Groove or Rock, Can a player excel at both ?

[xilddx]

Just to add to the theme, I can't play jazz. I don't dig on Jazz. The general cadence and structure of most jazz displeases me greatly. Therefore I can't play it with any semblance of authenticity or competence. A jazzer would crack up at my attempts. However, I do love walking bass, especially when played out of context. I have little theory that can help me play it, but when I do the things that happen really give me a buzz, so although a jazzer could take me apart, there is no doubt in my mind that what I'm doing is real and musical, and has passion, it's not jazz, but that does not diminish its musical worth.

[charic]

What about the established proggers, John Myung for example. Not so much the rock/groove thing (although he does a bit of both). But prog is essentially an amalgamation of styles.

[BigRedX]

I do think that for a lot of music you have to understand the nuances of the genre to be able to really play it.

My band has been auditioning drummers and guitarists recently. We've had a lot a very accomplished musicians (and unfortunately also some piss poor ones) come and try out, most of who have had no problem in replicating the parts their predecessors had played. However what sorted out who we eventually picked was when we asked them to come up with parts for a couple of new songs we were working on.

[Huw Foster]

My opinion: yes. Not always, but yes.

[51m0n]

I think its very rare to find a name bassist who has made their name playing in multipl egenres. By name bassist I'm happy to only mean name in the sense that they are successful as bassists and a name amongst bassists, rather than the world as a whole.

One name player that instantly springs to mind as a guy who can play funk or rock or jazz is Stu Hamm. Another guy who can play across genres with what appears to my ears to be absolute conviction is Ed Friedland, his take on reggae is utterly awesome, completely 'convincing'.

IMO groove is a perfectly adequate term. It is the pulse in the music, the type of groove may be funk or rock or jazz, or folk or whatever. Personally I immersed myself in funk for years to get a deeper understanding of it inherently. Result is I make a very decent stab at funk - or so I have been told on enough occasions by enough musicians and punters to believe there must be some truth in it anyway. Reggae came for me out of funk strangely, playing long slow funky jams everyo so often they would morph into a very definite reggae feel, its a feel its how you place the pairings of notes that make the pulse the 'skip' or swing to a feel.

I started out as a rubbish musician, like everyone does, and then learnt to appreciate and then understand what seperates different types of groove, and which ones are more normally associated with which genres. This is part of becoming a better musician. Can I play 'heavy' with a pumping straight 8ths feel? Of course I can, can I subvert that feel everso slightly by pushing the 'and' instead of the down beat? Well yes, I'm a bass player, I manipulate the pulse, its my job. Do that hard enough and you have a classic disco feel.

[51m0n]

Groove is technique agnostic, its utterly irrelevant what you use to make the notes, fingers, pick, thumb, drum sticks taped to your fingers, that is a part of the tone/timbre, not the feel. Slapping is over used as a cheap gimmick to attempt to bring something 'funky', but has nothing to do with funk in and of itself. In order for it to be funky it has to be done with a funk groove:-
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2B0FBdzGis[/media]

[51m0n]

To suggest that heavier stuff doesnt have this same sense of a skip to it (when its done really well) is absurd. This is damn heavy, yet grooves as hard as you like:-
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKPicUnsPPg[/media]

[51m0n]

Anyone to my mind suggesting Flea can't groove is in no place to make comment on the subject really, they clearly havent listened to enough of his output to make a decent appraisal. For me this is pure groove, and one of the most exceptionally well composed bass lines I can cite, it exudes groove, and musical beauty:-
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XcN12uVHeQ[/media]

[51m0n]

I do know people who are so specialised in one or theother field though that they cant credibly cross between them at all, and I think this is very much the norm.

I cant do jazz at all, never ever got on with any aspect of it

[EssentialTension]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1365697318' post='2043157']
... Another guy who can play across genres with what appears to my ears to be absolute conviction is Ed Friedland, his take on reggae is utterly awesome, completely 'convincing'...
[/quote]
Friedland also manages to make any bass sound 'pretty good'.

[Prime_BASS]

I feel I can do both with ease and would say Rock is my staple.

The whole and jokes that I play 'lead' bass because I grew up listening to bands whose bassist really drove the whole thing forwards.

