Maturing as a Drummer

I've been reading drum magazines for years now. A repeating theme is drummers saying that, when they were young, they cared a lot about how fast or complicated that they could play. They cared about having "chops." But that as they aged and matured, it became more about "serving the song" and playing tastefully. That they scaled back their playing and simplified and that the result was so much better.

I always wanted to punch those dudes in the face.

It is really obnoxious to say that chops don't matter...AFTER you yourself have gained chops. As a beginning drummer who can barely put a beat together, the last thing you want to hear is "chops aren't important." Because you know very well that everyone in the room is thinking..."wow, that drummer isn't very good." It is only possible to say that chops aren't important AFTER you have them.What having chops gives you is the ability to make choices.

I've been playing drums for about 9 years now. Sort of towards the middle of that time I tried to buckle down and get more serious and improve my skills and what I learned was that I didn't enjoy buckling down and that I did not have a natural talent for big improvements. I could get better bit by bit, but probably I was never going to be fantastic. And really, I didn't NEED to be fantastic. To do the things that I enjoyed, I just had to be "pretty ok". It is hard to accept that, because I still feel like a failure when I see people who play better than I do and I still worry that people are saying behind my back "that drummer isn't very good." But honestly, I play well enough for what I need/want to do.

Last night the song writer in our band brought a new tune in. Usually the way I approach this is that I play what seems to go with what he is doing...whatever comes out naturally. I start simple, because the most important thing when the band is learning the song is for me to keep a steady beat so everyone can lock together....and then as the song develops over time I try to make my beat more complicated. I try to never play the same beat twice...to do something a little different with each song. Some times this means I force weird things that don't come naturally and I end up spending a long time trying to make the part work so that I can play it.  But the last two songs he has brought out, including the one last night, I just did what felt right and didn't worry too much about if it was complicated enough or different enough from other things that I've done in the past. I was sort of amazed at how easily the part came to me, and how good it sounded. It was so simple. I really did serve the song. And I thought..."maybe I will just leave it like this." It was one of the first times when I really believed (and wasn't at some level just consoling myself for lack of skills), "yeah simple is better."

Here's the song that we played last night. So the singer and one of the guitars is the song writer. The other guitar and the drums...we had never heard this song before. We were playing along the first time we'd ever heard it (there are some guitar misses for this reason but they aren't too bad). I gotta say that I mostly nailed the drum part. It is simple, but I DID have to make choices. I'm particularly proud of the instinct that I had at 1:35...just felt it and went with it.

Piano Class Progress and Ear Training

I haven't been posting about the piano class much because...well it just isn't very impressive. But I think it is good for beginners (though possibly moves too fast for a TRUE beginner with no music background).

I get panic attacks about finding notes on the keyboard and about reading the notes on the staff (getting my brain to read both treble and bass clef at same time and not mix them up)...and yesterday the instructor asked us to play 2nd or 3rd intervals and say by ear which was which. When I was playing them and could look at the keys while I listened this seemed easy. They sounded different. But as soon as someone else played them and I couldn't look at the keys I was afloat. Like no idea.

This, of course, is not shocking because I have had a hard time with vocal harmonies in the past. I can't hear them and I can't sing them (unless someone shows me what to sing, I practice it, and then I ignore the other person singing).  I've also never been great at tuning by ear. Only recently have I begun to hear the "warble" of an out-of-tune note...but I still can't tell if the note is sharp or flat.  I even struggle, if you play two notes, to tell you which one is the higher note and which one is the lower note...I have to play them several times and think about it pretty hard.

I'm sure this is a skill that can be learned, but that some people take to it more naturally than others. I'd be on the end of the spectrum that really struggles and would need to work REALLY hard at it and still might never be great at it. I haven't ever really worked at it...and I don't know if I have the patience and interest to work at it.

It frustrates me that people seem to think this is a natural skill and are confused when you can't do it though. It's like they think I'm lying or just not trying hard enough. It pisses me off and makes me feel really insecure.

Everyone isn't good at everything.

