- Bass Tabs
- Forum
- WHAT IS IT ABOUT BASS THAT FLOATS YOUR BOAT
WHAT IS IT ABOUT BASS THAT FLOATS YOUR BOAT
For me it's just the tone, I'll hear a certain song and the bass will just sing out to me, it can be the simplest bassline ever but once it hits my sweet spot I'm hooked. People like Billy Sheehan, although amazing, just don't do it for me, I hear him play and I think “How?” But then I think “Why?” The Coctaeu Twins are a good example of experimenting with tone rather than knocking out breathtaking riffs
I always loved the tone. I'd hear a groovy bass line and I'd obsess with it. Of course after I started playing these feelings got even more intense. By the way I completely agree with you on overly technical playing. For me it's about sound, not showing off skills
It's hard for me to put into words. Bass simply rocks my world. I spent about fifteen years on guitar before I switched back to bass, and don't miss it at all.
I agree about Sheehan. For me he's like the bass equivalent of Yngwie Malmsteen. Amazingly skilled and dripping with technical proficiency, but when you play a hundred notes a second it becomes just so much noise, for me, and doesn't really serve a purpose. Maybe if you feel like showing off, sure. But I'll take a good grooving, evocative bass-line over speed-playing and slapping and popping up and down the fretboard any day of the week.
For whatever reason, it was the bass line that caught my attention, not the lyrics, or other rythyms. As a youngster, I loved the muddy sound Jack Bruce played through those Marshall stacks. As I aged, less than gracefully, I opted for a more cleaner sound. Hence my Fender Jazz.
Sure there are fantastic players, rattling off notes like a gattling gun, but like Lon, it is noise to me too.
I may never be a super great bassist, but I do have fun and that's what life is all about.
Boppa
For me, it's all about the groove. The bass line of a song just stands out to me over anything else.
I don't pay attention to lyrics, and guitar solos are predictable and often unnecessary (imo). But the bass is truly the glue of a song.
When you have a groove that integrates the song's rhythm with the melody of the guitar and voice… that sticks with me.
I don't dislike the technical show-off players on bass. They have their purpose and audience. But I can be more satisfied with that bass player in the shadows keeping the timing tight and my neck moving.
Plus the low end puts a tickle in my pickle.
I like listening to a song and just being able to ‘sniff out’ the bass line and hum along
mmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm mm mm m m m m
lover how we can be both a percussion/rhythm instrument, and a melodic/harmonic contributor. I rather like being a “supporting” part of the songs, I'm no spotlight-hungry musician, I'm cool hanging back keeping it all poppin' along. I love getting into a super-tight pocket with a drummer, and also the interplay with the guitar.
oh….and just this….
(heavy as hell)
the WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP
that just hits you somewhere down low. you know what I mean!!
that's the best way of putting it - the whomp whomp is what gets to me too
Reply to this thread
