Pamparo in Toronto

Bass players are the most under-appreciated member of a band, especially in worship ministry. Most people don’t even know why the bass exist. To some, it doesn’t matter much if the band have one or not. I tend to disagree with this and here are some of things I noticed on how a lack of a “good” bass player affects the “rhythm section” of the band.

1. Drummers
Drummers main tasks are keeping time and providing groove. You can ask drummers how a bass player is essential to grooving. There are a lot of things that can be done with drums, but without a good bassist, it’s just doesn’t sound right. Drummers need the bassist to help enforce the groove and the feel of the song. A drum beat/pattern can easily transform into different things with different bass grooves.

2. Guitarists
As a guitarist, it’s easy to say that a job of a bassist is easy. But as guitarist who also plays a little bit of bass, I can attest that it’s not as easy as we think. I am often limited to what I can do without a good bassist. Inversions, chord substitutions, triads/diads and modes can easily be taken out of context without the bassist enforcing the key and chord changes. Most times, I find my rhythm patterns are also limited to some degree. Either I get stuck with a bottom-heavy tone and/or I’ll play more power-chords and arpeggio with the root all the time. Not a good thing for a guitarist.

A lot of people may argue with me on this. That’s OK. This is what I notice and experience whenever we don’t have a bass player. Some band may be lucky to have a keyboard player who can play the bass parts.

So there it is. This is an appreciation to all the bass players out there. We need you, you are important!