Nickthebass

Pierre - you may know this ... what pickups does Paul Turner’s white Stenback have in it? Also - you may remember a Talk Bass Sei bass thread from years back. I was having a through neck Jazz built (cocobollo top, Nordstrand pickups). I think you may have been waiting on one about the same time.

In terms of location on the instrument, assuming you are playing that C with your middle finger - I would call that 2nd position. Your index finger being at the 2nd fret. To me - 1st position would be 1st finger in fret one. Someone with more classic / upright background may correct me. The term “root position” is one I’ve heard from Scott Devine but never before - may just be my ignorance though. This refers I think to where you start the scale from - in this case starting a C scale from the root (C). I don’t think it refers to a particular fingering. I think it is laying the ground for thinking about playing the same scale starting on different notes. For a C major scale starting on the root you get C D E F G A B C start on the 5th you get G A B C D E F G from the 6th you get A B C D E F G A and on - you get the idea. This way of thinking about that major scale unlocks pretty much the whole of diatonic harmony (basically all the harmony you’ll need to play pretty much any rock, pop, blues, funk, folk etc. song). Once you get how the C chord relates to the C major scale and what happens when you start that C major scale on (for example) an A (ABCDEFGA) and that you get an Am chord from that scale ... then the world is your mollusc of choice. All of a sudden you’ll see why going C Am G F sounds natural.

Back to the topic at hand ... I think the answer is “it depends”. Harmonically as the others have said - some sort of chord tone that leads you to the next chord is often nice. You could even go full Chuck Rainey, don’t bother with the root, slide up to a double stopped high E and Bb somewhere up the dusty end of the neck - give it a shake and then slide back down for the next root. For the sake of one beat - you could just sit on the C. Chances are that if it’s only a passing chord then the root movement is important to the structure of the tune. (Maybe hit the root first time around and do something more fruity 2nd or 3rd time.)

As I say - rule of thumb - depends on the situation. Also depends what you mean by “busy”. A bubbly 16s rhythmic part that sits in one register, locks with the hi hat and kick and sits mainly on roots and 5s may sound like it takes up less space than something with fewer notes but is moving through registers and especially with big downward drops across arpeggios. Sitting on a C playing 16s may stay out of the way more than moving from a high E (on the g string) quickly down the C7 arpeggio, whallopping the open E before bouncing back to the C - even if it was rhythmically less “busy”. (Think of a Jameson style rake all the way down.) When I say busy I am thinking “ear grabbing” as much as the actual number of notes.

In terms of context - I’d also think about tempo and how many other people are playing at the time. As a general rule of thumb I was taught that the more bodies on stage the less everyone should play. Also if it’s a fast tempo I’d probably just bang the root and move on to the next chord.

Works and kids have conspired to scupper my plans thus far.

In other news ... this to thread prompted me to dig out my DVD of Standing In The Shadows... I may try to inflict it on my wife this evening.

I spend most of my professional life playing with Excel. What do you want this thing to do? It should be fairly simple to knock you up something that works for you.

That’s quite a stretch! If you are going to do something different - do it. Awful as it is ... I have more time for the Buzzard than someone taking a P bass body and making the bottom a little more bulbous and fractionally changing the shape of the scratch plate. They just look weird to me.

By contrast ... for me it’s companies that try to alter the proportions of those classic shapes just for the sake of it. Call me an old stick in the mud.

Chris McIntyre isn’t in London anymore. He is now in Edinburgh. Easier to get him on the phone rather than email McIntyre Guitars Unit 5B Albion Business Centre 78 Albion Road Edinburgh EH7 5QZ Scotland United KingdomTel: 07764747450 email: [email protected]

The correct answer is anything from Nordstrand. They’re also the best pickups for metal. 😁 Seriously though - they do a wide variety of Js including split-coil humbuckers. I have both their SV and SE winds. The first are more traditional sounding and the later are a bit thicker. TBH though I think you’d be pushed to tell much difference once the band is blasting away. Their pre-amps are great too. I have a 3 band version with switchable mids.

Once we’re post lockdown I could be tempted down from north of The Wall for this.

Although I think that later the arrangers started writing Jamerson style parts - including some stuff for him! The dude was special ... I read somewhere that he wasn’t allowed to tour because he was so important to the studio sound.

I would have been fine but with either but this is quite a simple rhythm. The second makes it very obvious that the Bb is on the “and” of 3.

