VERY basic question about guitar and bass

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  • FunkfingersFunkfingers Frets: 14324
    ijonty said:
    There might be a good reason why your drummers tracks are not fully finished. It might be worth trying something and seeing how it goes when you get your bassist to do his job instead of playing the drummer's suggestion. 
    I think the main reason the songs are unfinished is purely because [the drummer] doesn't play guitar, rather than flaws in the writing. 

    the fact that these songs already have bass and vocal melody could well be making it harder, not easier!
    Indeed.

    I am reminded of the Peter Gabriel approach to song development. Typically, a beatbox to establish the tempo and general rhythmic "feel", a keyboard to suggest the main chords and a wordless vocal to suggest the melody. All very vague. This would be played to the session musicians. The *first call* session musicians would be trusted to do their own thing. Gabriel, as composer, reserved the right to edit out any contributions that did not fit the direction that the recording was taking. When the session musicians made major contribution, they received a co-writing credit and (eventually) a cut of the music publishing proceeds.
    Be seeing you.
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  • ijontyijonty Frets: 32

    I am reminded of the Peter Gabriel approach to song development. Typically, a beatbox to establish the tempo and general rhythmic "feel", a keyboard to suggest the main chords and a wordless vocal to suggest the melody. All very vague...
    So one way for me to look at it is that when I get the piece from the drummer, I actually treat the bassline as the suggested main chords. Build the guitar around those chords – which will therefore work with his suggested vocal – and the bassline can be created separately. The bass notes the drummer supplies are only extremely sparse anyway, often just one note per bar (if that's the right terminology).


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  • flying_pieflying_pie Frets: 1806
    @ijonty if the bass is very sparse then you could just use it as a rough guide for the chords then build your guitar part one you've established them. You could also ignore the bass note it if a "different" or "quirky" chord works better with the melody. Your bassist should be able to fill things in, especially if he's been playing his own baselines thus far.

    This video might also help. It's Steve Vai talking about how he wrote For The Love Of God by starting with a melody in his head rather than notes/chords on an instrument. 




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  • ijontyijonty Frets: 32
    Thanks @flying_pie I'll give it a watch. The bassist isn't writing his own stuff anyway as he isn't that experienced in composing, so I'd work with him to create the bass line anyway.


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  • FreebirdFreebird Frets: 5821
    If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
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  • TheBigDipperTheBigDipper Frets: 4722
    @ijonty  I've got another suggestion. If the drummer has an idea of a tempo (drum part) and a vocal melody, ask him to forget about the bass part and just share that. If the melody is decent, then the chords will be obvious and whoever plays bass will have something to aim at when they develop their bass part to fit. 

    Chord driven songwriting is just an approach to developing an idea. So is beat driven songwriting. Lead melody driven writing is another, and it can be fun making it work. 
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  • KeefyKeefy Frets: 2272
    Scott Devine (Scott's Bass lessons) did a great video on this but a quick search failed to locate it.

    Briefly, he says the most important elements in a bassline are, in descending order:

    1. Rhythm
    2. Chord notes
    3. Chromatic approach notes
    4. Scale notes
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