Why do bassists get so little love??

[BloodRose]

Ive been listening more intently to the basslines in songs lately, and wonder why bass players get so little love? Alot of them were background guys, holding the groove, but so just play all over the song. Alot of the 60s and 70s guys mostly. 80s players were alil less visable. But tonight I heard Simple man by Skynryd and that bass line is almost tear jerking sad in that song. John Deacon of Queen, Jack Bruce and a bunch of others really drove alot of the songs.

John Paul Jones is another. I mean Page was extraordinary, granted, but the bass was huge in many of the songs. But the buzz is always Page and Plant.
Just wondering....

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

Because people are idiots.

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

Because bassists are grumpier than a badger with a swollen testicle.

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[Gearjoneser]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

It sucks that guitar is glorified SO much more than the bass guitar. Because of that, there's a huge imbalance in the numbers of guitarists vs. bassists........so much so that it makes it hard to put bands together.

 

[Jocelyn]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

I never understand this either. But good bassist, I am not even saying great bassist, can really drive a band.

 

[Johnny the Kid]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

It's because people can easily pick out the guitar or the vocals or the drums. Unless you know what you're listening for, you won't hear it. I know when I told someone from school that I play bass, they asked me why and then said quote, "You can never hear the bass. It's like you don't even need it."

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

Guitar is closer to man's voice in pitch so we naturally gravitate to it a little easier. You know who speaks low enough to match bass? Satan and his cohorts.

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[kilphody]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

A good bass player becomes the thunder with the drums not a frustrated lead guitar.
Just my .02
PC

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

Most people think of songs as consisting of two elements.
1) Melody/lyric
2) Accompaniment

Bass guitar is firmly in the accompaniment zone. Lead guitarists (soloists) get to shift between the two artificial divisions.

This is a long-winded way of saying what Itsa wrote in post #2.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

It sucks that guitar is glorified SO much more than the bass guitar. Because of that, there's a huge imbalance in the numbers of guitarists vs. bassists........so much so that it makes it hard to put bands together.

+1. Bass adds a lot to songs, and a good bass player makes the difference between a song being 'okay' and great. There are so many songs where the bass work is essential, even though some listeners don't realize it. Take it away, and they'd notice. I love bass because it has so much power behind it, it's like a wall.

I'm building up my bass skills so that I'll be able to play bass in a band. Seems like there's no shortage of guitarists (although good guitarists seem to be in limited quantities), but bass players can be hard to find. It's so much fun to play bass, to be able to really drive a song. Being a long-term lead guitarist, my approach to bass is to add a lot, and not just stick to the root note and fifth.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

Most people think of songs as consisting of two elements.
1) Melody/lyric
2) Accompaniment

Bass guitar is firmly in the accompaniment zone. Lead guitarists (soloists) get to shift between the two artificial divisions.

This is a long-winded way of saying what Itsa wrote in post #2.

+1

Guitar is a rhythm and lead instrument. Bass is predominantly a rhythm instrument. Drums and backup vocals also suffer from the same problem. The lead singer/lead guitarist/lead sax/lead trumpet . . . those are the guys at the front making the noise that you typically come to listen to. They're the ones doing the easy to see, complex improvisation.

 

[dg27]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

"It's like you don't even need it."

OUCH.

I'm with Itsabass on this one...

 

[ginormous]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

You know who speaks low enough to match bass? Satan and his cohorts.

Or Barry White, or the guy from the Temptations ("And mama? Bad talk goin' around town, said papa had 3 outside children and another wife... an' that ain't right!")

Those who fail to see or hear the importance of bass have limited contact with human females. Any note from A or lower is like a 'personal massage'. The guitarists are just the ones standing in the way.

 

[Chris of Arabia]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

It's jealousy...

Non-bass players just feel inadequate knowing they can never, ever throb as hard as their low-ender...

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

… unless the band plays a cover version of Spïnal Tap's Big Bottom.

@GS. I do not regard bass instruments as just rhythm. Having been force fed some Harmony and Counterpoint lessons in my teens, I also think of the harmonic possibilities. Something as simple as shifting the root note under a repeated chord. That's where the fun is.

 

[toneseeker74]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

Because bassists are grumpier than a badger with a swollen testicle.

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:haha:

 

[toneseeker74]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

Or Barry White, or the guy from the Temptations ("And mama? Bad talk goin' around town, said papa had 3 outside children and another wife... an' that ain't right!")

Those who fail to see or hear the importance of bass have limited contact with human females. Any note from A or lower is like a 'personal massage'. The guitarists are just the ones standing in the way.

I love this one!

 

[toneseeker74]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

Yeah, bass is incredibly fun to play. I'm not sure why I spend more time playing guitar when bass is so much more enjoyable. It can be thunder, it can be a low persistent rumble, it can spank, it can be a warm, but it's always present. There's so much you can do, and when you do it well it's AWESOME. For me the bass is much more noticeable and memorable than rhythm guitar, in general.

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

@GS. I do not regard bass instruments as just rhythm. Having been force fed some Harmony and Counterpoint lessons in my teens, I also think of the harmonic possibilities. Something as simple as shifting the root note under a repeated chord. That's where the fun is.

This is a critical point. As a bassman, you have a lot of control over the center of the harmony -- far more than most people (including a lot of bass players) think -- by just changing one note. I do this to my piano player at the church all the time. Say he's playing a C major groove. All I have to do is start thumping along on an A and suddenly the groove is Amin7. Or I can go back and forth. Or I can play an E under the C to telegraph to the listener that we're about to go to the IV chord (F). Or I can change a IV-V-I chord progression to a II-V-I. It's endless.

You can have even more effect on the rhythm, the feel of the song, than on the harmony. Take the same C groove. I can do half notes on the 1 and 5 (C, G, C, G) and it's a stroll or maybe a stomp-n-shout. Or I can start walking on the major pentatonic with quarter notes and make it swing. You can hold the notes out or make them stacatto and the feel changes yet again. Again these are very simple examples and again the possibilities are endless. Even very slight changes by the drummer and/or bassman can have a profound effect on the feel and flavor of a song.

On most songs you can get away with being a little blurry on the guitar but the bass has to be the atomic clock (along with the drummer of course), particularly on songs that live and die with the groove, so your technique has to be REALLY tight. Times ten for funk bass.

The guys who play bass because they weren't "good enough" to play guitar and went to bass "duuuhhh...because it has only 4 strings so it's, like, easier" just do not understand bass at all. (Times fifty for the guys who say "it's like it's not needed" -- they would sure notice bass if it wasn't there.) You can get away with that attitude if you just want to play Stones and AC/DC covers in a garage band but that's about it.

 

[astrozombie]

Re: Why do bassists get so little love??

I ALWAYS listen for the bass in the music I listen to. I have a habit of pointing out when a bassist is good or not by listening to albums. Many time's I've been on the road with my girlfriend and I just say "that's a good bassist, he's in there playing his fills and they're memorable but they're not in the way. i wish I knew a bass player like that".