I was noticing in class that I'm way better at playing than many of the others. I keep the tempo and play accurately. I can play faster than many.  I also was noticing that while I was bored and noodling around because I couldn't get the interval ear training thing...that I would accidentally happen upon melodies that I recognized and could pick them out by ear. It happened like 10 times.

So it isn't that I'm tone deaf...because I can pick out melodies from memory by ear. I can match pitches by trial and error. And to some extent I know when notes are close to each other or far apart. I just can't tell the intervals. I might know that note one is low and note two needs to be a lot higher...but even though I can hear the melody in my head...I'll have to make a guess to match the second pitch. If I guess wrong I'll quickly guess again until I get it.

Learning the keyboard is definitely helpful for learning the relative position of notes. It took me forever to start to learn that on bass/guitar. On the keyboard it is right there in black and white. It's interesting.

I think the class will be useful, but not earth shattering. I don't think I care about being able to play piano...but it does present one with useful basic skill sets.

The Next Level

I've been trying to think of ways to take my playing "to the next level." I've been trying to memorize more difficult songs (it is slow going) as part of this effort. But this week I started trying not to look at my left hand when playing bass. I didn't realize how much I look at it. It's hard to play and not look at it. There's a sweet spot between looking at the music too much (solved my memorizing) and looking at your hand too much (ok sometimes, but best not to be a crutch). I find that in certain live performance situations you can't see the dots on your fingerboard...and you can't see your notes or sheet music. So getting away as much as possible from either thing is a big confidence booster. Plus, if you aren't focusing on those things you can focus on other stuff...like phrasing or dynamics or right hand technique. I'm splitting my time on bass now between playing with a pick (Pixies) and playing without (ska). It has been a real challenge to learn how to stop strings from vibrating when playing with a pick and also to cross strings and also to decide "picking direction" (like bowing or sticking...when to do up strokes and when to do down and when to alternate).  Anyway...there's a lot going on lately.

I've also been starting to go back and listen to the original versions of songs that I've been playing for years now to find things that I missed the first time around. Extra vocal harmonies or inflections...grace notes...or things I just flat out got wrong the first time around. That's slow going too...but rewarding to add something new to a song I've been playing forever. Cases in point:

Added a slide pickup from 9th fret to 4th fret right before the last chorus (just after the bridge) in Rascal King (2:38 to 2:41 in video below)


Added backing vocals on the chorus in No 13 Baby (starts 0:34 in video below)


Working to add the breath noise between the first and second verses in Subbacultcha (hard to hear but at 0:38-0:41 in video below)

Walking Bass Lines with Chromatic approaches

Slow day at work.

This is a brilliant lesson.

Tone

I notoriously am not very concerned with tone...or maybe more to the point...I've never felt like I could hear the differences that other people have in tone. But it is becoming an issue in my bass playing.

I know that what I like is a deep, boomy, smooth sound. I know that what I don't like is a trebly, "tink-tink" kind of sound. But the problem with a deep, boomy, smooth sound is that it can get "muddy"...where all the notes kind of melt together and lose their separation. This isn't such a big deal when you are hanging on a root note 8th pattern (90% of Pixies bass lines) or playing slowly or playing whole notes. But it is a problem for fast moving bass lines like those that I play in ska.

My remedy for the problem has just been to turn down my bass tone and turn up my treble tone on my amp and the turn the tone knob to more "tinky" on my bass. But I kind of hate the tone and it still bleeds together a lot. Playing with a pick increases the separation, but it is really hard for me to play fast with a pick...especially if I'm doing a lot of string crossings or playing on the high strings a lot. I got unsolicited advice once that suggested that I not pluck so high up on the neck. I rest my thumb on the corner of the fingerboard and play right there when I play with my fingers. I've tried moving back to the bridge or to the pickups...but it feels really weird. And I don't think it really helps or sounds any better.

Anyway, I was listening to Fleetwood Mac this morning and realizing that John McVie's tone is exactly what I'm shooting for. It is smooth and low and booming...but there is a definition to the notes....the notes don't bleed together and get muddy. And he's playing a lot of notes.  So, aside from him being a great player, I could look into what kind of equipment he used. Just a thought.

