart shows all the notes on your bass’ fretboard up to the twelfth fret. After the twelfth fret the notes repeat in the same order.

Here are the bass notes (from the bass clef) and their TAB counterparts.

This answer can be edited and improved by you on the Guitar Noise Wiki. Go to reading bass tabs and notes and select edit to make improvements.

What would I gain/lose from a fretless bass?

The bass player I looked up to in college had a shirt that said “Fretless and Free!”, so that’s where I got my first interest in this.

I have a fretted P-bass, and a fretless J-bass, so some of the tone differences are due to the pickups more than anything, but the tones that come from a fretless are still different. The way your fingertip pinches the string against the fretboard dampens the highest overtones without disturbing the middle ones, so you get a “warm” sound that is not “dull”. My column Tone Loco discusses this in more detail.

I play fretless when I want the specific tone, or I want to slide. I play fretted when I’m playing fast rock&roll and I want to be sure I stay in tune at speed. I will change basses during a set, or re-arrange the song list so I don’t have to change as often. If I play a “fretless” song on my fretted bass (or vice versa), it feels weird, but I can adjust quickly. I will also play the fretted bass when I’m tired.

If you have a good ear (which I don’t), then you might find the fretless more fun. If you play jazz or folk/rock, fretless is fine. If you’re a heavy hitting rock and roller, I’d get frets. Just as the advanced guitarist may own a Strat and a Les Paul, the advanced bassist may own both types of basses.

To find out more about the fretless bass check out Fretless and Free.

This answer can be edited and improved by you on the Guitar Noise Wiki. Go to Fretless bass and select edit to make improvements.

In the upcoming book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Bass Guitar, I mention that there are two kinds of bass players – the “born” and the “converted.” “Born” bass players start out on the instrument, while “converts” come to the bass via guitar, piano or any number of other musical backgrounds.

Personally, I think that every guitarist should play bass. There’s a simple reason behind this thinking and it’s stated in the very first sentence of this lesson. Any guitarist who’s truly having trouble getting his or her rhythm in shape will find that concentrating on the bass (or at least the bass lines of a song) will help to improve their timing.

There’s actually another reason as well, but that’s for our next bass lesson…

Today we’re going to work on our timing and rhythm by trying something that, while easier than it looks, will require your attention. If you can count to seven, then come along with me! And, even though this is a bass lesson, we still need this:

These files are the author’s own work and represent his interpretation of this song. They are intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

Money, from Pink Floyd’s classic album Dark Side of the Moon, may seem to be a strange piece to pick for a “beginner’s” bass lesson, but it fits our needs on several levels. The fingering involved is very basic (almost all of it is in “open” position) and will be a good introduction to (or reminder of) the bass fingerboard for many of you. We’ll also get to examine the importance of “closed” patterns when playing bass lines and discuss the difference between swing eighths and straight eighths.

But mostly it’s about counting to seven. With the exception of the section that consists of a guitar solo and the very, very end of the song, Money is in 7/4 time. This will take a little getting used to, but (hopefully) you’ll find once you’re in the groove you won’t even think twice about it.

For the sake of not having to think about too many things at once, I’ll not worry about going over all the details of the theory. For now, know that Money is in the key of B minor, which is the relative minor of the key of D major. And most of the bass lines center around the B minor pentatonic scale:

Just as when playing guitar, you want to think of your scales as continuous, so let’s take a moment and extend this one across all four string in open position:

When using this extended scale as a warm-up, try to play any notes that occur on the second fret with your index finger and employ your ring finger or pinky for the notes that fall on the fourth fret. This is a textbook example of “the box,” which you can read all about in Dan Lasley’s Bass for Beginners column conveniently titled, The Box. Notice the lowest root note (B) is on the second fret of the A string. The octave (the next higher B note) is played at the fourth fret of the G string. That’s just like on the first four strings of the guitar. Note, too, that the fifths (F#) are on the same frets as the roots, but on the strings immediately lower (the D and E strings).

The main riff of Money kicks off with a root to octave to fifth and back to the root bass line before adding in more notes from the B minor pentatonic scale. You have two things to keep track of here: counting to seven and using “swing eighths.” You’ll hear why in just a moment:

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

Did you hear the difference between using swing eighths and straight eighths? It may seem like such a little detail but it’s quite striking, isn’t it? By the way, this main riff serves as the introduction to the song; it’s played until the vocal starts, signaling the beginning of the verse.

Take the time to practice this riff if for no other reason than once you’ve nailed it down you’ve got more than half the song covered. Start slowly and get it into fingers and head. Again, try to use your index finger for the notes on the second fret and either your ring finger or pinky for the notes on the fourth fret. You might find it easier if you slightly flatten the fourth fret finger, just as you might to play a power chord on your guitar. This is, not coincidentally, another one of the little things that a bass guitar can help you with. If you’re having trouble fretting power chords on your guitar, try fingering them on the bass for a week or so. When you switch back you’ll wonder what all your earlier problems could have been!

Another thing you might do, especially to assist going from the B note at the second fret of the A string to the F# at the second fret of the E, is to roll your fingertip onto the lower string. This is a handy technique to develop for both bass and guitar playing and takes only a little concentrated effort to get the hang of it.

Most importantly, don’t be afraid to count out loud if you’re having troubles with the timing.. Don’t laugh! When faced with a tricky bit of rhythm or a timing they’ve not played in a while, most professional musicians (at least the ones I know) will count aloud in order to get it into their heads. It really does help. That’s the reason I do it on the MP3 and you should feel free to do it yourself.

Most tricky timings will break themselves down into ones you can handle if you let them. The “feel” of the 7/4 timing in Money is that of taking a measure of four beats and then adding one of three. So feel free to count it out that way (“…one, two, three, four, one two three, one, two, three, four, one, two, three…”), if it helps to do so.

When you have the main bass riff under wraps, the “secondary” bass riff will be a breeze:

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

With the “secondary” riff, try to keep the notes crisp and short, what’s called “staccato” in the musical world. Here the bass line is echoing the rhythm of the sung lyrics and playing staccato helps to punch out the rhythm in a tricky part of the song for the singer.

The verses end with a four measure sequence that reorganizes two measures of 7/4 into one of 8/4 and one of 6/4 before going back to two measures of the main riff:

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

Again, I can’t stress enough the need to use swing eighths here. Hang onto the first F# (fourth fret of the D string) for two beats before playing the “descending power chord” formation. Lift off whatever finger you’re using to play the fourth fret to sound the open A string and then place it back to get the C# and F# (fourth fret of the A and D strings, respectively). You’ll find that your middle finger is free to get the F natural on the third fret of the D string, which sets you up to play the E note that starts the second measure with your index finger. That same middle finger can be used to play the G note (third fret of the E string).

