Below is a list of songs which I've written for those of you who have completed the RB instruction manual and want to write some of your own original bass music and practice bass composition. The songs provide a musical environment for you to apply your new skills. You can use them as exercises in writing and sight reading bass music. This doesn't infringe on the copyrights of creators of music from other sources since these songs are copyrighted by me.
Click to the song of your choosing. Print it. Study the song a bit and then with a soft lead pencil, write your bass notes on the blank bass staffs below the melody lines. Use your knowledge of chord-based bass note sequences. Play around with different note durations. Write in the appropriate rests. When you have bass lines that you think are good, play them by sight reading.
This will get you on the road to composing for the bass.
Have fun!
Here's some tips:
Composing bass lines is not that hard. You play SOME of the notes in a scale (that's why Rock musicians use pentatonic scales so much) - pick the ones that sound good with whatever chords are being used. You know, you can learn a lot about what bass notes to use by listening to any lead instrument players like guitar and saxophone players, even singers. Copy their melodies and then REDUCE them to their rhythmic basics. Leave out the flourishes and extract the notes which land on the beats. Add a few eighth note connecting notes at the end of every second measure. These notes ought to 'pull' or lead you into the next measure. Listen carefully to the Drummer's bass pedal thumps.
Once you combine this approach with your abstract knowledge of scales and chord structures you will come up with some good bass lines.
Here's a technique. Take a favorite song and learn to play the MELODY on the bass (of course an octave or two lower). Never mind for a moment what the chord structure is. Just learn to play the notes of the lead vocal. Then identify the main beats (which repeat over and over). Hear which notes of the melody you've learned fall on the rhythmic beats of the song. Then dump most of the other notes. What remains is the basic rhythmic bass notes. Use these along with occasional connecting notes, eighth notes, as your bass line. It helps to write these melody notes out on staffs. Then your can use your eyes to choose which notes to eliminate.
Sounds not so difficult but it can take some time.
Another thing you can do is get an acoustic guitar and learn some basic chords and some bar (barre?) chords and learn to strum. The knowledge of the chord fingerings will give you some new ideas about the bass and strumming will give you a feel for various rhythms. There's a lot of information in the RB manual about chords.
Note: If you and/or your band want to use the songs' lead sheets:
Performing musicians can perform any of these songs free of charge. Performing rights are free to you until such time as I notify you that this is no longer the case (for instance if a Publisher becomes interested in the any of the rights). I'd like it if you would drop me a line or e-mail, once in awhile to let me know where and when you're going to or have already performed the song especially if you're coming to the NYC area. It would make me happy to know of or come to the gig and actually behold! my song(s) being performed.
You can make any changes you want in these songs with the following exceptions: you can't change the melody, you can't change the chord structure and you can't change the lyrics.
Things that you can do are: change the arrangement, change the instruments, change the voice(s), change the rhythm(s), add harmonies, add effects, change the time signature, add a hook or modify an existing hook, change the phrasing, add melody embellishments, speed it up, slow it down, RE-GENREFY IT, change anything else you can think of with the above exceptions of the melody, chord structure or lyrics.
I'd be happy, too, if an interest developed for other uses of my songs by other parties. If you want to use any of my songs and release them as your own productions or use them for movie tracks...or whatever...please contact me to arrange to have our lawyers talk.
These songs, listed below, have been assigned GM (General Midi) instruments or 'voices'. MIDI sounds are mechanical sounding and mathematical in the exactness of their timing. It's difficult to make music which sounds realistic when it is played through a computer through the sound card which (on most computers) uses GM to produce its tones. In the case of vocals it's impossible - the only vocal sounds in GM are choir sounds and in the software program I use to transcribe my music, Coda's "Print Music," 'male' and 'female' voices. Needless to say, none of these are adaquate for representing human singer(s) vocalizing the melodies in the lead sheets. So I chose to use GM voices such as 'Church Organ' because at least, the 'Church Organ' sound has a little warble (not a technical term) to it which makes it sound a little less mechanical and takes a little of the edge off its mathematical precision. The beauty of the human voice is that it's NOT exact, its timings are a little off, it has imperfections in its timbres and it has dynamics (variations in loudness) that GM sounds do not. These are some of the characteristics which imbue the human voice with emotion. "Church Organ' has some warble and tiny variations in loudness. It sounds a little more emotional than the rest of the GM sounds. That's why I chose to use it.
You will need to download and install the Finale Viewer to display these lead sheets. You can download it at http://www.finalemusic.com/downloads/index.asp
and you can install it by clicking on the executable file in the directory into which you downloaded it. Click here for a printable instruction sheet.
"Sundown" ~ a relatively easy song with slightly jazzy chords, in 3/4 time, moderate tempo, with key and time signature changes and several different rhythms used throughout the piece. These rhythms will become apparent if you study the notes and rests of the melody. If they do not (become apparent) that's okay. It's not necessary to understand them in this piece in order to write and sight read a good bass line.
"Winged Men" ~ a fast song in 4/4 time. The rhythm is given in notation and played at the beginning of and throughout the piece so it's easy to get a feel for it.
"Jesus, There's Something Creeping" ~ a moderately fast song in 6/4, 3/4 and 4/4 time. The mix up of time signatures will give you an opportunity to write and read with time changes galore! But don't be intimidated. The time changes flow into each other with the greatest of ease!