You’re welcome. Magic only looks like magic when you don’t see the mirrors and wires. When you talk about “thinking several moves ahead” what you’re actually seeing is a highly developed approach to leading the ear through chord changes. The way it was taught to me comes back to walking bass in jazz. Let’s say you’re walking and you going to hit the root on beat one. You then have three notes with which to outline the harmony and end somewhere nice in relation to the next chord. Example a bar of C then a bar of F - we’ll just talk about bar 1 | C /// | F /// | Triads (1 3 5) are C E G and F A C. Playing C E G C in bar 1 would be great. You’ve got the triad then a 1 (or 8va) which is the 5th of the next chord. The ear will hear that move from C to F and feel a resolution into that F - especially if you go up to the F from below. You could finish bar 1 on the E and approach the F from a semi tone below. Again the ear is lead from one chord to the next. You could get fruity and stick a Gb on beat 4. A common resolution to a major chord in jazz is to play a b7 chord a semi tone above. Using the 2 bars above the piano would play | C / / Gb7 | F /// | Remember that thing about open strings in flat keys? Open A down to Ab is the same thing. Not only does it make position shifts simpler but it implies a quick chord substitution and leads the ear to the next root. Most chord progressions follow similar rules and patterns. What Jamerson is doing is applying the way that a jazz walking bass line moves around changes to a pop context. He has done it so many times (probably playing standards on upright) that he already has under his hands a dozen ways to navigate a given set of changes. Some tunes he gets to blow on more than others (I have no idea how he got away with the part on Darling Dear ... 🤯😳). At the end of the day it’s mostly walking bass (harmonically speaking).

Smells like F# to me.

Classic Dodge - lovely a human. 👍

@stewblack In fact the idea is simpler than it may appear and is one that is easy to steal. It’s a repeated call and response. If you at look at the shape of that part (literally the shapes on the page) you can see that it’s actually three repeats of the same shape. One bar up and one bar down. Look again and you’ll see that bar 1 or each 2 bar phrase is the same idea each time. The rhythm is the same each time and the notes are all from an (ascending) F7 scale using 1,3,4,5,6 b7 (F A Bb C D Eb). Yes there are some E naturals as well but first I think is probably a mistake and the second is a passing note. In fact bars 3 and 5 are identical - he may even have been going for that phrase in bar 1 and missed! So what you have is a riff going up followed by an answering phrase (using the same notes) going down. Thought of like that - this is something much easier to steal. Yes - Jamerson was a great player (IMO the greatest) but just like anyone else he used techniques and patterns to focus his creativity.

His approach is heavily rooted in jazz walking bass. It’s just played with different rhythms and in a pop context. It’s that jazz language in pop music that was such a revolution - and marks Motown out as different to the contemporaries at Stax and Muscle Shoals which were a bit straighter R&B.

As a Jamerson specific point - one detail to keep an eye out for is open strings. He was an upright player by background and (I gather) you tend to play more open strings on upright to facilitate position shifts - in particular at the bottom of the neck. That open A on the score is an example. There is also one in the intro to Bernadette. There is an open D as a passing tone when descending from an Eb chord to a Db. Also if it helps to get the sound of chromatic approach notes into your lines when you’re playing in flat keys (as a lot of Motown tunes are). For example moving from Eb to Ab - if you use an open A before landing on the Ab it’ll sound like you’re a jazzer implying a classic chord substitution. TLDR: If the score gives you an A, D or G there is every chance that it wants an open string - especially if you’re in a flat key.

Personally - the biggest thing for me with strings is playability which is a pretty personal thing so you may go through a bit of trial and error. What is your first instrument? What did you like or dislike about the old strings? Why do you say you want heavier strings? Do you like the feel of the higher tension? If you go for roundwound strings they may sound brighter than you want initially. Something with a nickel wrap rather than stainless steel with have a bit less “ping”. I don’t think you’ll need to be limited to double ball end strings - you may be able to use a regular string and clip and clamp one end just behind the nut. If you go down this route then you’ll have a lot more options. If you want “warm” (which says “old soul / Motown to me”) you could try some flatwounds. I’m a big fan of Thomastik-Infeld jazz flats and a pro player mate of mine swears by D’Addario Chromes. Neither are super high tension though (a common feature of flats) though the TIs are a bit of an acquired taste (realt quite low tension).

I got a Mono double gig bag from Bass Direct many moons ago. Big thumbs up from me. Two basses + 900w head + 2 cabs now do able on my own in one trip. Got to love modern gear. 💃💃🥳