And again, I can’t stress enough the importance of counting aloud if you’re having trouble. With a little bit of practice and effort, you’ll be able to handle a whole verse:

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

Money, as noted earlier, starts out with the introduction (repeated playing of the main riff), followed by two verses. The second verse is followed by a sax solo, also played in 7/4 time. It will be much like playing the verses, with the main riff getting the lion’s share of the solo. But at one point, the main riff is played in E minor for four measures instead of B minor. On the bass, such a transition is easily accomplished. First we want to take our main riff and turn it into a “closed” position riff. This means eliminating the use of any open strings. So, replacing the A of the open A string with the A note found at the fifth fret of the E and playing the D note at the fifth fret of the A string (instead of playing the open D string), our “closed” riff will look like this:

You can see there’s a bit of a stretch involved here, but I don’t want you to worry about that just yet. Instead, let’s relocate our riff up to the seventh fret, where you’ll find an E note on the A string. Now we can play our “main riff” as our new “Em7 bass riff (sax solo section)” in the following manner:

Because you’re much further up the neck, you should be able to use the suggested fingering in this example. “i” is “index finger, “r” is ring finger and “p” is pinky. With a little bit of practice, you should find this riff as easy to play as the main riff. Better yet, you only have to play this one four times the entire song.

After returning to the main riff, the sax solo section winds up with a playing of the “v – iv” riff follows by a switch to 4/4 time, ushered in by two measures containing nothing but triplets:

This may seem like a piece of cake, but it’s easy to let it take you by surprise Practice this transition slowly. It’s important for the bass player to be able to articulate these triplets cleanly and clearly, propelling the song forward from the “sax solo” section on to the “guitar solo” section.

And now that we’ve covered said “sax solo” section, let’s take a look and a listen to the sax solo section in its entirety:

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

Besides being in 4/4 time, the “guitar solo” section involves some cool sounding walking bass lines, complete with descending chromatic (half step) tones. After what you’ve been through, this won’t be hard. But it is important to play this section with staccato firmly in mind and to remember your swing eighth feel:

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

The guitar solo section, while in 4/4 time, uses the same count of measures as the sax solo section, broken up in pretty much the same way. It starts out with eight measures of the “Bm bass line.” Notice that the first measure is different from the other seven in that it starts out with a quarter note of B while the remaining measure use two eighth notes, played as swing eighths. You can get a nice effect by hammering on to the first B of the second (and following) measures from the open A string.

After our eight measures of the “Bm bass line,” we get four measures of the “Em bass line” followed by another four of the “Bm bass line.” Again, the first measure of the Bm will be different from the three after it.

The staccato feel is especially important in the final four measures of the “guitar solo section.” I like to occasionally change the fourth quarter note of the first measure (E at the second fret of the D string) to an eighth note of that E followed by an eighth note of the open E string, giving me a chance to hammer on the F# at the start of the second measure. That’s strictly artistic license.

The final descending line of the last two measures (the notes of which are played by the band in unison) leads to the “turnaround,” which is a repeated playing of four measures of the Bm bass line from earlier. This leads to two repetitions of the guitar solo section. The last time through this section, skip the “turnaround” and go right back to 7/4 time and the “main riff,” repeating it until the vocals start the last verse.

At the end of the third verse, Money returns once again to 4/4 time, with the bass simply repeating the B (second fret of the A string) and the note of the open D string over and over again while the song fades out. It’s almost anticlimactic after all the timing skills you’ve demonstrated up ’til that point.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this excursion into bass playing and that this lesson has helped you get a handle on your timing. Working through a difficult timing such as 7/4 can give you the confidence to tackle some of the more “workaday” rhythms you’ll encounter in most other songs. And switching from timing to timing, as you have here in Money is good practice whether you’re a beginner or intermediate player.

And, as always, please feel free to write in with any questions, comments and/or concerns. And if you’d like more bass lessons, let me know about that as well. I’m hoping to do two or three more in the next couple of months. You can either drop off a note at the Guitar Forums or email me directly at dhodgeguitar@aol.com.

Until our next lesson…

Peace

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!

**Note: for those of you already familiar with the basics of recording audio onto your computer, you can skip the “Essentials” section and head straight on down to “Shaping The Sound”.

Essentials

The first and most important thing is your setup. It’s worth mentioning at this point that much of what I go on to say is applicable to real hardware, but I’m assuming most of you are like me and can’t afford the real stuff ;). So put up with me if I babble like a nerd for a few minutes – it’s all important in the long run. There are a few things you really should have in order to successfully record live instruments onto your computer.

A fast CPU

Not so much essential as it is preferable, to keep things running nice and smooth. I’m running a 1600Mhz AthlonXP, but anything down to a PIII 500Mhz will be fine.

A decent soundcard

More specifically, an ASIO soundcard. I won’t get overly technical here, but basically, if you don’t have an ASIO soundcard, don’t worry; you will still be able to record live audio into your sequencer, but you won’t be able to hear the effects processing in real time. You will only hear it on playback. If you do have an ASIO soundcard, then providing your CPU is up to the job, you’ll be able to hear the input of your instrument, outputted almost instantly complete with EQ, effects etc. This is obviously the best way to work. While I’m on the subject, a decent ASIO soundcard will set you back around £/$120, but considering that for all intensive purposes this one card can outperform pretty much any piece of bass/guitar hardware…it’s a sound investment don’t you think?

Software

There is such a huge range of software available that it would be silly to try and cover it all here, but basically you need a sequencing package that supports direct monitoring. Examples of this are Steinberg’s Cubase SX (which I’m using), ProTools, Cakewalk Sonar, GuitarTracks (which I know alot of you use) and so on. You will also need ‘plug-ins‘, specifically dynamics and EQ plug-ins. This is just a fancy word for additional pieces of software that function like stomp boxes or FX units. Many if not all of the processes I will describe make use of various plug-ins. Thankfully there are many great free ones out there on the net. Check out www.directxfiles.com to get some! It will also help to have amp modeling software, but I’ll touch on that a little later on.

Getting Ready to Record

Right, so hopefully you’re adequately kitted out on the equipment front, you’ve got your Audio sequencing package all fired up, so how about we lay down some bass!