My take is that you can play anything you set your mind too, as its as simple as learning the basic principles and then practice.

[risingson]

I don't understand the 'either or' argument in this thread at all, multiple bass players have been mentioned that strongly contend the idea that a player can only be this one-dimensional musician capable of singular genres and styles. It's not even close to true!

I'll admit that you are somewhat a product of your environment, maybe if your background has been growing up listening to a lot of R&B, Soul etc. then your playing is likely to mirror this, but that's certainly not true of everyone, probably even becoming less and less true as time goes on if you consider how easy it is to access such a wide range of music as opposed to what you have to listen to because your parents do (for example).

[Lowender]

[quote name='sykilz' timestamp='1365609420' post='2041784']
[media]http://youtu.be/mg3mUhGVCgo[/media]

Groovy Rocky baby.
[/quote]

The drums are what makes that groove. He's just hitting the notes. Like Anthony Jackson said -- " when I play with Steve Gadd, I just have to hit an open E and I sound like a genius!"

[JTUK]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1365686714' post='2042900']
Here's a question. Can you improvise music in your head, bass lines, drums, sounds, whatever, that increases your heart rate and makes you nod your head or move your body, makes you smile, gets you all excited?
[/quote]

yes..in a fashion... or to my satisfaction. But only in the field of music I'm interested in or like.
I wouldn't have that in our reggae example, tho.. so the 'intensity' drops off drastically

[TimR]

[quote name='risingson' timestamp='1365705281' post='2043326']
I don't understand the 'either or' argument in this thread at all, multiple bass players have been mentioned that strongly contend the idea that a player can only be this one-dimensional musician capable of singular genres and styles. It's not even close to true!

I'll admit that you are somewhat a product of your environment, maybe if your background has been growing up listening to a lot of R&B, Soul etc. then your playing is likely to mirror this, but that's certainly not true of everyone, probably even becoming less and less true as time goes on if you consider how easy it is to access such a wide range of music as opposed to what you have to listen to because your parents do (for example).
[/quote]

Most of us are happy in all genres. Rock and Funk are not mainstream everyday radio play material.

What you do hear is fairly watered down.

Same for Reggae. There's even sub genres of Reggae that I've heard of but wouldn't know what they were if I heard them. How many of us would be able to carry off 'Lovers Rock'? I have no idea what it is, but there's a guy at work who listens to it at home.

One of my bands plays 'Summer of '69' they think they're really rocking when they play it. To me it sounds weak. Just doesn't have that edge. It's the musician's curse.

[Myke]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1365712112' post='2043456']
One of my bands plays 'Summer of '69' they think they're really rocking when they play it. To me it sounds weak. Just doesn't have that edge. It's the musician's curse.
[/quote]

Does it ever have that edge

[xilddx]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1365712112' post='2043456']

Same for Reggae. There's even sub genres of Reggae that I've heard of but wouldn't know what they were if I heard them. How many of us would be able to carry off 'Lovers Rock'? I have no idea what it is, but there's a guy at work who listens to it at home.

[/quote]
Now read that in an Alan Bennett voice

[discreet]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1365715097' post='2043517']
Now read that in an Alan Bennett voice
[/quote]

[thisnameistaken]

I think if you genuinely love a style of music you can play it authentically. If you wouldn't normally listen to it then you probably won't do it justice.

I grew up listening to my mum's old big band records, so that kind of swing is pretty natural for me. I was born in 1974 and the first pop music that I remember is the 2Tone artists and bands like The Clash, The Blockheads, The Piranhas and Pigbag, so some funk, and more reggae bass lines and swing feels.

Then when 'my music' arrived it was about 1990 and there was acid jazz, and that's when I started playing bass so I'm happy with funk and disco stuff. And also old-school sample-based hip-hop which gave me a pretty broad grounding in anything you can dance to.

I've played in funk bands, punk bands, baggy-indie bands and punk/reggae bands and I've never felt out of place. I would feel a bit awkward playing straight-ahead rock or blues or smooth jazz, but pretty much anything else I can dig and I'm sure I could make a decent fist of it, at worst.

[Ziphoblat]

Easy. Timmy C has both in spades.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nxtPlvYBhM"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nxtPlvYBhM[/url]