The Perception of the Copycat

In late summer of 2010 I took over drumming duties in TD from a friend of mine. He'd had enough of band drama and I think he wanted to take his life in another direction. I offered to take over on a whim. It was one of those odd moments in life when I didn't even question if I could do it or if I SHOULD do it...I just did it. I think just to keep the band from imploding, they gave me an "audition" and I got the job. This is strange because it happens every so often...I just decide to join a band on a whim and have no worries about it. Conversely, there are just as many or more groups where I fret and sell myself short...I say things like "I'm probably not good enough but if you wanna take a chance." Shockingly, I don't get call backs on those gigs.

Anyway, when I took the job my only intention was to copy the drum parts as closely as I could to the originals. This was a little tough, because I was stepping into the shoes of a self-taught, unconventional drummer. I'm mostly self-taught too...but I kind of operate in a very standard framework. Not so for my predecessor. But I tried my best to copy him. And I thought I did a decent job.

But all along the band has said things like "I really like what you've done with the drum part" or "this song has a whole new feel with you playing drums." This frustrated me because my goal was to just copy the old way. This meant I was either failing in that...or that someone was blowing smoke up my ass (my default assumption about all compliments...I HAVE ISSUES).

This morning I listened to the first album by the group because we are adding back in two old songs from that disc that I haven't done much with them. I was surprised to find that, yes, I DO play most of the songs significantly differently from the old drummer. I had no idea. There are parts that I would have sworn that I stole from him that just don't exist. And he plays stuff I've never played. Me skipping things he did doesn't surprise me, because it was hard unconventional stuff that I just couldn't pull off at the time. But the adding of things that weren't there to begin with surprises me. I know that I didn't do it on purpose. There was no grand creative vision. It just happened because it felt natural to do...and so I guess I assumed that it was already there.  Not to blow my own horn, but the upshot I think IS actually better than the original. I've left out busy sections that distracted from the vocal or other parts and I've added things that add interest (particularly on the bass drum). The bass drum is interesting, because the first album had no bass guitar. But when I came into the group, we had a pretty dominant bass player. My right foot naturally just did what the bass player was doing without me realizing it.

I don't know what to make of all of this except:
1) Apparently I have my own style even though I didn't think I did
2) Without trying, I seem to make "musical" choices that support the group. Whether this is because I can't play complicated things or if it is an instinct built on years of playing music I don't know
3) Now I'm super worried that all those Pixies bass lines that I thought I was playing note-for-note from the original could be TOTALLY WRONG. I can't decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

Getting Off Book

So I've got this Halloween tribute gig on Saturday. It is the 4th year that we've done a Halloween show and the 3rd year that we've learned a whole new set for it.  The last two years I had a really hard time memorizing my parts. When we did Flaming Lips the parts were just harder than I was used to...but last year was Love and Rockets and the parts were dirt easy. I just found them hard to commit to memory. This year it is INXS and, again, the parts are dirt easy. But I've been traveling a lot lately and also now play in 5 bands and I was beginning to wonder if I'd be able to get off book at all for this.  I tried to not use my notes at Saturday's rehearsal and failed.  On Sunday, I did not open the book at all for my private practice session. I thought "let's just see how bad it is". To my surprise, I had 99% committed to memory. The other bit was just a matter of a quick look up and reinforcement a few times. Monday night I played the whole set perfectly.  On Wednesday I'll be ready to play dress rehearsal off book...and I'm actually not nervous about the gig and don't think I'll need to make any notes for myself at all, which is rare.  I plan to try to play the entire set every night this week to keep it fresh.

How did it happen that I memorized it all? I really can't say.  I have not been putting in the time until last week and this. But somehow, when I buckled down, it came.

I'm always afraid that my capacity to memorize tunes will vanish. It was a surprise to me that I was even capable of memorizing.  That first Pixies gig was probably the first rock show I ever played off book on bass. Muscle memory is like a miracle.