The most common first question is “Help! How do I get my bass into my soundcard – the plugs are different and stuff!!”. Well there are several ways to go about this but the most straightfoward is to have some sort of pre-amp which will allow you to plug your 1/4″ guitar lead jack into the front, and run the signal out of the back, into the phono sockets (or mini-jack line in) on your soundcard. Your pre-amp could be a dedicated one, or an effects unit (if you have one) set to bypass, as it will essentially function the same as a pre-amp.

Now your bass is connected to your PC… why isn’t it making a noise? Well depending on whether or not you’re using an ASIO soundcard the answer varies. If you’re using a bog standard soundcard, you need to go to the windows mixer (the little yellow speaker icon in the bottom right hand corner), un-mute your Line Input and make sure it’s turned up. All being well, you should hear sound straight away! Now, if you’re using an ASIO soundcard then you need to ensure two things.

1. That ASIO direct monitoring in your sequencer is off (if your sequencer has this option)
2. That you have created an audio channel in your sequencer, and it’s inputs are armed and ready for recording.

Hopefully you should be hearing something now. The first rule before recording is always be sure to get your levels – I usually give my bass a good hard twang, constantly adjusting the input level until the clip indicator disappears. This way, you know you have plenty of signal overhead. Clipping is hard, if not impossible to remove once it’s ‘printed’ to tape/hard drive, so best to fix it at the input stage before it becomes a problem.

Seeing how you’ll be spending a good deal of time with your hand on the mouse, it seems most practical to lay down a few bars of bass riff first rather than try to wrestle with playing and tweaking at the same time! For the purposes of this article I’ve played in a few bars of slap bass, along with some drums and guitar which are introduced a little later, to help place the bass sound within the context of a song.

Shaping The Sound

Needless to say the sound coming straight out of your bass is not a pretty one. It is probably quite boxy, the levels are uneven and it certainly wouldn’t sit well in the mix as it stands now. Chances are it sounds a little like this;

Click here to listen to the unprocessed bass sound:

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

Again, notice the boxy tone, as well as the uneveness of the levels, specifically where I hammer on during the last part of the bassline.

This is due to two things (three if you count my playing – but we won’t go there!)

1. You are not using a bass amp! Bass cabinets have the nice effect of rolling off alot of the more undesirable high frequencies, and accentuating the more pleasant lows. Most also feature a pretty decent EQ section for further adjusting the sound. When recording DI (direct input – no amp), pretty much everything gets through, including string rattle, the sound of your hand moving over the strings and so on. Which all makes for a rather nasty wooden sound.
2. You are not using any dynamics processing. Actually this is largely related to point number 1, in that most bass amps include some sort of compressor and/or limiter to regulate the signal. The output of a bass guitar is far less predictable and easy to manage than that of a regular guitar, especially when slapping or popping.

Thankfully there is a solution to both of these problems, so lets work on the second one, first – regulating your signal. Any dynamics processing should ideally come first in the signal chain.

Dynamics

There are two options here – you can either compress the signal, or limit it. A compressor works by constantly adjusting the input and reducing it by the ratio you define (see below) to keep the volume comfortably between the nominal and maximum range, preventing signal overload. So basically it has the effect of controlling the peak volume of any given signal, as well as adding sustain to a sound by keeping the volume more or less constant as the signal decays. But if used improperly, it can also have the effect of taking away all the true dynamics of your playing, in that there will be no distinction between soft and loud. A limiter works a little differently. It will retain the dynamics of your sound, but if the input signal exceeds a certain level, it lowers the volume thereby reducing any nasty clipping or distortion.

Which to use? Well that depends on the style of music you play. Hard rock basslines will benefit from compression, as this will emphasize the attack, raise the overall level and “punch-to-the-gut” factor of your sound, and will also greatly improve sustain. If however you’re more inclined towards more expressive forms of playing where you rely on the contrast between quiet and loud, then you’ll want to use a Limiter. It’s worth mentioning that a compressor can act as a limiter, but a limiter can never act as a compressor. So if you can’t lay your hands on limiter plug-in…don’t worry.

Most good compressor plug-ins will have the following controls:

Threshold – this is the level at which compression kicks in

Ratio – this is the amount of compression, given in ratios like, 5:1, 12:1 etc.

Attack – given in milliseconds, this determines how long the compressor waits before reducing the signal, to allow the attack to get through.

Release – how long will the input signal continue to be compressed after the initial attack. If you require a long sustained sound, you want a long release time. If you want it short and punchy… well you can guess how it goes.

Knee – not all compressors will have this, but it’s basically a way of controlling how long it takes for the compression effect to be introduced after the signal threshold is exceeded. Again, quick aggressive playing requires a low knee setting, whereas slower expressive playing requires a higher one.

Gain – compression lowers volume, so a gain control is required to bring it back up to a normalized level. Some compressors have an ‘auto-makeup-gain’ setting, which automatically compensates for the loss in volume.

So, to put all this into practice, say you wanted to even out the levels of a slap-bass line. You would call up your dynamics processor as an insert on the audio channel that contains your bass, set a ratio of something like 10:1, a fairly quick release time like 50ms, and an attack time of about 15ms. Knee, you could probably turn off altogether. You’ll want the threshold to be low enough to catch all your slapping, but high enough to preserve your quieter playing. Also the effect of compressing the signal will lower its output, so you’ll need to make up the gain that was lost during compression with the Gain setting. There are no exact figures for this set in stone – it’s just down to experimentation. Most good compressor plug-ins will give you a graphical representation of how your signal is being compressed, so you’ll be able to judge for yourself whether or not the threshold is too high or low, or the release is too long and so on.

Click here to listen to the same bassline with compression applied

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

This has fixed things somewhat – the overall level has been raised, and that hammer-on is far more audible than before.

Something to be wary of here is setting the attack time too low. Perhaps the loudest portion of your signal, will be the attack – that is the initial sound of your finger/thumb/pick striking the string. From personal experience I’ve found that setting the compressor plug-ins attack time to include this portion of the sound in the compression process causes some degree of clipping (and digital distortion is not pleasant to the ear like amp distortion). So for best results, never have your attack time set to 0ms as it tends to overload the compressor. In hardware this would simply result in over-compression, but software can often be a little less forgiving and has its own set of inherent flaws and artifacts to deal with.

**Note: if after all your efforts you’re still getting clipping, this means the signal has distorted on the way in to the sound card. See “Getting Ready to Record” for advice on checking your levels.

Equalization (EQ)

Hopefully, after messing around with your dynamics processing, you should have a more regulated, even sound. But it still doesn’t sound right. This is where EQ comes in. As ever, there is more than one way of EQ’ing a sound.

