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Post subject: The bass
Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 3:47 pm
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Alright, so I'm a decently experienced guitar player, and I have played for about 5 years (I'm only 14). I'm in a band with three of my best friends. The singer has great vocals and plays guitar, but isn't quite as experienced as I am. The drummer is very good. But the bassist isn't very good at all. For the first couple months of our band playing, we had no bassist but knew we needed one. Then one of my friends decided to get a bass so he could complete our band, but over the past few months he hasn't practiced much or taken any initiative to learn and play the bass. We are currently looking for a new bassist, but with 6 upcoming gigs this month, we know we need to keep him for now. We are playing a couple of our originals this Friday at a gig, but we currently don't have any bass parts for them. He is coming over on Thursday so I can teach him his parts of the gig, but currently I don't have any. In the past he has literally played the bass notes of the chords and riffs I play, but there's obviously more to that. Can anyone explain to me how I could come up with a good bass part for him, or recommend any vids for how to do so? Your replies would be very helpful. Thanks!


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Post subject: Re: The bass
Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 6:10 pm
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Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2011 5:27 am
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Bassists man.. They are ALWAYS a pain in the arse. Had a similar problem. Currently we are searching for a bass player and me and the other guitar player are taking turns playing bass, just so we've got it covered.
Anyway, what I recommend is you making up a couple of riffs using only E, A, D (and possibly also G) strings, so just the strings that are on the bass as well, that go well with the rest of the song, fit in nicely with your guitar playing and all, and he could play those riffs - so basically just go about it the same way as you'd go for creating guitar parts, add riffs where you think it's necessary (or fits), and let him play roots where it suits the rest of the song. You could also make the bass player hit some same notes as you do (for instance, when you're playing arpeggios or some sort of a riff), not necessarily all of them - but some, it can add a good sound to it in the end. But doing this, the two of you will really have to click and be tight. Due to what you mentioned, this might be a problem.

All in all I'd say he should just play the roots of the chords until he gets better. It's way better to go about it in this way, instead of him playing some cool riffs that are supposed to fulfill your riffs or vocal lines, or whatever, and failing miserably while doing it. If he hasn't got rhythm and doesn't practice, I don't think you'll be able to teach him anything else but roots and playing them in time.

I've been in your shoes, not a good place to be at :roll: Playing aside, such bassists are also highly unreliable. We were invited by the mayor's office to play on an official municipality-wide celebration of a very important event for our nation that occurred in WW II, and the guy told me he thought we'd play in the evening hours and that he has to work, otherwise a whole company (employing some 30 people) would get closed (and he was 18 and at the bottom of the food chain in that company and was always late to practice because apparently his whole company depended on him :roll: ). He didn't even make it to the tone check. Barely got his behind to actually play (while he was dressed highly inappropriate for a gala event like this, might I add) and a lot of the time he wasn't either in time or in tune (or both). Needless to say, he didn't play with us again. About 3 months after that gig (while never showing up for practice at all, nor saying he'd be late or couldn't come), while me and the other guitarist already were exchanging the bass duties over a couple of gigs and were actively searching for a new bassist, he informed us he couldn't play with us anymore :lol: The funniest bit is that he said he'd get his gear as soon as he has the time (and he lives like 100m from our studio where we practice). Half a year later - his gear is still here :lol:
I tried teaching that bassist a lot. Heck, I learned most of the bass tracks of the songs we played already with our previous bassist while teaching this new guy those bass tracks. He lasted 3 months, was always late and never practiced enough at home.
So, based on my experience, I reckon you've put a lot of hard work into this guy, but believe me - the sooner he goes, the better. If your singer can't play guitar too well - he should try out bass. It's easier :lol: Besides, it might suit him better and he could quite possibly be way better at playing bass than at playing guitar.

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Post subject: Re: The bass
Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 7:45 pm
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Wow... Your are we talking about the same bass player? :lol: Luckily he has played in the school band for a while and currently plays the trumpet for his high school, so timing isn't really a problem. But anyways I came up with some cool bass riffs using my ocataver and they sound pretty cool. I was actually pretty happy with them until I realized that he probably won't be able to play them. I never mentioned this earlier but it is really funny because his name is Bass (like the fish. Short for Sebastian btw) but anyways it's always really funny to joke about. When I said my guitarist isn't as experienced as I am, I didn't mean he was kinda bad. He is actually pretty good and has only played about a half a year less than I have.


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Post subject: Re: The bass
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2014 3:06 am
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Hahah, that is funny :lol:
Ah yeah, it was like 3 am or something for me while I was writing this post.. So I might have misread that about the singer. Hope there's more bassists where you live than here. They are almost an extinct species here :(

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Post subject: Re: The bass
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2014 3:36 pm
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Don't be mean about bass players - I used to consider myself one.
If he plays trumpet and is good at that then he just needs to dig the bass and pull his weight. Make him come up with some of his own bass lines - he may just need to feel he's an important part of your band.


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