How I Write Bass Parts

0:00 Music Appreciation. Welcome back to music 101 this is Scoobert Doobert and today Iactually have something kind of fun to talk about unlike the other ones actuallyanyway a fan friend named Jackson had a request and so I'm going to talk abouthow I approach writing bass parts so this is going to kind of go into botharranging and composition for specifically the bass instrument the electric

0:45 bass because I cannot play upright because it makes my hands bleed theelectric bass so I actually came to play bass like fairly recently I comefrom guitar and obviously there's a lot of overlap in terms of you know thethe strings are the same it's down the octave but the functions completelydifferent and so I want to talk a little bit about that function I want to talk

1:11 about how it relates to the other instruments and then how I approach you knowtrying to make something that is hooky as a bass part that's something that isfun and playful and hopefully uniquely me is always the goal whenever I'm tryingto compose something hopefully it's something that you go that's not just arip-off that sounds like that guy so the bass is the glue guy this is my

1:37 perspective the bass is the instrument that takes what's going on in the upperregister with the harmonic instruments like guitars and synthesizers and thenwhat's going on in the rhythm the rhythm section like with the actualsyncopation of those other harmonic instruments and then tying that intothe syncopation of the drum groove and specifically the kick and the snare and

2:03 trying to merge those two together so I don't remember what Marvel movie it isbut the one where like Captain America is holding the helicopter that's flyingaway but he's like holding it with the super strength from flying away byalso holding on to a building that's the bass the bass is the guy that'slike gluing and holding everything together sometimes it's easier and

2:27 sometimes it's harder than other times so that's the one that's like the oneside is it's it's function as that glue guy as that groove guy the thing thatis locking everything together and then the other side is the way that it relatesto the melody so if you go into like classical music and listen to kind of what'sgoing on in the bass register it's typically doing something called counterpoint

2:52 which is basically providing a another melody a counter melody to the mainmelody one that on its own could be sung as well something that is is catchyand interesting and is mirroring what the main melody is doing so by takingthose two kind of identities together that's how I try and conceptualize mybass playing is on the one hand trying to glue everybody together and to create

3:24 that sense of vibe and feel and cohesiveness in the rhythm section and thensupport for the harmony for what's going on with the guitars and the keyboardand stuff like that but then also provide something that would be singable itsown melody on its own it doesn't have to be always that but like that's kind ofthe main goals something that on its own you could you could hum along to or you

3:51 could sing along to so something that makes you move and something that makes yousing all at the same time so how do you actually go about accomplishing that soone of my favorite techniques and I don't do this for every song but I'd sayprobably at this point 75 80% of the time I record bass last or at least the finalbass last because that allows me to really get a sense of what is going on

4:14 with the melody and the phrasing of the lead vocal and so traditionally mostthe time at least you would record the the arrangement from the ground up soyou would kind of record drums and bass and then on top of it layering guitarsand on top of it layering vocals but I kind of think it's that's a little bitbackwards from what the function is when a bass player is actually playing live

4:39 where the bass players in the best case scenario is listening to everythingsome bass players only listen to the drummer and then expect everyone else tolisten to them I don't like that at all especially as a guitarist it's a veryuncomfortable place to be when you're being ignored by the rhythm sectionbecause you're supposed to be part of the rhythm section it's supposed to be

5:00 reacting to you and you're supposed to be reacting to it if you just kind ofsit in their pocket rather than joining them and creating this groovetogether you feel left out and I think that the music suffers for that butthat's a common I don't know session player thing is basis only with some ofthe drummers I definitely don't agree with that perspective I think that you

5:25 should be listening to everybody drums are oftentimes the most important but a lotof times they're not because like say for example if the drummer is likerushing the drummer's playing really fast but then the lead singer is likesinging really slow behind the beat the bass should be grabbing both of themlike that captain America thing and pulling them together if the basis is only

5:47 listening to the drummer and just trying to play with the drummer the bass isgonna be way ahead jamming out with the drummer while the singer is left unsupportedand that's terrible you're not doing your job so that's that's like talkingabout the rhythmic placement like where you're actually putting your note sothat's that's like the reason why I'm harping on this so much is actually that's

6:09 even more important than the notes that you're playing on a bass guitar you canbe playing one note the entire time but if you find the right rhythmicplacement in between all of the other instruments finding that sweet spotwhere everybody connects and glues together doesn't really matter what you'replaying it's gonna be serving the right function as long as not like a crazy

6:32 note but sometimes it's cool anyway you could just be like steady on one notebut if it's in the perfect spot you're killing it as a bass player so and thento add complexity if you want to make a single part a hooky part now you want tolisten to what the melody is doing and then provide contour and shading tothat melody and so I like to think of it like dancing around the melody so if

6:55 you're singing one thing the bass is alternatively supporting that onething and then providing a little embellishment or a little you know skip aroundit so that's those little like to do little base base things that I like to dois that those are that's kind of like you're dancing with the melody you'rewaltzing with this thing and so I try to you know grab both of those things

7:19 like have it be in the right spot you know that's obviously very subjectiveparticularly for bass I if it's just like you know super quantized which meanslike robotic bass sometimes it doesn't it doesn't feel as good it's it's againit's like not providing that glue guy role it's making just something thatreinforces the robotic drums so keep that in mind when you're playing if you're