I haven't made a very strong effort to get off book for ska. I admit this is in part because my bandmates haven't bothered to get off book, so I've been indignant about putting in the time. But I probably ought to give it a shot. It IS nice to put away the music stand...both cause it is a pain to haul around but also because it feels like a bigger accomplishment.

Putting It All Together

I am a largely self-taught musician...or at least it feels that way. What is true is that I taught myself to play my father's chord organ and my brother's acoustic guitar basically with no assistance. But it is also true that I studied cello for 7 years in public school, and that probably gave me more of a solid technical background than I can really imagine.

But the guitar that I learned on was a shitty acoustic and I taught myself from chord diagram sheet music...so I learned your basic open folk chords. The irony of guitar is that...power chords and barre chords are actually "easier" than open chords...because you learn one form (ok, a handful of forms) and just apply them over and over. With open chords...every chord is its own thing. But I don't think I'm alone in finding barre chords and power chords difficult...just because that's not how I learned.

Conversely, people who know power chords will treat you like an asshole if you can't play them...because they seem so dirt simple to them. And they are. But that's kind of like a French person saying a Spanish person is stupid for not being able to speak French (this too, more than likely, happens).

I've been working off and on over the last few years to learn to play barre chords and power chords. But I've been inconsistent (the bass and drums...instruments I actually NEED to play...always get in the way) and haven't made much progress.

Ancillary to all of this is the idea of using effects pedals...and special ways of playing like "palm muting." All of this...foreign to me.

One of my band's suggested we play a certain metal tune. This is funny because I think of us as a folky-rock group. I have no interest in metal...but I think BECAUSE it is so funny...I wanted to learn this suggested song. I realized pretty quickly that the guitar player in our band suffers from the same guitar issues that I do, though, and so I wondered about re-arranging the song with the lead guitar on bass.

I plugged in my shitty Hondo Pro guitar into my borrowed 1.5 Watt Vox effects amp and gave it a whirl just to figure out the parts. It turns out that the song in question is actually pretty simple, though I'm still nailing down the exact structure. The song is essentially all power chords with some lead lines that follow a basic scale structure. There's a touch of palm muting. The key is getting the sound to overdrive...which with that little amp is easy. When my friends have told me in the past "when in doubt just put a bunch of feedback on there" I never understood how that helped. Now I get it.

I don't know what happened, but suddenly all of these things made sense to me and fell together. I'm certain that with just a few more practices I'll have nailed the entire song. I can even play most of it on bass now (chords and all). I'm still not the world's greatest power chord player...but I think I see how it goes. As with everything...it just takes practice.

I don't know if this constitutes some kind of break-through that, from this point forward will mean a whole brave new world. But it feels like it might.

That Pesky Left Foot

I've been listening to the 94 Stockholm concert non-stop ever since I got it on Monday. Yesterday I drove out to Cross Plains to tend to GRC inventory and ended up listening to the concert maybe four times in a row. Aside from being amused by all the drunk KeD banter (amused only because it is ancient history now) the biggest thing I've noticed is JM's drumming.  In particular, his left foot.

My left foot (sounds like an art film) is the last thing to integrate into my drumming. I use it a tad, but not much at all. I noticed that much of the time JM is keeping time with it, often with 8th notes (but sometimes with quarter notes). This strikes me as a very jazz-oriented thing to do, which makes me wonder what his background is. (UPDATE: here's something). I sat down and gave it a shot yesterday and had better luck than I'd expected. But it is quite foreign to me.

I also noticed that he switches back and forth between on beat versus off beat snare hits alot...so much so that one might call it his style. This too I suck at.

Fatigue and Potential Injury

The whole thing about my back, shoulders, and hands that has been bumming me out. I suddenly remembered today that this happened once before...when I was learning Blondie songs on the drums. Basically, I pushed myself to learn things that were beyond my skills at the time...and then kind of hurt myself.  In the end, the solution was to relax and not try so fucking hard. I didn't get things perfect...but they ended up being good enough all the same.

