Everybody Can Be Dancing Because Counterpoint

1:05 What's good, everybody?Welcome back to love music more.Just wanted to wish everybody a happy holidays.This is going to be the last pod for the year.I'm going to save the recap pod for next year because I started doing it, and then itcrashed halfway, such as life in recorded music, so I'll save that for next year becauseit always takes me like 45 minutes to an hour, at least just to go through all of the recaps.

1:28 So today, instead, I want to just talk about something really cool called counterpoint.And so often, I talk about dancing with the rest of the instruments.And there's a formal term for some of that called counterpoint where you have a melodygoing in one direction, and then sometimes you have a bass going in another direction.The James Jamerson style of counterpoint-ish is being the glue between the drum kit, the

1:53 vocal, the melody, and like the percussion, basically you're adding syncopation as in likeoff beats, funky beats, you're adding the funk, but you're trying to do so in a way thatis grounding and being the glue of everyone at the same time.I think that's a really, it's a really hard thing to pull off.I don't know if I always do.I really try, but I don't think I always do.

2:15 Of like, you want the bass to be singing along with the vocalist while jamming along withthe drums, while not always drawing too much attention to it, and knowing when to stepout into the limelight and when to step back.All of those things are really hard.I kind of like flirting with the edge of that balance because even if you fall over

2:40 like, that's still kind of cool, and I think that that's part of what adds like a charmto the music, you're at the precipice of what you're able to accomplish.I think on the bass guitar, in particular bass synth, those lower frequencies, all oftuning is generally built from the low to the high.

3:04 If you play a bass that's slightly too sharp and then you sing right on pitch, you'regoing to sound flat, unless you have perfect pitch, but you know, most people don't.Same thing with two flat, sing a little sharp, sing right on, you're going to sound reallysharp.But that points to something even bigger of the power of the bass guitar.

3:24 The bass guitar can determine if a chord is major or minor, regardless of what everybodyelse is doing up on top, just by moving the placement.The bassist can determine the strong or weak notes.They are like the second drummer, and the decision that they make on what notes to playand where influences all of the glue everywhere that exists.

3:53 That's just something I wanted to leave this year on, is just a love of the bass guitarand its purpose, its role.The ability for the great bassist to like what is hip, go listen to what is hip.To be a percussion instrument at the same time as being a vocal instrument, at the same timeas being the harmonic grounder, that's so many hats, there's so many rolls, and the bass

4:21 is a lot of times, you know, you're listening on your iPhone, you might not even hear the basssuper well.So listen on some headphones or with a good sub, put on what is hip and ring in the holidaysthat way, because I just, I think that the idea of counterpoint, the idea of dancing withthe vocal, dancing with the melody, is best exemplified by the bass guitar, and then you

4:44 can apply that to every other instrument, the synths, the horns, everybody can be dancing.As long as you know, you're framing that vocal, you're making that vocal important.If you enjoyed this podcast, if I'd like you to share it with your friends, check outmy music at scoobertdoobert.pizza, rated five stars, and I'll see you in the new year.Thank you so much for listening, I really appreciate you.