High Melodic Basslines...

As a bass player, I tend to favour the warm, fat lower registers on the E and A strings. But lately there've been a couple of songs I've really enjoyed mostly because they use a much higher kind of bass tone. These were both featured in the EOY tracks, and I like them both largely because of this factor.

Miguel - Do You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-BW2gKnVz8

Tame Impala - Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wycjnCCgUes

Any more examples of this sound? Musicians - I'd like to maybe start using this myself. Is there a trick to writing a good one, or even playing better on the high notes? I'm thinking so that it doesn't interfere with what the guitars are doing...

Of Montreal do a lot of this kind of thing too. Sometimes I wonder if he just takes the E string off his bass entirely.

Any more examples of this sound?

Probably about a billion, but this is the one that I thought of first:

Galaxie 500 - Blue Thunder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VanRsfFMsjk

Man, Dean Wareham looks really like Gerard Malanga in that pic.

I've played in this style a bunch over the years, I can't give you directions as to playing with a drummer & guitarist however, as most of what I did has just been with other basses or piano or whatnot, although I will say that judging by Ned's Atomic Dustbin, the 'you play high, I'll play low' contrapuntal thing maybe doesn't shine in a rock context. Maybe, think of it more as a singing voice than a bass.

Here is something mostly made up of high bass that I cowrote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c6PxQxeWm0&list=UUsF53HaqdD9if0rqauI5nfQ&index=1

There was a Bass dude in Manchester, I recall...

I take it you're talking about Hooky - very good example.

Bruce Thomas from Elvis Costello & The Attractions has some good ones, particularly "Party Girl"

Mike Watt too, my favorite being "Drove Up From Pedro"

Something by The Clientele, I'm just not sure which song to pick.

Simon Gallup.

Lots of funk is much higher than you think. Funky President by James Brown is a great one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePxcBXsmuuI

spacehog "in the meantime"

Mission of Burma (Clint Conley) has a ton of high, melodic bass moments. Not always through the whole song, but usually comes up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXkZI7WZWOo

spacehog "in the meantime"

― billstevejim, Tuesday, 5 March 2013 17:41 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes! Every time I hear that Tame Impala song from the OP, I think "hmmm, this sounds like In The Meantime".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd30xwa8nPI

I wouldn't call "Is This It?" bass part "high melodic"—it moves widely, but in a way that feels more like accompaniment/ornament than the stuff in the OP—aka, you can't sing it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi4FgleGmWk

yessss

"Feel for You"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75Dx32AdpMs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54FW170yZ6o

Much of Scott LaFaro's work on Bill Evans's "Waltz for Debby" and "Sunday at the Village Vanguard" albums would fit this.

I tend to see "Heading For Kyoto" by Slapp Happy as kind of the mother of all those deeply melodic post punkish basslines. "Walk On the Wild Side" and the intro to "How Do You Think It Feels" are also obvious forerunners.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOXcka7Yo84

Richard Davis's bass on Van Morrison's Astral Weeks

I take it you're talking about Hooky - very good example.

― dog latin, Tuesday, 5 March 2013 12:18 (Yesterday) Permalink

This is what I thought of immediately when I read this thread.

Listen to every Joy Division and New Order song?

Seriously, though, it's so widely used you can pretty much find it everywhere.

To add something valuable to this discussion, when the bass player in an old band I was in did the whole Hooky thing, I would generally be playing lower octave notes. Even then, when it came time to recording, some of the high notes disappeared so we had to do some studio magic and filter the Hooky parts through some effects. I don't recall which exactly, but maybe it was mucking with the compression with chorus, only through the higher octaves, though.

The first tune you posted, dog latin, has a bit of slap to it while playing slightly higher octaves on the thicker strings, see Yes's Roundabout for an exaggerated example; it's pretty obvious since they didn't compress the hell out of it (as opposed to that Miguel track).

For something slightly more accessible to the young kids (i.e., not 'cheesy' prog rock), check out The Smiths's Barbarism Begins at Home

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc1ObUMFWMo

Live, I think Andy even added a flanger, so the high notes wouldn't get too 'lost'.