7:48 just gonna quantize everything you might be losing some magic particularly onthis instrument and then from that you know if you're recording withoutunderstanding what your melody is you're losing the opportunity to write acounter melody to use kind of those counterpoint things I don't like you knowdon't really think about it while you're playing where you go oh the melody went

8:12 up so I want to go down you don't really have to think like that but just likebeing aware of where the melody is so that you can play alternatively supportingit and then going away from it or dancing around it so if you're accomplishingboth of those things that's a pretty groovy bass part to me one other thingthat I want to talk about is how like it actually fits in with the kick drum

8:36 pattern so there is a what I find a misconception that the bass has to hit onevery kick drum I don't believe that personally because it's so square if ifthe bass is the glue guy there should be moments where the drums are somewhatsacrificed for everyone else and vice versa there's like you finding thatbalance that sweet spot where you're playing with the drum kit but you're not

9:09 ignoring the syncopation of the harmony you're dancing between them that'swhy I like bass so much is it's that between your instrument and it's one ofthose things like if you play it right and you throw that on a track that you'vebeen working on the whole things comes to life and that's part of the reasonwhy I like to save it for the last two again not in every single song but most

9:32 because it's like like oh this sounds good but it just needs that somethingand then you add bass to it and not only does it create this size and thisscale of the frequencies because you're adding all those super low notes but italso creates this rhythmic glue and then a counter melody to the melody so ithighlights what the melody is makes it supported makes it more interesting and

9:59 it also takes the whole thing and turns it into a song without and the thearrival of bass is also one thing I want to point out too is like pick when andwhere bass is in the arrangement because it's one of the most impactfulentrances and exits that you can have if you have a drum kit without bass andthen in the chorus the bass comes through it it provides such a deep

10:30 dimension to that moment even more so in my opinion than a drum in during anexiting even though drums are more rhythmically complex and all this kind ofstuff that moment where bass turns on and off it's like it's like opening andclosing your eyes the curtains open when the bass arrives so there's that there's

10:57 also traditionally like you can think of it like kick drum is low note snare drum ishigh note so like you know kind of playing with the frequency spectrum of thedrum kit and playing off of that but the hardest thing to describe aboutactually writing bass parts is that middle thing that's what makes them sovexing what makes them so fun is it's not it's not like hey do x y and z it's

11:28 like find the points in between x y and z and fill them in it's the shading ofthe the musical arrangement it's like have you ever seen like an artist whenthey draw something it looks really nice but then they shade it and it comes tolife and it gets dimension that's what the bass does so how do you describeshading you kind of you kind of have to say it's the middle stuff it's the

11:53 stuff that like provides perspective and dimension that's what you're doing tothe melody you're providing perspective and dimension by choosing reallyinteresting bass notes one more thing from like the harmonic perspective from thechord choice typically bass is on the root or the fifth of a given chorddoesn't always have to be though I really like there's a thing that like

12:22 Tame Impala does it all the time where they play what's called the ninth soyou have root fifth and then ninth which is like the second scale degree up theoctave anyway but you can you can pull in all of these different flavors thesethese notes that aren't typically considered the bass note as long as you kindof like get in and out of there quickly or if you really commit to it you can

12:47 change the fundamental quality of all of the chords by picking a differentnote there's there's like something really interesting with major andminor chords if you play the root of a major chord with major chord stuff up ontop of it it just sounds like a major chord but then when you play the rootof the minor chord but don't even change the stuff that's on top now it becomes

13:15 a minor seven so like this is I think sting said this where it's like he lovedthe bass guitar so much because it dictates everything about everything aboveit you're like you're the foundation of all of it so if you change everyoneelse is contextualized differently so use that power wisely there's there's alot of power in chromatic notes the the stuff that isn't technically in the

13:43 scale but if you use them well and use them in passing or it can add thiswhole different sense of on one hand it can be jazzy and on another it can betensiony and like you know Beatles-esque or it can be a fluid and give a senseof motion that isn't present in the harmony itself like if you're just doinga super simple chord set that's that's sometimes the best time for the

14:13 bass guitar to shine because if the chords are fundamentally simple and therhythm is fundamentally simple then the shading has to be more complex like Ialways kind of think of complexity and simplicity as another dance witheach other where if you have you know a handful of elements that are all complexand the bass should probably be simple if that you have a handful of elements

14:35 that are all simple then the bass has got more room to do some crazy stuff so Idon't know if that helped at all that's like my philosophical take on thebass guitar bass part writing it's it's the middle way and it's super fun andone of the hardest things about bass and part writing for bass is you just kindof gotta do it a lot I'm still really working on it I think I got to find a

15:05 bass teacher because there are some things that technique wise are stilldifficult for me and I want to get over it so if there's a moral of the storyhere it's don't stop learning and keep exploring and find those gaps anddance with the rest of the music right parts and play parts that listen toeverybody and not just one element because in the end you're making one big

15:34 soup and if you only focus on one ingredient and that soup it's all gonna besuper out of balance and also the rest of the band is gonna be grumpy we don'twant that all right that's much feel Scoobert Doobert saying goodbye if you wantmore Scoobert Doobert dot pizza get some fun stuff up there including a 360 musicvideo pretty sweet okay see you next week