I’ve been trying to do this, off and on, for years, and I never really get anywhere. I know that it can be done, a la Steve Harris, but how exactly does one use a bass guitar to compose music for other instruments? I know that if one selects a key, then all the notes from that scale will sound in tune, and any wrong notes are just a fret away from a right one anyway. When I try to compose with this in mind, I get a long meandering series of notes that don’t sound dissonant, but I don’t hear any riffs or anything I might like. I don’t see how continuing to do the wrong thing will get me any closer to an answer, either.
If I heard music in my head and then tried to find it on the instrument, I could handle that, but I don’t.
Well okay, how about this: start by learning how to groove. You mentioned Iron Maiden, so I will use a metal example - pick a classic metal song. Actually, let’s go even simpler - an AC/DC song like Sin City or You Shook me. Learn the main bits - the key riffs. Turn off the song - play the riff. Can you groove it - i.e., lock into a beat and make it sound like the song?
If you can’t - well, don’t start trying songwriting until you can. Seriously.
If you can - well, take a favorite riff of yours and tweak it. Try changing a chord to another one in the scale. Take out a chord and make that bit a single-note riff, like Crazy Train or something. Change the tempo. If you make a mistake when you are fingering a song you know, stick with the mistake an find a way to make it work.
When you start getting bits that are your own, try stringing a few together - start focusing on creating your own riffs that sound good one after the other, or alternating. Figure out what sounds to you. Decide if you are writing a classic 3-min pop structure, a metal exploration with verses, choruses, bridges and shit or whatever. Leave lyrics off to the side for now - one step at a time. For now, can you create a riff, and then, can you create a second riff that fits with the first one? Start there.
Hope this helps. Writing about creating music is like dancing about architecture, to tweak that phrase.
I think the key is, as you say, “hearing it in your head” - how “exactly” to get there, I can’t tell you, but I think a strong foundation to build on helps - consider that Lennon & McCartney (of course widely considered among the greatest pop songwriters) learned, played, and “absorbed” (subconsciously the musical lessons contained within) a large repertoire for years before they really started writing their own songs.
Which key riffs, exactly? The vocal melody? The other instruments alternate between playing things that a bass can replicate and things that it can’t, hence (part of) my confusion. If Maiden would release Harris’s demos as bonus tracks, that might help… and the same would go for any examples of songs written this way.
You could always do a search for songwriters + online + collaborators and find something like Kompoz. At the bottom, there’s a section titled Explore collaborations that need your talent, and you can click the “bass” tab. Or, you could load your own bass lines and look for other collaborators. This way, you can get more practical experience than just fiddling around on your own.
I’m really not experienced in bass guitar at all, but maybe if you’d like to write songs, you can start with a chord progression. Perhaps you might then be able to write a bass line based on that. Maybe you could work with a guitarist friend and you can figure something out.
Don’t know what to say. You are asking about a single-line, non-chord (for the most part) instrument. Play whatever you want on it that makes it sound song-like to you.
Again, if you want to shape more of the overall song, play a guitar or piano.
To some extent, when you get a string of notes together that you like, you’ve got a bass part. As WordMan said, once you string a few of those together in a structure you like, you’ve got the bass part of a song.
Now, if you want to write a guitar part or a keyboard part, you’re going to have to learn chords. The bass part you’ve written usually describes or implies chords. Using that, you can figure out chord changes that will work over your bass part, and start working out a part for them.
Now, playing chords on bass is usually a fight. You can get some voicings to sound good below the 7th fret, but most really don’t sound so good. Playing them higher on the neck works better, but it’s still far from ideal. You’d be better off if you developed rudimentary guitar or keyboard skills.
I just started playing an instrument (bass) a year ago. Still a beginner but have already started a small band and have played for small groups of friends. Recently I came up with a 4 chord progression then came up with a simple bassline going for root to root. I recorded about 40 secs of the bassline and send it to our piano player (beginner also). Asked her to play around and just add something to those 40 secs. Send that to 1 guitarist and he added some acoustic play. Send that to another guitarist and he added electric riffs to it. Then we added some basic drum beats since we don’t have a drummer. Nobody spent more than 10 minutes improvising. At the end it didn’t sound that good. But I played around with the tempo, modified the bassline and sent it back around. By the end of the week we had a decent sounding vers and everyone had some ideas for the chorus. Still working on lyrics but we have an otherwise full song that we practice and rehearse. Last week we played it for some friends and they were able to groove to it.
There are classical exercises like partimento where one learns how to fill in a bassline with chords, additional voices, etc. Many composers were taught such exercises to learn counterpoint and harmony.
or whatever. Leave lyrics off to the side for now - one step at a time. For now, can you create a riff, and then, can you create a second riff that fits with the first one? Start there.