Play that Bass

This is my go-to, feel-good, escape the world, stress reliever hobby. Listening to and playing music brings me significant happiness. Without it, life would certainly be dull and tedious. I played trumpet and piano as a kid, but fell in love with the Bass when I got little older.

Playing a fat stringed instrument is a bit tricky when you suffer from medication-induced muscles cramps in your fingers and hands, not to mention constant neck pain. Still, I wouldn’t give it up for anything and I try to play a little bit everyday. Its great therapy for whatever ails you.

For fun I thought Id start recording myself playing along to various backing tracks. From Big Band Swing, to Latin, to all kinds of Jazz, Gospel, Funk, Rock, Italian pop, you name it..I play it. I generally play to instrumental pieces, but like to occasionally playing along to my favorite pop vocals. I especially like tunes with a nice walking bass line. On many of the big band pieces, I try to emulate the original acoustic bass line on my electric bass by using various filters and fingering techniques. Doesn’t always work, but its pretty close.

Many thanks to the wonderful composers and musicians who provided me with the charts for some of these tunes.

* Depending on the tune, I either read the bass line from a chart or play it from memory. I filter out the original recorded bass line and then fill it back in with my own playing. When a tune requires a 5 string bass, I drop tune my 4 string basses to low B or C, as playing a 5 string bass is really difficult on my neck muscles.*