Playing Position

When I started playing ska I had to sit down to play bass. My hands were going numb. I found that, if I sat, I could take the pressure off of the shoulder strap, and also use my right arm to stabilize the bass, allowing much less stress on my left hand.

But...ska is dance music...and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit on stage to play ska.

So in addition to trying to memorize my parts (cause I'll be damned if I'm going to read music on stage), I've been trying to figure out how to get out of my seat.

Last night I put my strap in the "high" position. I have my strap set to a certain length that I like for playing...but there are two holes for the strap on the tailpiece. The one I normally use makes the strap slightly longer...the other takes about 4 to 6 inches off. Even in the "long" position...I'm still wearing it way higher than most bass players. But in the "short" ...or "high"...position..it is just stupidly high.

But, it seems that this high position makes it possible to play. In the long position I find myself constantly pushing up on the neck trying to get it more vertical. In the short position I don't find this happening...and it seems to take the pressure off my left hand in a similiar (though not as thorough) way as sitting did. Sitting is still way better...but I think that I'll be able to play standing now in this super high position.

People on the outside have no idea the evolution of musical learning.

Formal Notation

I lament a bunch not having taken becoming a rock star more seriously at a younger age. I knew I wanted to from about age 7...but I dicked around and listened to logic ("there's no chance of becoming a rock star"). More than anything I just didn't realize that all I had to do was...well do it. I guess that I thought I needed permission.

Anyway, I think I discount in this regret that I have actual had a formal musical education. I got a relatively late start at age 12, and it twas merely a public school education...but there's no getting around that I learned to read music and to play in an ensemble. Just facts.

I learned to read music in bass clef. I kind of knew treble too...but bass was my foundation. I played cello. Both the cello and the bass use bass clef. There is some trickiness though. Cellos are tuned in 5ths. Guitars (mostly escept one string) and electric basses are tuned in 4ths. So, even though I read bass clef and play cello...I was never able to read bass clef to play on the bass. It's a weird thing.

Mostly because I'm having trouble thinking of things to do in bass lessons, it recently occured to me that it might be useful to be able to read bass clef to play on the bass. It has very little practical use since none of the music that I play is written in formal notation. It just seemed like a good idea. So I thought I'd bring it to my teacher. But before I brought it to her, I thought I'd take a look at it myself.

So...bored at work with nothing to do since my coworkers are all out for the holidays...that's basically what I did yesterday...taught myself to play bass clef on the bass.

Kind of anyway. It is the kind of thing that requires practice. But when I got home from work I was able to play some Bach cello suites on the bass...slowly. It is a strange kind of transposition that happens in my brain...it reminds me of when I first took up bass. I was always thinking in terms of how a cello is set up and then adding or subtracting frets accordingly. I found myself doing that with the notation too. Like, on cello the top line is A and that's the highest open string. On bass that same note is on the highest string...but the string is a G...so it is on the 2nd fret (up a whole step).  So I'd think...like cello but up a bit.

If I wanted to I could work up the skill. I'm not sure that I want to. I just wanted to know that I could if I wanted to. I think that it could be helpful with the learning the fret board thing. It certainly reinforced for me where C and D are on the G string...something I would have had to think hard about if pressed prior to yesterday.  Oh...and that means that the 7th fret on the G string is E...up two octaves from the lowest open string. Huh. Yeah...useful.

So now I guess that I have to find something else to do in lessons now.

This chart (and other ones like it) was handy.

Still more revelations on the 4 to 7 box

I know...I'm an idiot. Everyone else figured this out long ago.

Don't like 4...go to 9.  Don't like 9...go to 4.  Same deal for 3 and 8.  I already knew about 2 and 7.

Holding your instrument outside of rehearsal...it's the new way to learn. Like magic.

Ma Hands

So when I started playing in the ska band I noticed right away that there were going to be issues with my hands. I have some undiagnosed Carpel Tunnel Syndrome...and either the speed or fear or whatever of the ska tunes seemed to aggrivate it.  I mostly sovled the problem by playing sitting down, without the strap pressure on my shoulder, and with the neck at an angle that isn't possible standing up. I also tried to take it slow and build strength. Practice ten minutes...rest...stretch...ice if needed...return to pratice. That worked pretty well and I found myself able to extend the periods of practice longer and longer and reduce the rest periods.