Parametric – basically a filter, Parametric EQ allows you to focus in on a specific frequency in a sound using the Frequency control, and either cut it or boost it using the Gain control. A good parametric EQ will also have a Q setting which is used to control to what extent raising or lowering any given frequency will affect the frequencies surrounding it.

Graphical Multiband – commonly found on the front of bass amps, in stomp-box form, and on the front of some old sketchy Hi-Fi systems, graphical EQ is used for more approximate shaping of the sound and has the advantage of giving you a graphical representation of the shape of your EQ curve. A basic 10 band graphic equalizer will allow you, for example, to boost at 400hz, but you may well be pulling up 300hz and 500hz too. The more bands you have, the more control you have.

Multiband Parametric – yep you guessed it, a combination of the previous two types. A multiband parametric EQ is more beneficial in the sense that you can control the extent to which cutting or boosting a frequency pulls the sidebands along with it. Each filter can have it’s own Q setting, allowing for far greater control of the sound.

So, again, how do we put all this into practice? Well perhaps the greatest tip given to me with regards to EQ’ing, is to think of all the frequencies in a sound as being musical notes. So for example, it’s more than likely that there is an underlying ‘tone’ to your bassline you recorded which sticks out and generally makes it sound bad, boxy, dull etc. What you want to do is identify the approximate pitch of this unwanted tone. Rather than aimlessly fiddling with the EQ until you roughly achieve the desired effect, set your Q setting to narrow (as narrow as it will go in fact) and boost it as high as you can. Use the frequency control to gradually sweep through the sound until eventually it will hit the offending frequency, or ‘note’ if you will, and make a rather loud jar-like sound. Now all you have to do is cut that frequency, and you’ll notice an instant improvement.

Click here to listen to the bassline with compression and EQ added

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

In my experience, I usually find cutting at 200-250Hz by about -8db really removes that horrible boxy tone and also helps cut down interference between the bass and the kick drum once it’s playing within the context of a song. A parametric filter set to low-shelf, boosting at around 100Hz by 3 to 4db will emphasize the extreme lows, especially if you’re a 5 string player. If you find your sound is degenerating into a mass of rumble and click, roll off some of the bass and apply a subtle boost with a wide Q setting at anywhere from 400-500Hz. This will add definition to the actual notes played. If you find some of the top end has mysteriously vanished, it can’t hurt to boost the high-mids with a wide Q by a few decibels, just to brighten things up. These aren’t ‘definitive’ figures here – just recommendations. You’ll soon find out what works and what doesn’t.

Amp Simulation

We could leave it there – your bass is hopefully sounding a heck of alot better now and would stand up quite well in a track. But it’s still lacking the warmth and character that makes up a good bass sound. And this warmth and character is usually only achievable if you possess a bass amp. If like me, you have unsympathetic neighbours and a wallet so empty it could float away in the breeze, then chances are you don’t have an amp. But don’t panic! What you need is amp/cabinet simulation software. Now alot of what I mentioned above is achievable through free software, and indeed chances are your sequencer will have dynamics and EQ built in as standard. Amp and Cabinet simulation however, comes with a price. Not a fortune mind you, but it will involve purchasing the software. I would highly recommend ReValver, at around $90 (there is a fully working demo version up for download). It has simulated pre-amps, EQ modules, modulation effects, and more importantly – power amps and speaker cabinets all the way up to 2×15″ and 1×18″. There’s not a great deal here to explain – you simply pick a speaker cabinet, and away you go.

But…this presents a few small problems as I have found out. The speaker simulations are in essence, a very complex series of parametric filters and other effects, such as distortion, all working in very precise manners to model the physical behaviour of a real speaker. What this means, is that all that hard work you did EQ’ing back there can, potentially, be ruined! The EQ that’s going on in the speaker simulation is conflicting with the frequencies you cut or boosted earlier on in the signal chain. Added to this, the speaker itself will no doubt possess its own inherently undesirable frequencies, as can be heard in the example file.

Click here to listen to the bassline with compression, EQ and Amp simulation

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

However, the solution to this is simple. Place equalization after the speaker simulation. Just use the same technique as described in shaping the raw bass sound, to cut out the offending frequencies and shape the sounds to your needs.

Click here to listen to the final processed sound, including post-speaker EQ

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

Editor’s Note: The difference between #4 and #5 is pretty subtle and hard to hear on a small PC speaker system, but go back and listen to #1 and you can hear the improvement clearly. -Dan

As for dynamics – personally, I find placing them post-speaker is a bad idea. The speaker simulation goes as far as to emulate the idle amp noise! Placing a compressor after your amp will in effect raise the volume of this noise, and you’ll end up having to resort to noise-gates and all other such malarky and then…well it just gets messy. So personally, I don’t do it. Ever. But heck you might get different results than me.

Anything else?

Yep. Just remember, if you’re using an active bass you’d be better off setting its built in EQ to flat. All that extra bass boosted by the active circuitry will pump the compressor needlessly and sap alot of the energy from your playing, and indeed the recording as a whole. It will also cause the compressor to kick in unpredictably, and it’s generally a bad idea.

Lastly, for best results try to keep things roughly in the following order: Dynamics -> EQ -> FX. Or, if you’re using speaker simulation: Dynamics -> EQ (to shape the bass sound) Speaker/Cabinet -> EQ (to shape the overall amp sound).

Well that just about wraps it up. All of the above is based on the assumption you’re using your computer to record, but as I said at the beginning, much of it is applicable to real situations with real hardware, with the exception of things like mic techniques of course – something I confess to having absolutely no knowledge of. Also as I’ve said throughout nothing here is definitive. I’m still learning new things by the day, but if even some of what I have learnt and described here comes in handy to you in your recordings or demos – well then that’s a good thing isn’t it? Happy Slapping!

Links

To help get you on your way here are some relevant links.

• www.db-audioware.com – home of Dave Browns excellent dynamics processing plug-ins
• www.waves.com – makers of the awesome Waves 4.0 plug-in pack, also used in the example mp3’s for EQ’ing

Introduction

Although the brands that are available to our American brethren do exist here in England, they are often prohibitively expensive, and can often suffer from dubious service and supply. Anyway, as it says on beef, Buy British. I couldn’t agree more.

Here, I shall discuss the relative merits of some of the more famous British amplifier manufacturers. I will not bore you with the technical details of everything, as I believe that Dan has done a sterling job in his article How to Buy a Bass Amp. For each amp, I will try to supply a few users of the equipment as a guide to listening for the tone of the given brand.

