Missed edit window:
You know, it’s like in drumming. You give a drummer a simple beat: eighth note high hats, snare on two and four, and kicks on one, two-and, and three. Some drummers will sound stiff and mechanical playing that, others will make it groove. That’s what I’m looking for. It has nothing to do with complexity, all to do with feel. Listen to Bonham in “Kashmir” or the drums (I think Gilson Lavis) in Squeeze’s “Tempted.” Mind-numbingly simple drum parts, but they make them sing.
All the above. I find it a lot easier to be a decent keyboard or guitar player than bass player. I have a bass and I know how to use it, but when I get together with other musicians, it’s not what they want me to do! Not unless there’s no real bass player around, and then I’ll do. Even then I’m often better on keyboard left-hand bass, but it’s way more fun to play an actual electric bass.
It’s finger magic. You either have it or you don’t! I don’t. 
(Not to say that you can’t learn it, or that I couldn’t, with 10K hours of practice.)
I just read this old blog post from Clark Colborn the other day, and it’s so perfectly appropriate to this thread:
Top 10 Reasons Your Efforts to Find a Band via Craigslist are Failing
First response: Huh, didn’t know Geddy was freelancing these days.
Second response: I (nearly) quote Geddy Lee on the ‘Exit…Stage Left’ video: “It’s important to have those chops and be able to play those notes…but what’s most important is the feel of the music.”
I’m pretty sure that ad is a joke. They pop up once in a while and are awfully entertaining. I’d like to think that anyway.
Once, as a sarcastic joke, I said to a bassist/ guitarist friend, “Well, sure, anyone can play bass.” He said to me, “anyone CAN play bass, but not everyone is a bass player.” I liked that so much that I had it printed, framed and hung it in my teaching studio.
I’m not a flashy bass player. I’d like to be, but there’s seldom any call for it. There’s much more demand for someone who can make a meal out of just playing a solid groove all night. I’m perfectly happy to play root- five two beat all day if that’s what’s needed. I’ve been able to parlay that into a full time career of playing and teaching bass.
Well, I guess that’s the crux. Where’s the nexus of the person who can be happy playing that root-five beat most of the time, and move into more (say, a beautiful walking part) when it’s necessary? As a bass player, that is almost the definition of the artistic conundrum we’re faced with. I think I easily can teach you where to hit the pocket, and sit there with a few fills if you don’t want to venture out. That really would just take an afternoon or so if you were already a competent guitarist. To be actually good, you will have to play with a drummer, and get as much feel for the beat as you can.
IMHO, To be great in rock, you’ve got to morph those walking parts and fills into something else entirely. As an instructor, who’s probably more advanced than I, where do you think the line from workingman/competent/good/great is crossed?
Hmmm. Good question. As an instructor, I can get someone up to competent/good, but becoming great comes from within, I think. As long as I can supply the right information and get them to actually accept it and use it, I’m giving them the raw material to become a better player. (If I knew how to be great, I’d do it myself!
)
Coming from the perspective of the the bands I play in, I think that having the actual opportunity to play more interesting bass is a factor to becoming a player recognized as great. Most of my work is backing someone else up. If I played fancier parts, I’d get the stinkeye from someone. Example: Michael Anthony from Van Halen and Chickenfoot. In Van Halen, he played very simple parts- mostly pumping eighth or sixteenth notes. Even a sixteen year old can do that. (Amirite?) But he plays much more interesting parts in Chickenfoot because he’s not backing up egomaniacs.
I do get frustrated sometimes because I seldom have the opportunity to play interesting parts. My own fault, perhaps. It’s hard to be interesting as a musician while playing walking quarter notes. However, I do get compliments on my command of groove and feel. I guess that’s good enough.
See, as someone who is not a bassist but (in a past life) played with gigging and recording bands, that’s what stands out to me. There’s some bassists that could make straight eighth notes groove and other bassists that make it sound like a guitar player trying to play bass, if that makes any sense. (There’s just something about most guitar players when they pick up bass that make it sound a bit, I dunno, stiff and dead to my ears. A good bass player makes me tap my foot and shake my ass.)
Actually, no. I can’t listen to the latest Van Halen record for more than thirty seconds at a time, precisely because the bass parts sound so amateurish and forced. It literally sounds like the kid’s concentrating on hitting each note just right, with no sense of groove or timing that Mike Anthony used to perform effortlessly. It’s the worst lineup choice Van Halen ever made – and that includes Gary Cherone!
It sounds like an American trying to sound like a Brit. You don’t pluralise “mate” like that; you can’t just swap it out for “guys”. “I was hanging out with me mates”, sure, “Billy No-Mates”, fine, but if you’re addressing someone as mate it’s not pluralised. It should be “thanks, fellas”.
This is the one I saw passed around. I wonder if they’re related?
Bass player available for PAYING GIGS ONLY. I play G, C, D. If your songs are not in G, please transpose them into G. If your song has an Em or Bm or anything off the wall I will probably sit out that chord. Or I could learn those notes for $30 each. If you want me to do fancy stuff like go back and forth between G and D while you hold a G chord, forget it because I’m a “pocket” player. Minimum $100 per gig within a 5 mile radius of 39202. $5 per mile travel charge for other areas out of town. Please make sure your gigs are on a JATRAN bus route, or you can pick me up at my place. Must be home by 11pm due to previous legal hassles. No gigs within 500 yards of schools, parks, or playgrounds.
Pulykamell said:
It’s a pretty intangible thing. I’ve been trying to think of a way to explain that particular aspect. Maybe it’s note length. New players tend to just end their notes wherever. Experienced players end their notes in rhythm as well as starting them in rhythm. If you hit the note on beat one and end it on beat two right when the drummer hits the snare, it tightens the whole thing up. If there’s no drummer, ending the notes in that same rhythm will give the same effect.
Buddha David said:
I agree completely. As I said earlier: “anyone CAN play bass, but not everyone is a bass player.”
I think that’s part of it. I’ve thought about it a lot, and there’s a whole mess of things that go into it. Note length is part of it. Another is consistency of attack–it comes across as a certain “confidence” in playing. There are also usually variations in dynamics, like whether you subtly accent the first or second note in a pair of notes, or play them consistently at the same level. You get totally different feels this way, but to have it really sing it needs to be well controlled dynamically. The accents need to be at a fairly consistent level, and the unaccented notes the same. So it takes that level of control. Plus, getting back to note length is phrasing. You might want to ease off a note early or hold it through its full duration depending on the musical phrase. Also, you might want to slightly vary the timing, giving it a subtle swing. There’s so many little things that go into playing a simple bass walk that you give the same simple walk pattern to five bassists of various skill levels and, even though all of them have the technical ability to play it, you should be able to hear a wide range of differences. I notice this most obviously with drummers. I can tell a good drummer a mile away from hearing them play the most basic 4/4 rock pattern from the way they phrase, accent, and control their dynamics.
And this all applies to any instrument, from guitar to keys to drums to bass. Just because a part is simple to play technically, does not make it simple to play musically.