Then, of course, I got comfortable and cocky and kind of stopped practicing. I'd convinced myself that I could play the style and so I layed off a bit. So now I'm back to building up strength and endurance.

But there are complicating factors too.

One issue is that I just can't stand the thought of sitting to play bass at a ska gig. I have to be able to dance...and plus I can't imagine room for a 7 piece band in most venues will allow for me to have a leisurely chair.

The second issue is that, since the band seems to have a habit of transposing into different keys, I've begun to try and reduce the open strings that I play. Open strings make transposing hard because it means you have to change your fingering. If you don't play any open strings, for the most part you just move your hand up or down the prescribed number of frets. That means all the muscle memory stays the same. I'm playing really fast and trying to memorize these ridiculous songs...the last thing I need is change in fingering. The thing is, though, when you don't play open strings you get into stretching or shifting a bit more. I didn't think this was a big deal. My bass instructor had warned me months ago that, while stretching from the 4th (with my first finger) to 7th fret (with my fourth finger) seemed totally reasonable to me...that once I had to play for any length of time like that I'd get really fatigued. I didn't believe her. But yes, I realized this week that the stretches are killing me. And so on the songs that hurt the most, I've rewritten the parts to include open strings.

Kind of reminds me of the old joke about bass players. They start by playing 1 and 5...then they spend the middle part of their career trying to get away from 1 and 5...then they spend the end of their career trying to get back to 1 and 5. Everything comes full circle.  So, yeah, I spent the start of my bass playing career playing lots of open strings...moved into trying to avoid open strings...and now I see that open strings have their place.

I was reading an article about Steve Albini this week and noted that he wears a wasteband guitar strap. I'd never heard of those before. I wonder if it might not be a good option for me. I see that they make hybrid straps that are kind of part wasteband and part shoulder strap. 

It is partialy the strap pressure that is an issue, but more than that it is the need to support the instrument. When I play sitting down I put all the weight of the instrument on my right leg and the neck floats. When I stand with a strap some of the weight is resting on my left hand. This is bad for my hand pain...but also slows down my playing because my hand can't shift as freely and my grip is too tight on the neck. I don't know if a wasteband strap would help with that or not. I suspect not.

When I started playing Pixies I had similiar issues, but most all of them were solved by getting my bass set up well to have lower action. It's interesting how much a playing style makes. I can play Pixies for 3 hours with no problems with my hands. It's weird.

Slap Bass

I don't really like slap bass and don't care to play it. But I have to learn a little for this song. This guy does a decent job of showing how it is done. Slap  part starts at 1:25

More Ska

I was asked to take a look at Street Light Manifesto. I like them.



I dug out my Mighty, Mighty Bosstones



and my Sprawl too.



So...yeah...it seems pretty clear that the basslines move a bunch...but it is all simple scales or triads. I'll have to build some speed, but I was planning to work on that anyway. I probably can get away with root notes played with complimentary rhythms until I get the speed up on the scales. One thing that works in my favor...the parts are very repetative. Like you get this little bass scale lick that's kinda fast...but it repeats over and over and over again in the song. So get it once and you've got it.

I think that, if this works out and who knows if it will, this could be a really great experience for me. It lands in my lap right at the time when I'm thinking about scales and building speed and learning about relative intervals and writing bass lines. It'll end up seeming easy in a few years...but right now it is the perfect thing at the perfect time.

Ska

So a drummer that I greatly respect asked me to play bass in a ska band with her today. It was such a casual inquiry that I almost didn't catch it. Who knows if it will pan out.

I love Sprawl and the Mighty, Mighty Bosstones...so I think ska is awesome. I know that ska can be alot more serious than those bastardized versions, though...and that the bass playing is pretty specific. I don't think that she's leaning too hard core though.