Trace Elliot (http://www.trace-elliot.co.uk/)

For many years, Trace Elliot was THE bass amplification manufacturer, heard on many recordings of every genre. The typical Trace tone is a rather nasal, clipped sound, slightly light on the bass, but full of good cutting tone to ensure that you are always heard in the mix. The TE sound is definitely love-hate, but also one of the cornerstones of British bass tone, just like Ampeg to the Americans.

The trace Elliot range spans from £90, 15W practice combos right up to kilowatt 12 band equalised heads, and even the V-type, a full valve amplified system, a rare beast in the modern market. The staple Trace Elliot equipment seen generally consists of 200-300W combos, often fitted with 1 x 15″ driver, and also the very cost effective and competitive AH150-7 and AH300-7 heads

The current limiting factor in the viability of Trace Elliot products is the financial state of the company. Having been recently bought by Gibson USA, the company is now in a somewhat vague state of being. Of course, this is a double edged sword for you, the customer. Shops will be wanting to move these amps quickly, but what if it goes wrong? Can you fix it yourself? If so, these amps could be the steal of the century right now. If not, you have a very big, green doorstop…

Notable Users

• Asian Dub Foundation
• Nicky Wire- Manic Street Preachers
• Steve Harris- Iron Maiden
• Tony Levin

Ashdown (http://www.ashdownmusic.co.uk/)

Formed as a break away project from Trace Elliot by former Production Director, Mark Gooday, Ashdown are rapidly developing a name for themselves in both the British and International markets. The amplifier feature a very distinctive look, the centre piece of which is the backlit VU input level meter used on the more expensive models. Many think the look to be kitsch and somewhat 50’s inspired, others believe them to be works of art.

The specification behind the Ashdown range is ‘True Bass Amplification’, exhibited most strongly in use of Sub Harmonisers in the higher end equipment. The effect is the same as that seen in an effects pedal- the signal is halved and blended back with the dry bass signal in whatever proportion is required. This adds grunt to low end work, and a full, rich tone to pieces played higher up the neck.

This all adds up to a thick, deep tone which is certain to shake the room. Care is required on the sub harmonics though- the amplifiers actually have such capacious low end that it is easy to get carried away and end up with nothing but squelchy, undefined rumble, especially on 5 and 6 string basses. The amplifiers are possibly not the best suited to fretless work either- they can lack subtlety in certain applications. Think of them as the TVR of amplification- big, British, ballsy and with distinctive styling, although grace is sometimes lacking.

The Ashdown range covers all pockets- from small 150W 12″ and 15″ combos, up to 900W heads, or even a separate pre-amp and power amp arrangement. A small practice amp range is in the pipeline. The equipment at first glance appears to be expensive, (a 300W, 1 x 10″ ABM series combo costs in the region of £6-700), but these are not just any old amp- they are designed to be truly unique. Customer service also second to none

Notable Users

• Nick Fyffe- Jamiroquai
• Adam Clayton- U2
• Mark King
• John Entwhistle
• Pino Palladino
• Damon Minchella- Ocean Colour Scene/ Paul Weller

Laney (http://www.laney.co.uk/)

Touting themselves as ‘Classic British Amplification’, Laney have been a player in the UK amp scene for as long as many can remember. There is a reason for this. Their products are good, solid performing units that will not the break the bank of a beginning player or someone looking for an amp to use at home. Hardware is subtle but good quality- for example, the majority of the range sports genuine Celestion speakers.

Admittedly, the equipment is not boutique. It is, however, reliable and serviceable. We would all like a Ferrari, but at the end of the day a Ford or a Vauxhall is the sensible option that does the job efficiently and with the minimum of fuss. Having owned a Laney many years ago, I can attest to this being the ethos that Laney amps are built to. And believe me, there is nothing more embarrassing than having your amp drop it’s output stage mid gig…

The Laney range spans from the ‘Hardcore’ series, featuring 15W practice amp right up to 120W combo amps with all the feature necessary to make a solid gigging amp, through to the ‘Richter’ series of heads, cabs and combos of up to 800W. This equipment is well suited to all styles, the tone being very neutral and versatile- playing a Laney is not like cranking up an SVT, where everyone with any idea about bass will know, but on the other side of the coin, this means that you are not shackled to one particular tone – the perfect workhorse amp for those on a budget.

Hughes and Kettner (http://www.hughes-and-kettner.com)

A relatively little known player in the market, German made Hughes and Kettner amps often do not command the respect that I believe they deserve. Their BassBase equipment provides a serious alternative to the big players- SWR, Ampeg, Trace Elliot etc, in a classy looking all round package. The BassForce series provides a range of smaller amps for those on a budget or who don’t feel the need to own a stack as big as they are, although a head and cab set up is available.

In all honesty, I do not have a lot of time on these amps- I have played a Bass Force XL in a shop, so it would be wrong of me to comment on longevity of the products. However, on the sound side they are bright and punchy, maybe slightly lacking in their own defining character, like the Laney, but remember, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Think of them as a blank canvas rather than the same old same old of SWR tone or Ampeg tone etc.

Orange (http://www.orange-amps.com/)

Orange are a founding rock of the British amp scene, having been started back in the 60’s out of the back of a shop in Denmark Street, London. Their amps were immediately revered for the tone that they delivered, and of course, the ‘groovy’ orange Tolex didn’t go amiss in the swinging 60’s… Their recent revival is due, in part, to their extensive use by the new wave of guitar bands- Oasis being one of the most visible proponents of their products.

Until recently, the range did not contain specific bass amps, rather the design amplifiers meant that they proved to be serviceable alternatives for both guitar bass players. These original models, notably the AD120 and the AD80, are now highly prized amplifiers, commanding large sums of money on the second hand market.

The new range of Orange products recreates the older units, but in a more robust, modern package. The bass unit is the AD200B, 200 watts of British valve power. Cost is prohibitive, but this is a purists amp- the kind of amp that it’s a shame to use effects on, believe me, these things sound sweet, even better than the AD80 that I owned for a (very) short time.

Of course, with this tone comes drawbacks. To achieve this smooth tone, Orange use 6 valves in the AD200B- 2 pre amp valves and 4 output stage valves. With this comes the mass of the extra transformer and the associated electronics, resulting in an all up weight of 24kg (quoted on the Orange web site). This means that if you lug equipment around a lot, this may not be the choice for you. Along with this, valves do not take kindly to being thrown into the back of a Transit van at 2am…

A further consideration that must always be considered in the purchase of a valve amp is the price of a re-valve. Power tubes do not last forever, so expect to be changing them every 2 years or so. Retubing a 4 valve output section, like the one in the AD200B, will stretch to approximately £200 with labour.

