How To Tell You Don't Have The Melody

So, were at church today and where we go we have a worship band.  Not an orchestra...I'm not bitter, but an orchestra and traditional service would be nice every now and then (only because I could play in it.)  We've got a Bass Player that plays with the group almost every week.  He's actually a really good player, but he's a little too impressed with himself and it's starting to get on my nerves.

He plays a lot of extra mess on top on the Bass movements that he is supposed to be supporting and it bothers me because I can't hear anything when he's going crazy every other bar.  Listen people and listen good.  The Bass Line is not something to be trifled with.  The Bass Line is not the melody.  Here's how you can tell:

1)  When you are playing something that obviously is not the melody, but you can't really hear the true melody...you're in the wrong.  I think people who use electronic equipment and point monitors at themselves forget this all too often.  You can really tell a pro because they either don't use a monitor at all, or they use an ear piece and not a huge monitor, turn it up too loud and get way too INTO their playing.  If I can hear your mess over the tune, you're wrong.  If you're constantly playing with the volume controls on your equipment, you're wrong.

2)  If you play an acoustic instrument and you can clearly hear yourself, you're probably wrong.  Rarely does a Bass Line also act as a melodic line or fragment.  I could spend all day citing examples of Bass Lines in literature that are also melodic fragments or melodies themselves.  Here's an easy way to tell....you're exposed...nothing else is going on.  When other people are trying to do their thing too, you're not the melody.

3)  If you have all these "great ideas" in your head...keep them to yourself.  Here's an assignment for you:

     a)  Buy any FUEL album.  Something Like Human, Sunburn, Natural Selection, whatever and listen.  The Bassist play solid, firm, Bass Lines.  He rarely plays extra stuff and when he does it actually a melodic fragment that will come up later or is a supporting countermelody.  It is NOT random stuff but, rather, quite calculated. 

     b)  Listen to the "Screamers" album by the Eastman Wind Ensemble.  It's a great collection of Circus Marches.  Now tell me how much of the Bass movement in those pieces is melodic and, if it is, tell me how much of it sounds random.  I bet your answer will be zero.

     c)  Start listening to Bass Lines in popular music and tell me how random all of it sounds.  It doesn't.

We've got to be better consumers of music if we're going to be better performers.  If you're listening to music you like and you don't know they part you would be playing then you're not consuming the music very well.  Everything I own, every CD, I can sing along to the Bass Movements in the music, because it's MY part.  I'm consuming something that is improving my playing.  If you only know melodies and words and you play a Bass instrument you're going to play like someone who has the melody or the words.  Not helpful.  Not helpful at all.

Think about it.  Think about how much time could be saved if every listened with their part in mind.  We could change the world...well, not really, but you get the idea.