Pickup up bass

[diskollama]

Hi,

I've been trying to teach myself bass recently, and I was wondering, lets say the guitarist is playing a simple G, C, D, C. What would the bassist play, besides hitting the root notes? This is classified under improvisation, right?

What I would play would be a G, hammer on the A, to the C. Then from the C, hit the D, hammer and pull off the E back to the D, then C# to the C.

Kinda simple, and I'm kinda stagnating on this, as most of my other fills for other songs are kinda limited to the same style(I call it the step up).

What would you guys recommend I do to learn more improvs?

 

[Shanekua]

I don't claim to be an authority on this, as i too am having problems with regard to improv in Jazz.

THere's a couple of things you can do.
1. Play Leading notes. Using ur example if i was going from a G to a C, I would on the 4th (or 4n)beat of the G bar, play a B. Its like a walk up. Cuz music is a Tension and Release kind of thing. So using Leading notes achieve that effect. THis is particularly used in Jazz playing, but its common enuff in rock music to be used.

2. Play the related notes. For example, in a CMaj7 Chord theres usually the 1st(tonic), 3rd, 5th and 7th. Since the Bass's role is also to outline tonality of the song u can hit all these notes. in the Case of CMaj7, you can play C, E, G, B. In rock music i've seen many riffs involving sycopated use of 1st and 5th, in this case between C and G.
Bear in mind that the notes change from chord to chord. SO a CMaj7 is different than a Cm7

Remember u gotta hear the whole song and get the feel of the song before thinking of fill ins. Sometimes Less is More if the feel demands it. Some bass players(myself included) have fallen into the trap of thinking many notes is being pro. But thats not quite it. A good feel can be developed with just simple but well timed fill ins. Maroon 5's Sunday Morning seems to me to be an interesting example of this.

Keep the timing, listen to feel, and groove hard ok!

 

[diskollama]

Thanks for the much needed info.

I found a website that covered quite a bit on some bass thoery

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/lessons/bass_lessons/

Not much of a tab person, cos I'd rather figure stuff out myself, but yeah, just incase anyone's interested.

Got another question, though(another case study-eqsue thing).

You know the song Can't Take My Eyes Off You?

Lets say I'm playing it in D(it has this bossa feel to it)

The first 3 lines of the song "You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off of you, you feel like heaven to touch" are all different chord voicings of D(one per line), and I feel kinda bored by playing just the root and maybe a little variations, then coming back to the root and repeating(which involves like going to the A before the D like a leading note, 135 major scale, etc).

What would a good bassist do to throw things up to make things more interesting?

 

[Resetti]

For the first 3 lines, i would just keep it simple and play the rhythm rather than make things interesting at that point.... the focus is on the singer so I would let her come through.

Only perhaps later into the song during the chorus when it gets more intense then make things more interesting