Notable Users/ Recommended Listening

• Oasis

Marshall (http://www.marshallamps.com/)

Last but not least, the big M: Marshall. The name that anyone recognises- watch any music programme and you can be guaranteed that half of the guitar amps will have that all too familiar lettering style across them. Marshall, although being a manufacturer of both guitar and bass amps, have never seemed to command the same position in the bass amplification market as they do in the 6 string world.

The Marshall range begins with the low end BassState equipment- the bass equivalent of their Valve State guitar amps. The range includes 30W, 65W and 150W combo amps. The higher end B150 contains a blendable valve in the input stage for a smother tone.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I play a Marshall JTM60 guitar amp, which I LOVE, but the BassState bass amps just don’t cut it as far as I am concerned. The tone lacks grunt compared to other manufacturers, and I believe that in the price to features stakes, Marshall are resting on their laurels, or on that aforementioned typeface. The amps are good, true enough, but others are better. I would swap a Marshall for an equivalently priced Trace Elliot any time.

For those of you with roadies (and the kind of money to pay them…) Marshall also make the VBA range, a full valve bass system consisting of a 400W head and matching cabinets. I’ve never even seen one in the flesh, as such,- due to their cost most shops will not stock them. Remember also, the VBA sports 12 (yes, 12!) valves, 8 of which are in the power stage. This is big bucks to retube…

What do I use?

So, at the end of this very brief overview of manufacturers that we Europeans have at favourable price to the Americans, what is my verdict? Well, I’ve played amps from all of these manufacturers, but the one that got my money (all £1k+ of it) was the Ashdown. An ABM500RC with a BP1510 cab in fact. This, of course, doesn’t mean that this is correct for everyone- as I said, the Ashdown is the big hitter of the bunch, but it can lack in subtlety.

I have a friend who plays a 1980 American Jazz into an AD120 and Marshall 4 x 10″ cab, compared to my Hotrodded Jazz into the Ashdown. The tone is incredibly different, polar opposites in fact, in rigs of approximately the same theoretical value. There is no way I would swap with him, and I think he’d rather die than play my brash, modern amp.

Choice of the amp many also depend on what bass you personally play. I play fretless occasionally (I like the E-Z rollers), but I find the tone of my Ashdown swamps the natural sound of a fretless. My amp of choice for this is a 1971 Selmer Reverb 100 all valve PA head into a Trace Elliot 1048 4 x 10″ cab. No balls, but a beautiful, sweet, singing tone.

In short, get out there and try some. What I consider to be a bad tone may be your sonic Nirvana. You’ve got to live with it, not me. Unless you live next door to me, that is…

About the Author

Steve Smith has been playing bass and guitar for 10 years now, his current band being the Sheffield based group “Fineline”. Previous projects include ‘Hasselhoff’, a fairly ridiculous Derby based 3 piece playing music inspired by that aging lothario and general Knightrider stud, David Hasselhoff., and some small session work pieces for local universities. If you would like to get in touch with me, head for www.activebass.com, and look for the most pointless, banal conversation you can find. I will be there.

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.

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.

Recently, David wrote about Riders on the Storm. In this column, I will present that song as well as another bass classic Radar Love. Both of these are road songs (well sort of) that depend on the bass providing the foundation for the song. Both basslines employ a lot of open strings, which I have encouraged you to avoid. However, these songs are good examples to show you what to watch out for, and how to use the open strings to your advantage. There are very few notes (3 and 5), but the timing and drive needed make these songs challenging. While there are many similarities, there are also several differences.

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 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!

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…

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!

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;

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).

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

By the way, this happened to me again this past summer: link.

Even though I was the host, the only sheet music I had was for Only the Good Die Young, which was the only song I practiced (think about it), so I didn’t need it.

If you play bass, you’re often stuck with no music or other clues as to what to play. In addition to listening carefully, there are a few important tricks to learn. I hope to teach you as many as I can.

The first two are the Box and the Walk. These two “tools” will allow you to get off the chord-root without too much risk.

The Box

The “Box” is possibly the best invention for all guitarists. It is defined by two frets, spaced two apart, and crosses all 4 strings. Here is a an example of the Box in the key of C – you’ll note that the Box forms on the 3rd and 5th:

So for the key of C, the box contains C, D, F, G, A, Bb, which are all the important notes except the 3rd. But that’s OK, as it means that it will work for most variations of either major or minor chords. Also notice that the C (root) and G (fifth) are in the box twice – this is good! Without diving too deeply into the theory (although I encourage you to learn it soon), the fifth is the note that (almost) never changes, and is (almost) never left out. So it makes sense that the fifth also sounds good when you play it. By the way, as with anything that is very safe, relying on the fifths can also become boring.

As I hinted at in a previous article, the Box is also the basis for power chords on the 6-string. Looking above, the G-D-G is the bottom of a “first form” G-chord, and the G-C-G-C, is the bottom of the “fourth form” C-chord. In many power chord rock songs, the 3rds are left out, and so the notes in the Box are all you ever need. However, thirds are important, and we’ll discuss them more in the future.

Not to oversimplify, but by placing your index finger over the 3rd fret, and your ring finger over the 5th fret, you can move very quickly between these notes. You can use hammer-ons and pull-offs to help you go even faster.

Disclaimer: The following charts are the work of the author and are intended for educational purposes only. Besides, most of this is older than dirt, and so is public domain.

So here is a simple example of a bass pattern that works for lots of Eagles-type folk ballads (and polkas too!):

So without ever moving your hands up the neck, you can play 80% of the Rock and Roll ever written (most of it being I-IV-V). Try just noodling around on all the variations you can think of, never leaving the box. For different keys, you just move the box up or down the neck.

Also, you can place the root of the song on the E-string (G above), and it will work just as well, just remember that the Bb may not work – but it might, it’s the minor 3rd!

Actually, the root can go almost anywhere in the Box, depending on how the song is built. There are many I-VII-IV songs (Sweet Home Alabama, Takin’ Care of Business), where it might be best to put the root under your ring finger on the D-string (G above, the song would be G-F-C). Again, the usefulness of the Box is that it allows you to make chord changes safely and quickly. You still have to think about what you’re doing, but you’ll always be able to get from I to IV with a little flair.

