As WordMan has noted, blues playing, especially bass, isn’t particularly noticeable. You’re more likely to notice if a band has a bad bass player than if they have a good one. At least that’s my take.
As a bass player who knows enough to be dangerous in conversations about music (10% correct and 90% bullshit) my role models come from the funk, pop-jazz, and rock genres. When I think “blues” my mind goes to the most expressive artists in that genre - vocalists and guitarists. Now in rock, I definitely can identify players of every instrument that have proficiency, feel, and virtuosity.
I also agree that I find it hard to talk about music. I know more than most casual listeners do, but far less than real musicians. And I totally study musicians at shows. It can kind of ruin the fanboy in me when I’m spending the time watching what Johnny Marr does with his left hand, or Graham Coxon’s effects pedals.
I have played and have known many musicians. Every one I have ever known have been able to rattle a dozen names of the musicians who have influenced them.
I know a great hard rock guitarist and he can name so many, but he will bend my ear talking about the great country-music guitarists he is being influenced by. But that’s not unusual. I remember an interview with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. He was saying how he loved listening to old, simple blues for enjoyment, although the music he wrote was anything but.
I listen to music constantly. CONSTANTLY. But when I go a show, I’m usually focused on the guitar player, since that’s what I play. I’m watching his hands, seeing how his chords changes get executed, seeing exactly where certain riffs are played, etc. I already know the song, and enjoy it, so 90% of my concentration is on the technical aspect of his playing as I try and pick up tricks and techniques.
I’ve had more than one friend comment about it afterward, but that’s what I like to do at concerts. I am enjoying myself, and enjoying the music (and show), but I really like being able to get close and just watch how someone uses the fretboard and strings.
This. My only “playing live” these days (well, for most of the last 16 years) is on Sunday mornings with my church’s worship team, where I’m the bass player. We have a huge repertoire, but I honestly have never even heard the original versions of 99.9% of the songs we do and couldn’t begin to tell you who the original artists were. The leader/pianist presents the songs to us, sometimes with sheet music but most often just a lyric sheet with chords penciled in, and the rest of us just play what seems to fit with what the pianist is playing and singing — and much of the time, what she’s playing isn’t how the original artist played it, it’s her own interpretation. On those rare occasions when I do finally happen to hear the original version of one of these songs, my initial thought is usually, “Wow, that’s boring, compared to our version.” Of course, our style of putting these songs together is helped by the fact that the pianist, the trumpet player, the two synth players who take turns, and I have played together for that whole 16 years and we “read” each other very well.
I’ll note that from my perspective as a bass player, every blues song sounds exactly the same (i.e. a guitar solo bookended by some lyrics), so playing blues bass is a pretty mindless task. As long as I can count 1-2-3-4 and keep doing that with a steady meter, hey, I can be a blues bassist. (Note: I’m only half-serious about the “every blues song sounds exactly the same” bit. I just know that when I’ve gone to blues shows, I can really appreciate the guitar playing, but by the second set I find myself asking, “didn’t they play this one already?”)
Exactly. The worship team pianist I mentioned above (who is classically trained) has told me that when she listens to the recordings of songs she wants us to learn, she listens to the bass part, because that’s what forms the foundation of the song’s structure. As a bass player, I find myself most often listening to what the drummer is doing, not the bass player.
Not necessarily. A lot of people started playing their instrument long before they started playing whatever style they’re playing now. Maybe he originally picked up the bass to play rock or country, and just happened to eventually hook up with some guys who wanted to play the blues. And especially if you’re trying to make money as a musician, but not necessarily looking for a record contract (say, you just want to play in bar bands), you’ll play whatever you can get paid for, even when it’s a style you don’t listen to on your own time.
So say I’m a rock bassist, but I manage to find a job playing in a country band. I might not listen to country on my own, but I’ll take the song list the band gives me and learn those songs because that’s what I’ll be paid to play. I don’t care about the names of the bass players on the records, I just care about learning the songs so that I can do my job. Hypothetically speaking, of course — I do enjoy and play both rock and country, but damned if I can name a single country bass player. OTOH, when it comes to rock I can definitely name my influences and plenty of other rock bassists I enjoy, simply because that’s what I was into when I first picked up the instrument. But if I was playing in a country band and somebody asked me what country bass players influenced me, it would just sound odd if I named Geddy Lee and Steve Harris.
It comes down to that old saying, “Nobody notices what I do until I don’t do it.” Ultimately, the bass player’s job in any genre of music is simply to hold down the groove and tempo, and in many styles of music, simpler is better. A good, solid bassist who knows his role can make a mediocre band sound great. Bass players are like umpires and referees: most of the time you shouldn’t even notice them unless they screw up. And we like it that way — it’s not surprising that introverts are often attracted to the bass. Stay in the background and let somebody else have the spotlight.