Looking for advice...I go to the forums:

"There are many different versions of what ska consists of, but most ska contains four vital elements: a walking bass line, offbeat rhythms (usually guitar and/or keyboard), 4/4 time signature (percussion) and a lead melody played by horns."

"depends what kind of ska you wanna play but...
find out what the barre chords your guitarist is playing, and fool around with the arpeggio for that scale/chord. for instance if he's playing B major, try fooling around with something with these notes:

G------------------
D------------9-----
A-----6-7-9--------
E---7--------------

you could even play a scale in a walking bassline. for instance, the bassline for "gyasi went home" by bedouin soundclash (not really a ska song, more calypso) is pretty much just the bassist playing an A major scale over and over. you could also play the root note and then improvise on the chord or scale.

some good bands to check out for inspiration:
catch 22
streetlight manifesto
reel big fish
planet smashers
bedouin soundclash
the johnstones
madness
the specials

some songs:
time bomb - rancid
one step beyond - the specials
action - the johnstones
anything by streetlight manifesto
line em up www.myspace.com/onemoreroundmusic"

"I have found some common things in a lot of ska bass lines include:
•outlining the chord - using the arpeggios (like blackbassist described)
•playing two 1/8th on each tone
•Slamming down HARD on the root then going to the arpeggio for the meat of the phrase - when moving from on phrase to the next, use a scalar walk up/down
I love playing ska lines! They are energetic without being exhausting - that gots balls! They make people sweat! Obviously - check out some Sublime...also, "Tears of a Clown" (The English Beat, I believe) is another nice ska groover..."

Some instructive videos:


http://www.ehow.com/video_2260033_using-triad-outlines-ska-bass.html
This one is pretty helpful. Basically you want to do triads over the chords. Double the root. So you've got "R R 3 5" played with 8th notes.





Also...I just saw this on a bass forum and I think it is pretty funny:
"Seems to me the evolution of a bass player goes:
root --> root/five --> avoid root and root/five, too limiting --> realize the value of the root and fifths --> less is more except when more fits right.... roots are fine"

Effects Pedals

Not having a fully developed identity as a player yet...and not having a great ear for sound quality...means that I don't mess much with effects. KiD plays a pretty clean, straight signal bass...so I haven't needed to mess much with it. I have takent the baby step to notice and react to the fact that she played a different kind of bass at different points in the Pixies' career and that this changed the tone. I might not have noticed this on my own admittedly, but I read it online.

Aria Pro II Cardinal Series – The Pixies' first bass belonged to Kelley,and is heard on Come On Pilgrim, Surfer Rosa and seen on the Town & Country live video. It later reappeared in the Kelley Deal 6000.

1962 Fender Precision Reissue– Acquired for use on Doolittle on Gil Norton's insistence. It appears in the video for "Here Comes Your Man". On the Bossanova album, the Precision was used on "Dig for Fire" for its "lazier, growlier sound" that was "not as boingy-boingy-sproingy".

Music Man Stingray – Added in time for Bossanova "because it was active and had a different sound" and became her main live bass "because it was a little less country-sounding than the Fender". The instrument was afterwards played by Josephine Wiggs in The Breeders and Luis Lerma in The Amps.

Steinberger headless (but full-bodied, two-cutaway) bass – Bought during the recording of Trompe Le Monde because the other basses were out of tune on the higher frets. Deal described it as having a "weird, organ-y sound".

The upshot for me as a practical matter is that there are a few songs that I either play with a pick or turn the tone knob "brighter" on. Well...now that I think about it...I really only do this for one song...Bird Dream. I turn the knob all the way bright (I normally play all the way the opposite). I play with a pick on Debaser, Blown Away, and Is She Weird...not for tone reasons per se, but because there are parts of those songs where I play alone and the boys couldn't clearly make out the notes (and thus the tempo) because they were too muddy. So I play with a pick to make them more articulated and louder. But as we are getting into the last of the Trompe le Monde and Bossonova songs I AM more aware of the different, brighter, tone. And I will probably adjust the tone.