Here is the bass-line for the Eagles Already Gone which uses just about all of the box. Note the octave jump in the G-chord.

Some songs with more chords can be broken into two boxes placed on different frets. Other songs just don’t fit in the box – All Along the Watchtower for example (Am – G – F – G).

Here is an interesting discussion. As shown above, if you use the box, the transitions will usually involve the 2nd, or 7th. However, many feel that the 3rd is much better as a transition note. To quote David Hodge directly:

“Using the third to go from I to IV makes sense from a theory standpoint, mostly because the 3rd is the 7th of IV. The half step makes for an almost magnetic leading tone. There’s no doubt as to where you’re going. You just get kind of sucked into the IV. It’s similar to the logic as to why E (or ideally E7) to Am is a “stronger” progression than Em to Am.

But when it comes to “rock ‘n roll” these kind of subtleties tend to get tossed out the window.”

Which is all well and good, but most of the sheet music I read uses the 2nd or 7th, staying in the Box!

Note: the common way to differentiate between the “note” and the “chord” is that notes are named using the ordinal number (3rd, 6th), while chords are named using roman numerals (I, III, VI). Some folk use lower case roman for minors (iii = IIIminor). The chord is usually defined with respect to the key of the song (unless you’re like David, who likes to say that VII is the IV of the IV), while the note is relative to the specific chord.

Taking a Walk:

“The longest Journey begins with just one step…” very old proverb.

Most of you should know your scales, (see Scales Within Scales, etc) but let me review them as how they are placed on the bass. All we need to do is add the 3rd and the 6th to the Box. Remember that most rock music uses the dominant 7th, not the major 7th. But remember to use the major-7th if it is explicitly called out. For the key of C:

In this case, you want your middle finger on the 3rd fret, with your index on the 2nd and your pinky on the 5th. Notice I didn’t add the lower 7th or 4th, because they are hard to reach in this hand position.

Before we go for a walk, I know that a I-IV-V blues walk works best if started on the E-string, so that we can keep walking up from the IV. This could be done in C on the 8th fret as well, but let’s do it in the key of G:

To be accurate, a “walk” is any melodic sequence that is played continuously, usually at a steady cadence on the beat. There are jazz walks and minor walks, and others that just seem to fit the song. Below is a typical walk, with a little flair thrown in at the chord change. Technically, this is called a “Blues Walk”, as it is found in most 12-bar and 16-bar I-IV-V songs, which are called “Blues” no matter what the lyrics or tempo. Here we go:

As you can see, your fingers can fall into the pattern very easily. You might be tempted to use the open strings for the D and upper G. This is fine, but it’s important to teach your fingers the patterns without using the bridge (middle, index, pinky, index, etc). That way, you can play in any key. Also, you may find that you want to slide your hand up 2 frets to play the D-chord (the V, not shown), keeping the same hand position and finger pattern. An incredible number of songs can be played using variations of this walk.

That’s enough for now, you need to review, absorb, practice, and convert all of the above into your own perspective. There should be a few “Ah-ha!” moments, as well as some “Say what?” puzzles.

There are two other “tricks” that I want to mention, and since they don’t require a lot of words (but they do require practice!), I’ll outline them here.

First, learn how to read the chords from the shape and position of the rhythm guitarist’s hands. This is not a joke; I can’t play a 6-string, but I can tell a new student exactly how their hand position is wrong. If you already know how to play a 6-string, you’ve got a head start, but you still need to practice looking at those hand positions backwards. This is how you learn those songs that everyone else already knows. As I’ve discussed before, when you’re performing, it’s important to be in sync with the drummer. But when you’re learning, you need to work with the rhythm guitarist.

Second, read the bass clef of piano charts to learn specific songs. While the treble clef transcriptions are often bastardized in order to combine the chords, vocal melody, and piano melody, the bass clef usually is an accurate transcription of the bass guitar part, or at least a very good place to start.

Next time, I’ll go over some other walks and transitions, including minor chords and keys, and discuss how to create your own bass line in the process. In the mean time, I’ll be glad to receive your questions.

If you haven’t done so yet, stop now and read David Hodge’s column: Keeping up with the Times.

These files are the author’s own work and represents his interpretation of the song. It is intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

The Standards

There are several standard rhythms that you should know. Here are some that you should practice. With each I have detailed a song that is an easy example of this:

A) Straight-4 and Straight 8: Most blues walks and fast rockers. Can be played at amost any tempo. Usually very few stutters.

B) Simple Swing: Slow rock ballads or fast boogies:

C) “…and one…” Thumping ballads. Precede beat 1 and 3 with a 8th note:

D) “one and…” Moderate rockers and others Beats 1 and 3 are eighth notes followed by dotted quarter notes. Sometimes beats one and three are also preceded by an eighth note:

Running Laps

While I am not a big fan of repetitive drills, it is still important to spend time practicing how to keep time, as well as to practice some of the standard rhythms. Here are some of the best drills I have encountered:

1. Play along with a tape and have a friend turn down the volume while you keep playing. When they turn it back up, are you still in time? You can do this with a metronome as well, and my friend Roy does it just clapping with the beat (sans guitar). He tests himself on how long he can go before he loses track. Do this at several different speeds.
2. Use a metronome set at half speed, and count the clicks as beats 2 and 4 (the snare beats). You have to create beats 1 and 3 in your head. This requires that you focus closely on the timing. Again, try this exercise both fast and slow.
3. Play with a rhythm guitarist who can mess around with many different rhythms and styles. Agree to a set chord progression. While you keep the main bass line running, anything is fair game to the guitarist, including syncopation and dropped beats. Your job is to provide a steady bottom line, no matter what he does. You are the rock while he flits between paper and scissors and paper. This can be a lot of fun for both of you and really helps sharpen your rhythm skills but also your ability to communicate with your fellow musicians as well. This is an invaluable tool when playing with others, whether they are band mates or people with whom you occasionally jam.

Divide and Conquer

When you are in the process of learning a new song, or walk, or riff, you should focus first on the notes and how you are going to finger them. It is very hard to keep time if you don’t know what note you want to play next. Start out slow, work through the rough spots, and then play it faster, faster than you will want to play live.

After you have a good handle on the song, then you can focus on the rhythm and timing. What is the style of the song? What bass rhythm are you going to choose to compliment that style? Is it fast or slow or in-between? Does the bass-line contribute to the melody, or does it support the song’s chord or riff structure?

What is the drummer doing? The rhythm guitarist? Has the lead guitarist settled on any melodies or sequences that you can compliment?

