Bass Nation

I just discovered an amazing artist the other day. Hiromi Uehara is a 29 year old pianist from Japan, Berklee School of Music Grad, and jazz fusion phenomenon. She played with Chick Corea when she was 17 and the two of them just recorded an album called Duet. I know that fusion is one of those musical genres that people tend to feel very passionate about. They either love it or hate it while very few are indifferent to it. Hiromi typically tours with a trio of herself, a bassist and drummer. She’s got a synth sitting on top of a grand piano and she rocks the shit out of both of them while her band is just ridiculously tight, playing insanely fast over all sorts of odd time signatures. Here’s the YouTube clip that got me hooked, Return of the Kung Fu World Champion. More clips after the jump.

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Back in the 70’s, The Police burst onto the music scene with their reggae-infused new wave, and their first big hit was a little song about a hooker named Roxanne. While the drumming is insanely intricate (Stuart Copeland is one of my favorite drummers ever) and the vocals test the limits of Sting’s range (he wasn’t able to hit the highest highs when I saw them in 07), the guitar and bass are incredibly simple. During the verse the guitar is your typically minimal reggae rhythm guitar playing on each of the four beats while the bass just plays a descending line, two quick notes at a time on the 2 beat. Then the chorus kicks into double time and everyone is rocking out the eighth notes. While the notes themselves are really easy to play, the placement of them is what drives this song. You’re sort of straddling that 2 beat with each note and not letting the second one ring out too much until the last note of each descent (”I won’t share you with another boy…” that’s where you let it ring). Tone-wise, this dub-style bass is all about boosting your lows and cutting your mids and highs, just deep and dark and low.

Have fun and give this one a try. Here’s the tab. And below is a YouTube with just the lyrics to distract you.

In the late 90’s, there were a lot of really bad nu-metal bands that came out, as well as some really good new metal bands. Unfortunately, some of the good ones fell through my cracks until much later since at the time I was way too much of an indie rock dork to acknowledge my metal roots. Years after they came onto the scene, I kept hearing System of a Down songs on the radio without realizing who it was and I really liked them. It’s metal with a lot of crazy time signatures and switching around from grinding and thrashing to melodic and harmonic. And the lyrics were a bit more heady than a lot of what was coming out at the time, political without being quite as heavy handed about it as say Rage Against the Machine. They’re also very LA, but not like the hair metal bands coming out of LA in the 80’s. No, they’re like the guys who grew up there watching people move there with their hopes and dreams of fame and fortune, only to wind up beaten and broken. They disbanded a couple years ago and their singer has a solo album which doesn’t quite do it for me like SOAD did. So here’s Toxicity for your metal monday listening pleasure.

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

I got a response to one of my posts recently about a really neat web traffic generator. It’s called Alpha Inventions and it is indeed the shizzle! You go to their site and enter your URL, hit a button and botta bing, you’re in the rotation. The page refreshes and displays a new blog each time. It’s like speed dating for blogs. You get a quick look at a bunch of blogs and you can check them out if they look cool. And people get a quick look at yours. There are so many great blogs out there and it’s so hard to find ones that pique your interest, so this really helps you to quickly find some good ones.

You put a lot of time and energy into your blog, but it’s not a matter of “if you build it they will come.” Finding people who are interested in what you have to say is hard. Sometimes it takes years to build up a solid audience. So with tools like this and blog explosion and entrecard, it gets in front of a lot more eyeballs which with any luck will help speed the process of building a dedicated audience.

Check this site out today and watch the readers pour on in.

I ordered an NS Design Wav 4 electric upright in late Dec. It’s mid February and I still don’t have it yet. I knew these things were back ordered, but this is getting ridiculous! The online merchant who I ordered it from kept upping the delivery date. If you go on their site now, it says Feb 23, and it has said that since Jan 7. Since I was let down twice before, this time I went straight to the source to see if the Feb 23rd date was realistic, since I’ve been getting really excited about playing this thing in a couple of weeks. What they told me was that they’re expecting the shipment to get to them on the 26th, and then they need to set them all up before sending them out to retailers, and it probably won’t get to me until late March. I appreciate their honesty. And I appreciate their commitment to quality that has led to this instrument not being available for 6 months or so. Apparently they had to reject their last shipment and Ned Steinberger had to go to the factory in China and make sure they got this one right. So while I’m frustrated, I know this thing will be worth the wait.

