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!

In conjunction with the Open String Exercise post, here’s another exercise incorporating open-strings. It was actually faster and different phrasing than this when I first started but I couldn’t find a drum track that would fit. So I just adjusted it to the drums and here’s what came out. I also didn’t realize that the delay mix was a little louder than I intended it to be.

Here’s the MP3: Open String & Double Stop

Have fun with it and if you do change it up, please be sure to let me know

I’ve been having a new found fascination for licks that incorporate open strings these past days. And I am not taking about the licks on an open-chord formation. To demonstrate what I mean, here’s a tab of a simple, yet challenging, lick that I was playing with last night. Just a note that there are a couple of slides/pull-offs that I didn’t get the chance to include in this tab and also the phrasing is a little different.

It was so much fun that I decided to record it so that I won’t forget the phrasing myself.

So, without further ado, here’s the 30-second clip: Open String Exercise

Disclaimer: This is a rough take so please try not to judge the fluidity and/or tone!

If you have a lick that uses open strings, please let me know. I would definitely want to improve this technique!

Have fun!

A fellow Christian blogger posted a “simple question” regarding the fine line between performing our very best and living out a “rock-star” dream when leading worship on a Sunday morning. You can read all about it here at Guitar For Worship’s A Simple Question post …

Personally, I’ve never really gotten into playing with a band outside of church. I mean, I did join some bands before and I still get invitations here and there to play outside of church. But as a whole, I’ve never really committed to any of it. My reasons to decline are always of time/availability. But my real personal reason is that I just don’t think I am good enough to be out there. Which on a Sunday morning, I can come and play music for God to the very best that I can play. I always try to remind myself of this passage from the Bible regarding offering …

Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” — Mark 12:41-44 (New International Version)

Although, this is more of a verse used for tithing and financial offering, I believe it also relates to how much of what we have can we give back to God. For me, I always try to give my very best to God when I step out on that platform, when I play for a small group, and even for my own personal devotion.

What Karl asked is a very valid question. However, I think the more important question to ask is: How much of what you have do you really give back to God.

Here are some very good links explaining how the “Circle of Fifths” can be used by guitarists to figure out the chord progressions for any given key as well as how to construct scales out from the circle. Apparently, in jazz circle, the call it “the cycle”. So there you go, you are now in the know!

http://www.theguitarsuite.com/circleof5.html
http://music.linear1.org/2007/01/17/circle-of-fifths/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths
http://theguitarresource.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/circle-of-fiths.pdf

Now the trick is knowing how to apply this in our day-to-day playing. I am still in the hunt and my head is still spinning with all these theory. But I will give this a go and get some inspiration out of it!

Have fun …