I don't know, like people have said, there are thousands of examples.

If you want to really hear that Smiths bass line more clearly, fast forward to 5:28, or better yet to 6:28 when the rest of the instruments drop.

how come no one thought of Macca yet? this guy's basslines are revolutionary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqK97av7I3s

Cock chirea, I was this close to posting it.

I actually played it while posting, getting ready to find it on YouTube, then at the last minute I switched to The Smiths.

Anyway, someone had to do it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spjcPS4ekOA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x44yMm6U6SI

Simple Minds' New Gold Dream album features a lot of this sort of playing ('Colours Fly and Catherine Wheel' and 'Glittering Prize' spring to mind). I like this style a lot.

Chris Carter is a master at this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDq2GyjQ8Ng

Gotta have Green Eyed Lady here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_DydKnpDsk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_DydKnpDsk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr3HCNIgv40

Another mis-named bass thread. This one should be called "busy basslines that I like despite the fact that I'm the sort of blowhard that says all bass playing should be simple."

"Death or Glory" by the Clash has a beeyootiful high melodic bass part...

This might err on the side of being busy (and also including plenty of lower register as well), but this is a decent amateur cover of Lou's unmistakable Rick 4003 sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5kefMSgbtI

always loved Duff's line in the intro to Sweet Child O Mine

oh yeah, Sweet Child is a good one that actually fits thread description.

not many bass parts that your average stadium rock audience dudes sing along with

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w7OgIMMRc4

I know this was debated upthread, but I think the "Is This It" bass part totally fits here.

While The Beatles have some great bass parts, I can't think of any songs where the bass carries the melody of the song.

It does a lot of the work in Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! Also maybe A Day In The Life?

hmmm "Hey Bulldog" comes close. "Rain" does too, although vocal melody is more prominent until the end with the backwards stuff.

actually "Hey Bulldog" totally fits. everyone else in that arrangement is playing mostly straight chords while Paul's kinda goin nuts in the upper frets, and it's just as prominent as the vocal melody.

A lot of Mike Mills lines fit this description. My fave is probably "What's the Frequency Kenneth?" which would be pretty dull without Mills hopping all around it.

clap - have you reached yet

While The Beatles have some great bass parts, I can't think of any songs where the bass carries the melody of the song

c'mon, that 4-note sliding riff on "come together" IS the song

"Then She Did" by Jane's Addiction is another good one. there's this sense of movement to a bunch of Avery's parts that really make those JA songs. and "Mistress" by Red House Painters, kind of. speaking of concise basslines, you just can't get any simpler than that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS9VXZ4qDTs

"Dear Prudence" was always my favorite Beatles bassline with some tasty high notes

Richard Davis spends quite a bit of time in the upper register on "Astral Weeks" (the song).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYBthbXHX7o

I think we could find a lot of motownish examples

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND-iW51idC0

While The Beatles have some great bass parts, I can't think of any songs where the bass carries the melody of the song.

― billstevejim, Wednesday, March 6, 2013 1:37 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fuck, i totally forgot mentioning michael rother. so obviously influential...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHrpxuXNY1U

sweeeeeeeeet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31P1F1q5sGM

groooovey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTYgGit-TYI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5wOM0p7H74

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEV62AAZTw4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om4cMbFTDvk

c'mon, that 4-note sliding riff on "come together" IS the song
word

This was always my favorite of the songs that came out of the post-Rapture 'dance punk' glut of the early aughts, and I get this bassline stuck in my head from time to time ("Between Us & Them" by Moving Units):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ztFbhM5caw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ztFbhM5caw

ALL of these threads deteriorate into "Basslines that I like". Yet I read them, which makes me the bigger idiot.

Not sure if this really fits itt but it's a killer bass line and it carries the song so

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRhCk-KZbtQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6kdnWGPQeY

Intro to For Whom the Bell Tolls, motherfuckers.

chris squire owns this thread

Holger Czukay disputes ownership

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp-mN7isYD8