I’ve got a couple of musical possibilities lined up for when it arrives. One of which is just jamming and maybe gigging with a friend. The other is another friend of mine who is recording an album of his own original material, kind of roots rock/Americana stuff that would really benefit from some upright sounds. He’s also probably going to play in our local music festival which means I’d have that gig too, in front of all our friends and neighbors. But really, I just want to start playing it. I got a small taste of electric upright at a jam and in a music store and I want more. I could probably cancel my order and get a Palatino shipped tomorrow, but I’ve played both and I really prefer the Wav 4. And the Wav 4 is more compact, lighter weight, has fret markers, and is all in all a better instrument.

Silly me! I did a whole post about some famous, iconic sitcom basslines and didn’t bother to offer a way for you to learn to play them. Like a lot of songs, they’re not as hard to play as they sound and a little bit of practice will go a long way with them.

So, first up was Barney Miller. Be sure to give it a listen from my previous post because this one has some funky rhythms to it.

G---------------------------------------

D-----------------------------2---------

A---------0-1-2-2/4-5-4-2-0-----4-2-----

E-0-2-3-4-------------------4--------0--then some crazy guitar and trumpet kick in but you play the same thing over and over

Then there’s Night Court. Slap the lower strings, pop the upper strings, hammer on between the 3’s and 5’s at the end and you’re funking out 80’s TV style. Now where’s Bull?

|-------------------------3-
|----5----------------3-5---
|-----------------3-5-------
|--3----1-2-3-3-3-----------

And lastly, we’ve got Seinfeld. For slap tabs, S means slap and P means pop, though it should be pretty self explanatory. This is a good one to play all the time. When you and your friends are sitting around bullshitting about something, just bust out one of these riffs.

Riff 1
G|-----8---------------|-----7--------------|
D|----------10--8------|----------9--7------|
A|---6---6---------11--|---5---5--------10--|
E|---------------------|--------------------|
     s p s   p  p   p      s p s  p  p   p
 Riff 2
G|-----------------------------|------------------|---------------------|
D|-----------------------------|--------------2---|-----------------7---|
A|--------------5--------------|------------------|---------------------|
E|-0---0--3--5--------3---5--5-|--3---2--1--0---0-|-2--2--3---4---5-----|
   S   S  S  S  S     S   S  S    S   S  S  S P S   S  S  S   S   S P

And just because we’re doing TV theme songs, here’s the tab to Black Flag’s classic TV Party , which I think would be real fun to play and incorporate actual TV theme songs. And below is a YouTube to play along with.

Before Aerosmisth and Run DMC made it official that rock and rap could peacefully coexist, Public Enemy were sampling Slayer and Anthrax had a little b-side rap called I’m the Man. It sampled Sam Kinison’s scream and Master of Puppets. And one line from that song that relates to this post is…

Some say rap and metal can never mix, but all of them can suck our… sexual organ located in the lower abdominal area… yo man it’s dicks! Ah Ahhhhhhh!

Since then, there was a whole genre of white metalheads making really bad rap-metal hybrids (and a few not so bad). There were also a few rappers who tried their hand at metal. Anyone remember Body Count, Ice T’s shortly lived metal band? If not for the notoriety of the song Cop Killer, they probably would have been completely forgotten.

If there’s one rapper who would be the least likely to do a metal song, it would be Snoop Dogg, but here he is doing Sad But True.

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

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Some of the most recognizable basslines ever come from sitcom theme songs. I don’t know why, but bass equals funny on TV. Probably the most famous is the Barney Miller theme. It’s a groovy little funk line that any bassist old enough to actually remember Barney Miller always picked up and somehow managed to incorporate it into a live solo somewhere. I honestly don’t remember a thing about this show other than Abe Vigoda playing a cop named Fish. And as of this posting, Abe is indeed still alive.

