The $%*! frustration thread

[Shee]

I've played with more sick bassists than anyone else.  ANYONE else.  Really good guitarists are everywhere, and 99 percent of them are assholes.  Any chump can learn guitar.  Bass, on the other hand, is MUCH more difficult I think.  And drums?  Well, we all know those are the best...

[Mr Bekkler]

I've played with more sick bassists than anyone else.  ANYONE else.  Really good guitarists are everywhere, and 99 percent of them are assholes.  Any chump can learn guitar.  Bass, on the other hand, is MUCH more difficult I think.  And drums?  Well, we all know those are the best...

Bass is much more difficult to impress. It's not difficult to fake it though. I've played with some crazy awesome bassists, but I've met my fair share of hacks as well.

Also, it's odd when somebody plays guitar and only plays one style. Then they still just say they "play guitar".

[chrono eric]

I play both guitar and bass. I've played each for about 8 years or so. I can't imagine a guitarist that plays only one style of guitar. I would get incredibly bored with that. But then again I have a wide range of music that I like. I could go from playing blues to hendrix to punk in 20 minutes because my attention span sucks when it comes to music. But playing one style all the time...that seems like you wouldn't diversify enough to become a good musician. I once met a kid who was amazing at playing metal music. He could tear up the fretboard something fierce. But ask him to play any other style of music and he was horrible at it.

And as far as bassists go - it is true that the vast majority of them play rhythm bass and follow guitar. But as far as I'm concerned, you can't call yourself a true bassist until you can play either slap bass or scale as feverishly as this right here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J08skBDQ3C4

[Belaith]

FLEA!! Oh, and the bassist from Dying Fetus... just type in "Homicidal Retribution" in youtube. I don't feel like linking it.

[Samopoznanie]

But as far as I'm concerned, you can't call yourself a true bassist until you can play either slap bass or scale as feverishly as this right here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J08skBDQ3C4

I have to disagree. That sort of wanking is the same sort of thing I meant by 'failed guitar players'. It sounds exactly like some average, speedster guitarist playing a solo on bass. Right down to using a pick for the fast stuff. He's got no chunk to his sound, no tone, no feel. To me a 'true' bassist if that's we call it someone who knows how to stay in the background and do their thing, AND impress with some lead chops - but they should really give the bass its own style, not weedle like Yngwie Malmsteen or the guys in Dragonforce. I agree on Flea, he's great stuff.

I'd have to say Victor Wooten's the king of the instrument for me though:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsRTMqD9-oA

[chrono eric]

Yes, but it is one thing to scale like that on guitar, and a completely different thing to scale like that on bass. Look at any 70's funk band, bassists like Flea are a dime a dozen. But no one plays bass like Matt Freeman. The only reason people reference flea is because the Chili Pepper's are a modern band and insanely popular.

Which is why I referenced the extremes of both styles - you could be a good bassist with soul, pumping out slap bass riffs that are incredible, or you could be a good bassist with scales and speed. Both set you apart from guitar, and both are very difficult to master. Too often are there bands where the bass simply follows guitar (insert any popular rock band here) or the bass follows cookie-cutter scales (insert any popular jazz/ska band here). It is a fact that bass is an easier instrument to learn, but a much more difficult instrument to master, which is why truly good bassists are few and far between.

[Shee]

Jaco Pastorius>Victor Wooten>all other bassists

A little bit of an over-generalization, but it's how I feel...

here's a vid of Jaco, really gets hot at 2:45

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXOnhzoC-i8

[Samopoznanie]

Yes, but it is one thing to scale like that on guitar, and a completely different thing to scale like that on bass. Look at any 70's funk band, bassists like Flea are a dime a dozen. But no one plays bass like Matt Freeman. The only reason people reference flea is because the Chili Pepper's are a modern band and insanely popular.

Practice your scales for two months and you'll get your speed up like that in no time, whether it's on bass or guitar. But if you've got the tone of cold ham sandwich, what's the point? That sort of technique is very limited, IMO and only serves two purposes - looking for blowjobs, or trying to impress people who don't play an instrument / have just started.

I also have to disagree on 70s funk bass. A guy like Bootsy Collins (Funkadelic, James Brown) sounds nothing like Flea. The Peppers are well known for their pop hits in the early 90s, sure, but Flea / Navarro / Frusciante / Smith are great at what they do, especially if you search out some of their sideprojects or solo stuff. Smith's my favourite of the Pepper's guys at the moment, his clinics are smokin' - all kinds of gems on youtube, here's a shorter one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnOa9LtDemg
^^ only picks up speed as it goes on, I agree with the post about 2:47.

Jaco Pastorius>Victor Wooten>all other bassists

Jaco's amazing.  The harmonic stuff he does is just nutty... I've tried and tried to get into his playing though, but I just don't like his tone(sacrilege, I know). Of the Weather Report albums, I prefer the material with Alphonso Johnson. Especially "Black Market", which had Jaco on a couple tunes as well.

One of my favourite bass albums of the last few years was SMV's "Thunder". SMV being Stanley (Clarke), Marcus (Miller) and Victor (Wooten). Just awesome stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrav_MSMjNs

I haven't actually played [guitar] for about a year or so now. I used to be pretty decent with the rock / metal / weedly-wee stuff, but then I went away for 4 months and didn't play, and shortly after getting home I broke my thumb (in 4 different places, somehow) in a weird fall. It never quite felt the same after that; my arm would go stiff after a while, and I didn't have as much range as before.

Hope I can pick up an instrument again in the future though. I'd like to go for drums or percussion if I could. Went to a Zakir Hussain (king of the tabla) concert last year, and that was just awesome. Guitar, I still really enjoy listening to but I'm into mostly jazz stuff, and I could never get that down, even after six years.

[chrono eric]

Got up early and showed up to work, only to realize that this was my day off...

...don't you hate it when that happens?

[Thought]

Moving apartments.

My friends put it quite well. Moving is like transformers; it's more than meets the eye.

So. Much. Crap.

[Zelbess]

Kris Allen winning American Idol.

[teaflower]

Quite frankly, I hate American Idol in general. The 'singers' can't sing. They butcher songs. The decent ones get eaten out by the fans. I mean, one of my teachers went for American Idol. She is a singing instructor and has an amazing voice. She didn't make the cut. Why?

She didn't have a story.

It doesn't make sense to me at all. And plus, all the publicity it gets. I mean, it makes the local news it's so 'important'. I don't mind the fans, but I despise the show.

[Samopoznanie]

^^^ Sorry for killing the music discussion above... I take them a bit too seriously sometimes.  

Frustrations? Having to get up early! I have a presentation at 10am on Sunday and have been going to bed at 5am for the last month or so. Ugly turnaround!

[Delta Dragon]

I'm starting to think that more and more people I know get little to no sleep.

[ZaichikArky]

Kris Allen winning American Idol.

Yeah, I was an Allison fan myself. At least it makes me feel better because Adam and Allison will make tons of records and Kris will fade into obscurity. The first words he said after he won were "Adam should have won", which really should tell you something.