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The drums must never stop!


That's right, this bulletin is about bass solos! Welcome to Rob's Bass Bulletin for August 2017, going out a few days early this time because I have 3 cool public gigs this weekend I want to let y'all know about. We'll get to those in a moment, but first let's talk about bass solos.

Bass solos are a sensitive topic! A lot of people seem to think the bass should never solo, ( I don't agree with that at all ), and, because we solo less often than guitar, horn, or keyboard players, a lot of bass players feel uncomfortable soloing. The, uh, bottom line is, any bass player can solo, and you don't need amazing Victor Wooten / Jeff Berlin / Henrik Linder-ish chops to make a bass solo sound good. Let's look at a few bass solos that aren't about speed & flash.

We'll start with one that's so subtle and understated a lot of people hear it and don't even realize they're listening to a bass solo. I'm talking about Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'". The chords are [: F C | C F Bb :], and stay the same for the verses & choruses. The bass mostly bounces around on the root notes, but at the beginning of the second verse, ( about 1:27 on the YouTube link ), the bass plays this:


The bass player takes the root of the F chord up 2 octaves, hangs out there while the note becomes a sus4 as the rest of the band plays a C chord, plays the roots of the F & C chords in the 2nd measure, hits another C as the band changes back to F, ( so he's now on the 5th of the chord ), plays the 7, ( Bb ), when the band changes back to C, and then plays the 3rd of the F chord, ( A ), and the 5th of the C chord, ( G ), before dropping back in to his regular groove. Melodic, nice, and so subtle many people don't even realize they're hearing a bass solo.

Let's listen to "I'll Take You There" by the Staples. This time it's obvious we're hearing a bass solo as soon as we get to 1:52 . David Hood played the bass solo, over a [: C | F :] chord progression. The solo isn't hard to play, but it sounds great, because David's relying on his ears & brain, rather than speedy fingers. It consists mostly of chord tones, with the occasional scale note used briefly to move from on chord tone to another. The first measure is mostly E, ( the 3rd of the C chord ), before he uses an A, ( scale note ), and a G, ( 5th of the C chord ), to move to F, ( root of the F chord ), for the 2nd measure. The rest consists of the same harmonic & melodic thought process, played with some nice choices of articulation, and a great sense of rhythm.

Our last bass solo for now will show what can happen if someone who does have chops to spare solos with the thought processes we've discussed. This is Jeff Beck playing live with Tal Wilkenfeld on bass. ( If you're in a hurry skip up to 1:55 to just hear the bass solo, but the entire track is great ). The concepts are exactly the same, she's just playing over some more sophisticated harmony, it's the relationship between the solo and the rest of the song that makes the solo sound cool.

Hey - did I mention I have 3 public gigs this week y'all might enjoy? I'm with Trio Verde at Razzoo's Round Rock thursday, playing from 6pm 'til 10pm. Friday I'm with the Melodic Drifters, ( Led Zeppelin / Bad Company / AC ~ DC era classic rock ), at Baby A's Stonelake location from 7pm 'til 10pm, Saturday I'm with Trio Verde again at the Barton Springs / Lamar Green Mesquite location, from 7pm 'til 9:30pm.

I should also mention Trio Verde released a live album earlier this month! You can hear it on Spotify here, on YouTube here, iTunes has it here, GooglePlay here, Amazon here, and Groove here.

That's it for now, keep the bottom rumbling!

Rob.
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