Some songs have a really steady bass-line, with a few busy riffs (arpeggio is such a long word!) tossed in. On caution here: you can start the song too fast, playing a straight-4, and get tangled up because you can’t play the riff at that tempo. Other songs are so busy that you get physically tired trying to hit all the notes on time and in style.

It is important to spend this time learning and listening and “building” your bass-line. Your bass playing can set the mood for the entire song. I’ll discuss the melody aspects next time.

Off You Go

As with many things, keeping time is easy to explain, and easy for an expert to demonstrate, but hard to actually do. It is a skill that requires constant care and attention since there are many factors that affect one’s ability to keep time. For myself, I know that I pay more attention to how the entire band is playing – orchestrating and arranging – than I do worrying about my own time-keeping. Usually I can rely on the drummer to keep time, but sometimes when I play with students, I realize that my time keeping isn’t always as strong as it should be. That’s why I still work on it, even after all this time.

As always, the best path to getting better is to play. Play with others, play alone, play in your head. But don’t just play for fun; focus on playing better. Pick a song to practice one aspect of your playing that you want to improve. Recognize when you are playing well and when you are not. Compliment yourself (no one else may notice) or kick yourself (everyone will have noticed!) depending on how well you do, but don’t play with a “don’t care” attitude.

After a while, keeping time may become a natural, instinctive, ability, and you can worry less about it. When that happens, you will be well on your way to becoming a solid bass player.

Next Time

Transitions – How to get from here to there and back again.

Feel free to email me with comments or questions. Your input will help steer the way I proceed.

It sometimes seems that no one else besides you wants to play the bass. Bass players are often perceived to be less important than the vocalist, drummer, and lead guitarist. We once opened for a southern rock band that had several guitarists, and I could tell that the bass player used to be a lead guitarist. He had been “demoted” to bass because the original musician had left the band. I could tell by the way he held the guitar, by the shape of his hands, and by his attitude, that bass was not his true calling.

In reality, a bass player has to have an entirely different attitude about the music. A bass player doesn’t have to be flashy or loud, but a band can not survive very long with a weak bass. Bass players have to be stable, since they build the rhythm “foundation” of each song. The bass player and drummer will determine whether your band is mediocre, good, or great. The other musicians will determine if your band is creative, fun, energetic, or talented.

Remember: while it is typical for a band to have at least 2 6-string guitars, and as many as 4 or more, and while you will see quite a few bands that have two keyboardists or even two drummers (or a drummer and several percussion players), it is extremely rare for a band to have more than one bass player.

Getting Started

Recently, there have been more books and other guides for bass players, but they seem to take a long time to get to the real goal, playing in a band. Often the bass line is not charted anywhere and you’ll have to make it up as you go along. I hope my future notes will help you become prepared to play with your band as quickly as possible. Whenever you listen to music, try to pick out the bass line. Play it in your head, in whatever key you want. You can be the first air-bass guitarist on your block!

Another problem with the bass is that it is hard to practice. As a beginner, it may be difficult to create enough notes to make a song. Be patient and remember that you only have to play one note at a time. If you have a good ear, you can practice with recorded music, but it is often too fast, or not in the same key as is written. When you can, practice with a rhythm guitarist, who can give you the “musical environment” needed to learn a new song.

A Bass is not two-thirds of a 6-string guitar:

The bass is a totally different instrument. You should recognize the important similarities, but don’t get caught up trying to correlate the two. The 6-string guitar is played using hand shapes and forms, followed by scales and keys. The bass is more about patterns and relationships between the notes (followed by scales and keys). For example: if the music calls for a C-chord, and you play a C (3rd fret, A-string), all of the important notes are close by. The lower 5th (G) is right next to the C on the E-string, the upper 5th (G) is just 2 frets up on the D-string, and the octave C is right next to that on the G-string.

This relationship holds for all chords on all strings: The upper 5th is 2-up one string over, the octave is 2-up, two strings over, and the lower 5th is same fret one string lower. Here it is again in C:

And here it is if you tried it in Eb (Eb is the 6th fret on the A string):

Now obviously, if you’re playing a low G-chord (3rd fret E-string), then you can’t play the lower 5th, and if you play a higher G (5th fret D-string) then you can’t play the octave. So a simple way to decide which G to play, is whether you want to go up or down from the root.

Note, if you play G (E-3), C (A-3), G (D-5), and C (G-5) all at once, you have the bottom of the 6-string guitar’s “4th form C bar-chord”. Many guitarists know all of the chords and forms, but don’t understand the notes and theory that is contained under their fingers.

While the 6-string guitarists hand often changes shape, the bass player’s fretting hand is almost always in the same position, covering one fret per finger. Some people may have trouble with the wide fret spacing at the top of the neck, but you can adjust. You can almost always play an entire song without moving your hand at all – but it’s more fun when you do!

The important part of all of this is that the bass player almost never cares what key you’re playing in. You can almost always slide up the neck, or over one string, and all of the relationships will remain the same. There are some cases where a change of key can really mess up some fancy melody or a sophisticated slapping thing that needs to use open strings, but in general, you can make it work.

Unlike the 6-string, there is no anomalous tuning of the strings, they are always tuned in fourths (a 6-string has a 3rd between the G and B strings). In fact, most 5 and 6 string basses stick with the 4th tuning, adding either a B on the low end, or a C and possibly and F on the high side.

Rhythm

The bass is always considered part of the rhythm section, along with the drums and rhythm guitar. Together, their main job is to keep time and to set the style of the song. Sometimes, the rhythm guitarist is playing counter-beat, and the drummer is counting a straight four, and it comes down to the bass player to set the style. Rhythms can be boring, even fast ones. Be careful that you don’t lose your concentration and get sloppy. When you get good, the simplest bass-line can drive the entire song, eg “Radar Love”. I will go over several rhythm types in the future.

Until Next Time

Your homework for now is to listen to all the music around you. Notice the different style of bass playing. Listen to rock, ballads, jazz, R&B, everything. Pick out songs that you like, and see if you are hooked by the bass line.

Next: Read David Hodge’s columns on how to play the guitar, especially the section on rhythm, Keeping Up With The Times. Much of what he teaches is valid for the bass and, for that matter, any instrument that you play.

My next article will assume the following:

• You can read piano music (notes and time). Tab is nice, but it isn’t as common for the bass, and theory stuff is easier to describe on standard staffs.
• You know how to tune your bass guitar.
• You know (or can figure out) where each note is on the different strings.

Feel free to email me with comments or questions. Your input will help steer the way I proceed.