And then there’s Night Court. I think both themes might have been written by the same guy or something, but I’m not sure. It’s another funk groove, a bit more slappy and a bit more 80’s to Barney Miller’s 70’s vibe. And it’s another one that winds up in a lot of bass solos. I used to love Night Court, but all I seem to remember from that show was that Harry loved Mel Torme and Dan was the funniest sleazebag ever.

And of course the mother of all sitcom basslines has to be Seinfeld. That theme is all bass. It’s funky and punchy and silly and it somehow managed to capture the irreverence of the show musically. Rather than posting the original though, here’s somebody playing it on an upright, which I must say is rather awesome. Enjoy!

Sometimes I feel basslines are (bomp bomp) complicated. I just want (bomp bomp) simplicity and quarter notes on just three of my strings…

Simple basslines are not always the most interesting thing to play, but sometimes it’s just what a song calls for. Case in point: Tainted Love. Originally a minor 60’s soul hit for Gloria Jones, this song got huge in the early 80’s with a cover by Soft Cell that also incorporated Where Did Our Love Go by the Supremes. This is about as simple as it gets. It’s all quarter notes on the root, and it only uses 2 frets on 3 strings. Just look at the intro:

         q  q  q  q     q  q  e  q.

G---||---------------|---------------||

D---||*--------------|--1--1--------*||

A---||*--------1--1--|--------1--3--*||

E---||---3--3--------|---------------||

How can one of the most recognizable basslines ever be that simple? But it is. And the verse and chorus are even more simple.

VERSE:  Sometimes I feel (etc)

       q  q  q  q     q  q  q  q

G---|--------------|--------------|

D---|--------------|--------------|

A---|--------------|--1--1--1--1--|

E---|--3--3--3--3--|--------------|Drive into the heart of me (back to VERSE)

q  q  q  q     q  q  q  q     q  q  q  q     q  q  q  q

G---|--------------|--------------|--------------|--------------|

D---|--------------|--------------|--------------|--------------|

A---|--------------|--------------|--1--1--1--1--|--1--1--1--1--|

E---|--3--3--3--3--|--3--3--3--3--|--------------|--------------|

CHORUS:  Once I ran to you (etc)

q  q  q  q      q  q  q  q    q  q  q  q     q  q  q  q

G---|--------------|--------------|--------------|--------------|

D---|--1--1--1--1--|--1--1--1--1--|--------------|--------------|

A---|--------------|--------------|--3--3--3--3--|--3--3--3--3--|

E---|--------------|--------------|--------------|--------------|

q  q  q  q     q  q  q  q

G---|--------------|--------------|

D---|--------------|--------------|

A---|--3--3--3--3--|--3--3--3--3--|

E---|--------------|--------------|

Yes, it’s that easy. Any beginner can play this song and sound awesome doing it. Just remember to play the bomp bomp part a little harder (and if you don’t know what I mean by that, listen to the song - it’s pretty obvious). Check out the tab here (though the whole thing is above). Below is a youtube without any distracting video.

When I first got my Fender Musicmaster bass, there was a little plastic thumb rest that was over the strings, right above the pickup. The idea was that you could rest your thumb there and then your fingers would be in the “correct” position for playing. The thing is, there are lots of different correct positions depending on what kind of sound you’re looking for. You get a different sound playing closer to the neck, or right over the pickup, or closer to the bridge. I eventually removed that thumb rest to gain versatility and my thumb usually rests on the edge of the pick guard, my forearm rests on the body, and as I move from string to string it’s my wrist that does most of the motion.

But there’s another technique which I might give a try. It’s called the floating thumb technique. The thumb and forearm do not rest on anything, and all the motion between strings is coming from your shoulder. Sounds strange, huh? I know. It sounds a little bit strange to me, too. But below is a more detailed explanation and demonstration by Todd Johnson. He says that it’s a bit difficult to adjust to at first, but once you get the hang of it it’s better for your wrist and supposedly easier to train your hand to play whatever you need to play. It’s also better for playing basses with more than 4 strings.