I think you’re complicating the issue a little, but maybe I did the same thing. I’m really just trying to address the situation in the OP, where the guy says that “his love is playing blues bass,” but he can’t name a single blues bass player, or even blues player period. That’s odd. And I didn’t get the impression he was making money jamming twice a week with his buds. He sounds just like me: got into it because he loved the guys he heard playing (again, he professes to love blues bass), but he doesn’t know any blues names at all, bass or otherwise. That’s odd.
Well, I was speaking more in general terms of musicians playing stuff they don’t actually listen to. Rereading the OP, I see what you’re talking about, but how about this: he got into it not by listening to recordings/videos of blues artists, but by listening to his friends playing it themselves, and said “Hey, I like that! Can I join in?” That’s exactly how I got into playing stuff like Crosby, Stills, & Nash (and sometimes Young), and similar material, back when I was 21, in 1987. I showed up with my guitar at an open mic night at a local bar, where it turned out the majority of the other players were 10+ years older than me, and were into different music than I was. Everybody took their turns at the mic, solo and in little groups, and over time I started joining in these impromptu combos and learning to play the songs the other guys played. I loved doing that, but I still wasn’t likely to go out and buy/study the original material. Maybe it was the same with the guy in the OP.
I’ve found playing is often more fun than just listening. Back in school I played bassoon in my school’s orchestra. It was a lot of fun playing that symphonic stuff, but you couldn’t pay me to sit down and just listen to most of it.
If I’m not listening to musinc and enjoying it, I’ll be trying to figure out what I’m hearing so I can play it. Tough to pick out the bass some times when it’s following along with the guitars.
Sounds to me like the guy is a beginner and he’s trying to present himself as an experienced bass player. He joins his friends a couple times a week and they are learning together. Great, that’s one way to learn. But if he is analyzing what he hears, where is he hearing it? The guys in the next garage over? The local pub? A blues club? Recordings? You should be able to name the person you’re analyzing if it’s a professional artist that you went to a club to see or whose recording you purchased. And if he doesn’t know who Willie Dixon is he don’t know shit about the blues. :dubious:
That sounds a bit odd. I’ve been full-time musician/teacher for several years before going to get another degree, and I couldn’t honestly tell anyone who my “favorite” musician is. Even among people who’ve influenced me, there’s a lot of ways to go.
That said, half at least of my 4-7 hours practice time every day is spent transcribing – Wes, Don Patterson, Wynton Kelly, Joey D., Jimmy McGriff, Jack McDuff, Bill Evans, and my man Wayne Shorter – and lots of serious musicians who are well beyond the copying stage do the same thing, just to keep learning.
I’d bet your friend just didn’t know how to answer, just like I wouldn’t know how to say who’s the best blues pianist (FTR it’s Otis Spann!), but probably spends a shitload of time under the hood of all those great recordings, even if he doesn’t bother to write it out.
laughs I sing soprano in a church choir. I’m neither one of the best, nor one of the worst. I love it when we sing something Baroque–especially if it’s something by Handel that isn’t part of the Messiah (or at least isn’t the Hallelujah Chorus). But I almost never listen to Baroque music. I listen more often to Classical music, and almost never to anything intentionally because it seems like something we might sing. (I especially don’t listen to Contemporary Christian Music, aka Praise Choruses. I used to, and then I grew up. And it’s the stuff between the songs I’m avoiding on the radio at least as much as the music itself).
This fascinates me, because the Worship Team at my church is so different. There are far more people, who play far less often.
As a member of the Choir, I’m sort of expected to know the music and sing along, which is tricky, given that I don’t listen to that sort of music on my own time, and there are far too many songs sung periodically for me to remember them all.
But the most exasperating bit of the present configuration is this:
Once a month or so, the Worship Team introduces a NEW song. And someone figures out that it is a NEW song midway through the 9:45 service. So the choir gets copies of the music before the 11:10 service (75% of the choir sings at both of these services any given Sunday). And then, as Master Rik suggest, we find out that the music is written with a repeat here or there, but we’re singing the first verse twice instead, and skipping the bridge or something else that differs from what is written. And oh, that line there, the song leader learned off the radio, and so the rhythm is all wrong, or the notes are weird.
And we sing it through really quick, and go back out for the last service, wondering whether having music really improves things or not.
Or the projector doesn’t project the right words, or the monitors don’t project helpful music, or, . . . whatever.
Most of the time I enjoy singing for it’s own sake, and we sing stuff that appeals to me often enough to balance out the times that we sing stuff that doesn’t appeal to me.
That is pretty weird. I can name a bunch of artists/ band names at least. I usually can’t be arsed to remember the guitar player’s names though. Since I’m self taught and cannot read music it can be difficult to talk music with someone who is trained. We think differently.