It punches you in the chest, and flaps your trouser legs. It’s the thump that moves the rump.

A bass player forms the connective tissue between the drummer and the rest of the instruments, standing with one foot in the rhythmic and the other in the melodic.

The drummer may make you tap your feet, but the bass player makes you leave your seat.

In fact, a killer bass sound is essential to popular music.

The importance of bass

Now, I’m not saying this just because I’m a bass player myself! Take five minutes and think of as many songs as you can that made it into the charts that didn’t have a prominent bass line.

Could you think of one? When Doves Cry by Prince is the only one I got!

So let’s explore the diversity of tones that the bass family of instruments can produce.

From London Calling to Hysteria to Carwash there is a huge number of tracks that rely on a unique bass sound for a killer hook.

This series will be a little different to most of the bass articles you might have read in the past because I’m focusing on tone rather than technique.

Series Overview

Click to read the rest…

This week we’re looking at the original bass: precursor to the bass guitar and the largest instrument in the classical orchestra, it may not be the most portable of instruments, but it can certainly make its presence felt: the upright bass.

The upright is the daddy of all basses. It’s also known as “string bass” – or “double bass” in orchestral circles. You can think of it as a giant violin; the construction is very similar. The upright bass is tuned in fourths: E, A, D, G, like the lowest four strings of a guitar, but an octave lower (this makes it the odd man out in the orchestra string section, where the other instruments are tuned in fifths).

Arco Playing

The string bass is a versatile instrument. You can play it with a bow, like a violin, to produce sustained notes. Impress your classically trained friends by calling this technique arco.

First let’s listen to each string in turn:
Upright Bass: Arco E-A-D-G

And now a simple musical phrase:
Upright Bass: Arco Phrase

Putting on the Pizz

In jazz and most styles outside of classical, the strings are actually plucked with the finger rather than bowed – called “pizzicato”, classical terminology fans.

Again, we’ll start with each string in turn:
Click to read the rest…

As you know, around here we’re all about the sound – so it seemed sensible to let you enjoy our new series Bass Tone via your ears rather than your eyes! http://www.EasyEarTraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/1_-_Series_Introduction_and_The_Upright_Bass.m4a

Series author Nick Long has kindly lent his voice to the project and so we’re very pleased to announce the first Easy Ear Training podcast: Bass Tone, Part 1: Introduction and the Upright Bass.

You can subscribe to the Bass Tone podcast in iTunes, or your favourite podcasting program using the feeds below:

	Bass Tone Podcast (iTunes)
	Bass Tone Podcast (RSS feed for other clients)

You can also download the first episode directly:

Download Bass Tone Podcast – Part 1 (right-click and “Save as…”)

The podcast is an M4A (AAC) file, which should play back on most modern audio software and portable music players. If you have any problems downloading or playing the file please let us know.

We’d love to hear what you think of this first episode – you can leave a comment below!