N.O. Pundit

Learning the bass, again

The last couple of days I have been noodling on my newly acquired bass. As I mentioned, I played bass around twenty years ago, and it is quite interesting, and gratifying, that my right hand-left hand coordination came back to me within just a day or two of playing.

Playing the bass well with a minimum of musical knowledge is actually quite easy. Far easier than a clarinet, or a piano. This is because you can operate at a reptilian level and still sound like you know what you're doing. This is the level I operated at in college.

The bass has four strings, tuned to the notes E, A, D, G. As a bassist, you do not need to know what "notes" are, or what "notes" the strings are tuned to to play rock and roll. This is because the vast majority of songs you will cover fall into some variation of the I-IV-V chord progression. As a bassist, you need to know what a "chord progression" is only at the brainstem level.

What happens is the guitarist in your band puts your finger on the fretboard that you will start with and pound away at. Then he will show you where in the song to put your finger next. And so on, and so on. As an avid listener of rock and roll, you will get to know when to change that main finger simply by listening.

The I-IV-V chord progression is simply this: first note of a scale, fourth note of a scale, fifth note of a scale. That's it. What's a scale, you ask. Doe, ray, me, fa, sew, la, tea, doe. You don't need to know notes. Hum out doe, then fa, then sew, then doe. A progression of those three notes is the basis of a hell of a lot of rock and roll.

The good news is that you now can cover a lot of songs. The better news is that the bass was born to make the I-IV-V chord progression easy to play. To go from doe to fa you simply move one string up on the same fret. To go from fa to sew you simply move two frets up on the same string. To go from doe to sew, what do you do? Come on, just a little fret math: one string up on same fret plus same string two frets up equals one string up and two frets up. Congratulations! This is easy! To go from doe to doe (one octave higher) you move two strings up and two frets up.

Here is the best news of all: these rules are true for the whole neck of the bass. There are no funny or sneaky exceptions. If your finger is on the I chord note for that song, the IV and V notes are right where they should be as explained above. Anywhere on the neck. No exceptions. Yeah, you can run out of frets. Shut up.

You now know about as much as ninety percent of the garage band bassists out there. And you can start experimenting with where III and VII are in relation to I. This is the beginning of what I call the "interval method" of playing bass. Your fingers can jump to another great sounding note without your brain having the foggiest idea whether it is an A, or an F, or a C sharp.

Now. I said all that to say this. The so-called interval method leaves you high and dry on many levels.

What if you want to blast out a little two note chord way up the fretboard? If your finger is down on the first string third fret, fret math will not get you up to the fifteenth and sixteenth frets in time for that little chord blast. Certainly you can always just practice that chord blast offline and forget the fret math.

What if you want to play a "walking" bass part, especially if it is fast tempo? Your fret math analyzer will be overwhelmed quite quickly and you will start playing notes "out of scale".

What if you want to play a song that does not conform to the I-IV-V chord progression? Or want to play in a minor key? Broken fret math analyzer. Don't get me wrong, the interval method and fret math can get you started, and can sustain you throughout your bass playing career, as long as you either play straightforward songs and/or rote practice the tough progressions.

Personally, I want to take the next step: the music theory method of playing. This is where you know what "notes" are, and where each "note" is on the fretboard. Coupled with that knowledge is knowing what "notes" are "on-scale". Knowing this stuff can free you from that last finger position and allow you to jump anywhere on the neck. All of the greats are (or were) at this level: Jaco Pastorius, Alphonso Johnson, Stanley Clarke, Phil Lesh, just to name a very few. Two favorite albums of mine which showcase what a great bassist can do (both with Jaco Pastorius) are Weather Report's Heavy Weather, and Joni Mitchell's Shadows and Light. The sheer musicality of Jaco's playing is beautiful. A bass in Jaco's hands is a lead instrument, a melody maker, and not simply a beat producer relegated to the rhythm section.

So, that is where I am headed. I already have two tentative band appointments (I'll keep you posted). And the thing that I realize, and the thing to remember is that you can still smash away at I and IV and V in a grunge rock band with a music theory methodology, but you can't play a Jaco-inspired transcendent solo with an interval methodology.

Posted by nopundit at August 8, 2003 08:08 PM