Last month we spoke about “pushing our guitar player.” This means throwing in fills where it is appropriate in your songs. Solos are a good place to do it, but we want to be careful not step all over the soloist. A chorus or verse is fine as well. We just want to watch that we’re not stepping on our vocalist. This month we’re going to take some of
those scales and use them in a song setting.

As bass players we have to be very familiar with our rhythm section brother (or sister) the drummer. Drummers live their lives learning where to put the fill. The rest of it is groove, or swing, depending on what your playing situation is. Some of the best rhythm sections develop a telepathy with each other, which means you just know where your drummer is going to put their fills.

In addition to practicing scales and learning theory the most important thing we have to do is listen to music.The following are excellent examples of top notch rhythm sections: Ron Carter and Tony Williams are brilliant on Miles Davis live at the Blackbird. P-nut and Chad Sexton from 311, particularly on Grassroots. Jaco Pastorius and Kenwood Dennard on Jaco’s Live in NYC Vol. 2. In addition, Les Claypool and Brain from Primus on ‘Tommy the Cat Live’ on Rhinoplasty, and Claypool with Herb Alexander (ex-drummer of Primus) on ‘Mr. Krinkle’.

Honorable mentions include; Flea and Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Geddy Lee and Neil Peart (Rush), Victor and Roy Wooten (Bela Felck and The Flecktones). The list could go on with the abundance of awesome rhythm sections that I could mention, but unfortunantly, that would take up the rest of this article.

Now for the examples below. Example A is a straight rock groove in E minor. This is the essential rock key. Simply for the fact that nothing hits you harder than that open E string. Notice how the fills happen at the end of a 4 bar phrase. We want to become very familiar with how a 4 bar phrase feels. In most western music, whether it be in rock, jazz or latin, the musical structure circulates around these 4 bar phrases.

Experienced musicians have developed an intuitive ability for “4.” Some might say, they can use the force.

Example B is a funk groove. You’ll notice that the line is more syncopated than the rock groove. This is a strong characteristic of this style of music. As you look through the exercise, you’ll notice that the fill happens at the end of the 4 bar phrase, and this is the same place that it happened in the rock groove. You’ll notice that with any style rhythms change but the ideas are the same.

I recommend picking up two books If you are unfamiliar, or just uncomfortable, with syncopated grooves.

The first is a reading book called Rhythms by Doc Collins and Bugs Bower (of course, you’ll want to get the bass clef addition).

The other book is called SLAP IT by Tony Oppenheim and it focuses on slap techniques. A good practice would be to play the examples with the slap technique and without. Once you get deep into these two books there won’t be a rhythm you’ll have difficulty reading.

Learning where to put our fills is a long and arduous process.

I can show you 3 million examples of how it’s done, but you really have to play with a drummer and get first hand experience. Another thing to do is to transcribe, transcribe, transcribe! Learning to play what masters play moves you that much closer to becoming a master yourself.

Practice the examples below as slow as possible and work your way up the metronome. Remember everyone, timing is everything! If you have any questions or would like to contact me see all the info below. Thanks for reading and happy practicing.

Jon

E-mail: Jon@greyscale.tv
www.myspace.com/sotubass