My only other experience with effects or tone was for the Flaming Lips tribute. I bought a bass distortion pedal for that (that, even though it is the actual pedal that Michael Ivins uses live, I only ended up using on one song for an over the top punch in wall of ridiculous sound)fuzz pedal for that and borrowed a Peach Fuzz pedal (which is awesome, but pricey). I also briefly experimented with a multi-effects pedal on one song...but we ended up having the keyboard player use that pedal instead for that song.

I don't much fiddle with the knobs on my amp. I'm not sure what I'd even be trying to accomplish. I also have a modern and a vintage channel on my amp...but I don't much know the difference. I know that I like a fatter, less treble, bass sound. That's all I know.

I feel like I ought to try and understand more about effects and the quality of sound. Not so much because I care, but because it is part of the language. It would be nice, when RS and CT are debating this or that tone, if I had any idea what they were talking about.

So I've been obsessed with R Ring lately. And they use some serious effects...and in weird ways I gather. I took some pictures of their pedals the other night.

Here's KeD's guitar pedals. It is a little hard to make out what they are. Left to right it looks like...Boss tuner, Boss Digital Delay DD7, Ibanez/Tube Works Tube King Overdrive TK999 (maybe an older one), and Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Nano Reverb.  It helps to look at these pics on Flickr blown up and flipped right side up.

Here's KeD's vocal pedals. She kneels on the floor and adjusts these throughout the songs that she uses them on (personal side note here...the setlist is in this photo!). Left to right below is Boss Digital Reverb Delay RV-3, Boss Distortion DS-1, and...and...the label is covered...but it sure looks like a second Boss Digital Reverb Delay RV-3. I'm not sure if she runs these through her amp or through the PA. There's a direct box sitting there. I'm pretty sure that the acoustic guitars were run through the amps, so there's good odds that that direct box is for the mic that runs through the pedals. I don't remember her switching mics though. She would unplug her guitars/keys and run them through the same cable. But I don't remember that with the vocal mic. Hmm.

Last but not least here's MM's board from two angles. Top left to right: Boss Delay DM-2 (red), Boss Tuner, Radial Tonebone JX2 Pro Switchbone AB/Y Pedal. Bottom left to right: Boss Equalizer GE-7, Death by Audio Fuzzwar

I really have no idea how these particular combinations result in the sounds they produced on stage. But at least I know what they were using.

On Musicial Identity and the Fall Back Position

I went to a show this week with a drummer who's playing I respect a great deal. She's one of those people who has played all of her life in all kinds of situations. Things seem easy for her and she goes beyond the basics.

I really watched her at this show though, and I was surprised by what I noticed. She has a definite style. In other words...she has a fall back position.

I definitely have a fall back position...the things that I play when I'm going on pure instinct and not trying to copy anything in particular. My pattern. It's the kind of thing that I try to break out of as much as possible.

So her fall back position was to open the hi hat on "3"...and to play "+4" on the bass drum...or maybe it was "a 4" on the bass drum. The first song that she did this I was really impressed. I thought...I can't do that...she's so good. And then I noticed she did it on another song...and another...and another. And suddenly I realized...that's not skill...that's just a fall back pattern that differs from my own.

Don't get me wrong, I still think she's a great drummer. But I'm less impressed and less intimidated now for having noticed this quirk.

What this also tells me is that, while it is good to break out of set patterns...it is those fall back positions that give us our identities as musicians. They define who we are...our natural tendancies. And in a strange way it is kind of nice that I have a tendancy...because it means that I am finding a voice as a drummer.

And there's probably people for whom my fall back position seems hard...simply because theirs is different from mine.

David's Grip

Okay...has David ALWAYS played traditional grip and I'm just noticing it now?



What the fuck is wrong with me?

Ok, if this is true it explains a bunch...because he always has the hella whip thing going on the snare and I always wonder how that is possible to whip that much. But maybe it is just that he doesn't use matched grip. It bothers me that I've never noticed this before.

Other weird thing about this video...Joe has a mic.

UPDATE:
Observe...1988...matched grip.

Okay. I feel better now. What is it about old farts that makes them think that they have to switch to traditional grip? It's like age-induced jazz disease.