I said the day was bad, not wasted. Memorizing song words, even to my favorite tunes, is an entirely novel project in my life. Like many people, I know the first verse and the chorus by heart, the rest takes effort. Although singing the song is the exact amount of work I ever thought it would be (so you singers need not go on about it), I’ve already got a one up due to my bass style. How’s that? Read on.For clarity, I often make the bass line slightly more complicated as the song progresses. This is to sustain listenability, and is the opposite tactic of the big intro flourishes favored by the keyboard and guitar gang. Such a bass style demands a perspective of the entire tune, as the escalating complexity has to be introduced as a crescendo rather than as a splash “lead break” or in cycles of 12 bars.
In practice, it means I have to pay more and more attention as the tune moves past the familiar parts. To me it seems natural and may explain my impatience with draggy blues songs that remain the same throughout. The point is, I’m used to progressive concentration and this helps me retain lyrics more than I’d ever predicted. Soon, I’m going to try “Can’t You See”, a tune we all know but I doubt if one in a thousand of you hum a single note of that complicated bass line. Listen to it from my perspective and you will see.
An example of what I don’t want, but also an example of what is already out there, would be Eddie’s old band. He’ll occasionally play some on the juke box to get me to listen. I’m not really into it, as it exhibits all those studio sounds that are “learned” and I am not a studio musician. (I’ll get the name of his band for you, later.)
[Author's note 2015-06-27: the band's name was purportedly "Leftover Salmon". But, but, that band is from Denver and I've never seen Eddie in Denver. And he is not mentioned on the band's website . . . }
By "studio sounds", I mean such things as over-orchestration. They sound like a nine-piece band with everybody playing a technically perfect part at once. While the entire song is original, every lick and lyric is standard and formulaic. Every instrument has that characteristic fat mid-range mark of a studio engineer and is played with robot-like precision. Like listening to a windup music box. God bless ‘em, but it is not for me.
Incidentally, hearing old riffs strung together and labeled original is a sure sign of a guitarist at work. I believe with good reason that the best way to get a guitarist to play something novel (not necessarily original), is to have him lay down his part in isolation. That is correct. Give him the timing and structure of the piece, but do not let him listen to it and only tell him vaguely what type of music it is meant to be. Then, he’s more likely to come up with something uninfluenced by his own attitude. Listen to “Funk #49” by James Gang to get an idea of what I mean. Now there is a guitar part written without regard to the underlying musical theme. And I love it.
Today’s photo is meaningless. It is one of those random photos I post on the Internet just to see where it goes. In five years, it went nowhere.
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