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The VT Musicians Thread


GarethRDR

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  • 4 weeks later...

As a non musician can some one explain Bass guitar to me ... it just sorta looks like they make it up as they go along ... obviously it has structure and what not....  I love listening to isolated tracks on you tube and this is a prime example 

 

It sounds nothing like the whole song when pieced together with the other instruments  and I’d kinda struggle to work out how he could play that the same way twice in a row ... I mean this in an admiration way btw .. sorta of a how the heck did they come up with that !! 

 

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33 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

can some one explain Bass guitar to me ... it just sorta looks like they make it up as they go along ... obviously it has structure and what not

Rhythm section. Drums + Bass guitar - they're not (usually) part of the melody, but without them....

On their own they are kind of like you say, structure, but without that structure there's nothing to hang the rest on.

s'how I look at it anyway.

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22 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

As a non musician can some one explain Bass guitar to me ... it just sorta looks like they make it up as they go along ... obviously it has structure and what not....  I love listening to isolated tracks on you tube and this is a prime example 

 

It sounds nothing like the whole song when pieced together with the other instruments  and I’d kinda struggle to work out how he could play that the same way twice in a row ... I mean this in an admiration way btw .. sorta of a how the heck did they come up with that !! 

 

I love listening to isolated tracks. You hear the song in a different light. I'm not going to pretend I know anything about music, but the bass is supposedly very important to the music. A great rhythm section is the foundations for a great rock band. 

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Bass and drums are the foundations of everything. If they're not on the money, everything else is gonna be a bit rubbish. Doesn't matter if it's flash or not, it's all about the timing!

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in the " more things I don't understand about music"  theme  .. someone with to much time on their hands has autotuned "Smells Like Teen Spirit" into a major key

 not sure I like it , but kinda interesting

 

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On ‎08‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 01:23, MrDuck said:

Bass and drums are the foundations of everything. If they're not on the money, everything else is gonna be a bit rubbish. Doesn't matter if it's flash or not, it's all about the timing!

particularly drums :D:D

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On 1/5/2018 at 19:46, tonyh29 said:

As a non musician can some one explain Bass guitar to me ... it just sorta looks like they make it up as they go along ... obviously it has structure and what not....  I love listening to isolated tracks on you tube and this is a prime example 

 

It sounds nothing like the whole song when pieced together with the other instruments  and I’d kinda struggle to work out how he could play that the same way twice in a row ... I mean this in an admiration way btw .. sorta of a how the heck did they come up with that !! 

 

This is THE prime example of why he's just something else to me. He looks sooo bored while just pissing out some of the best rock basslines. At that level it's kinda like playing boring drums gets a bit boring so you need to do fills and then the fills actually become the rhythm. Just a more intricate or synchopated version of a flat 4 but you're still in 4/4. The Ox would get far too bored chugging on E basically. Also some might say he had to because Townsend liked chugging on chords and waving his hands in the air... ;)

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On 05/01/2018 at 19:46, tonyh29 said:

As a non musician can some one explain Bass guitar to me ... it just sorta looks like they make it up as they go along ... obviously it has structure and what not....  I love listening to isolated tracks on you tube and this is a prime example 

 

It sounds nothing like the whole song when pieced together with the other instruments  and I’d kinda struggle to work out how he could play that the same way twice in a row ... I mean this in an admiration way btw .. sorta of a how the heck did they come up with that !! 

 

Going back to Tony's original question, I'll try and answer it. Basically it's all about scales. Whatever the key the song is in, only some notes 'sound right' in that particular key. The ones that don't are omitted, and what's left is a scale (the old 'do re me' thing). At any given moment in the song, the guitarists, pianists, etc. will be playing a chord, made up of a subset (typically three or four) of the notes in the appropriate scale. To fit in with this, the bassman will play one of the notes in the chord - usually the lowest (root) one, but it doesn't have to be. As the chords change, the bass player is essentially running up and down the scale. A simple bassline can just be a steady plod along with the drummer's rhythm, one root note per chord. But a more ambitious player (like the late Mr. Entwistle) can do more interesting stuff, still keeping to the beat, but playing more complex variations on the scale - often producing an interesting countermelody under the band's performance. So, he IS 'sort of' making it up as he goes along, but it can't just be random - he needs to know the chord sequence of the song, so he can select the right notes for his bassline. Does that help? 

Edited by mjmooney
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  • 3 weeks later...
55 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

What's Brian Eno doing in a musicians' thread?  ;)

It's a creative dilemma, for sure. if only there were some sort of strategy for resolving this dilemma, mabe we could use that?

[I've got this wierd pack of cards at home*, I suppose I could fish them out and see what turns up?]

 

 

*no really, I do.they came with an album

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1 hour ago, blandy said:

It's a creative dilemma, for sure. if only there were some sort of strategy for resolving this dilemma, mabe we could use that?

[I've got this wierd pack of cards at home*, I suppose I could fish them out and see what turns up?]

 

 

*no really, I do.they came with an album

We could take Tiger Mountain with that. 

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