The Guitar (and Other Musical Instruments) Thread | Page 15 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

@ewe2 said

That’s sort of true but not really, and they have very different mindsets.

Yes indeed, that’s really what sets them apart — the notes themselves, as far as frets and strings, are pretty much the same.

Physically you can get away with noise a lot more on a guitar: on a bass, noise other than the notes you mean to play is very bad, and it takes time to learn the skills to only make the noises you want. As a bassplayer who’s going back to guitar after a long absence, I notice very much the extra noises a guitar can make.

As a guitarist who spent like an hour last night playing clattery Muse riffs which then devolved into making pick-scraping/feedback/alien/generally weird s**t noises, I can vouch for this.

@sir walter raleigh said
I agree with the idea that the rhythm is much harder to pick up. Great rhythm is what sets great bass players apart  

Oh, definitely. I’ve toyed with bass-playing and I’ve learnt a few basslines, and that was always the most difficult thing, nailing that sense of rhythm. I learnt the (absolutely #$@% incredible) bassline to ‘What Is And What Should Never Be’ (Led Zeppelin) not too long ago, and it was not the (busy, tasty) melody but the rhythm that threw me for a proper loop. John Paul Jones had an incredible funky sense of rhythm which (as with most bassists, those most underappreciated creatures in a band) you kind of have to dig beneath Page’s and Bonham’s respective fireworks to appreciate.

and whilst we’re on the subject of my man JPJ, ewe2 also said
Haha, well I may be going for a Harley Benton only because they sell their cheap Jazzes with maple necks, and I want a maple neck bass because I don’t have one, and it makes sense with a Jazz so I can get a bit more pop out of slapping and grungey noise for picking! @50yearslate this is an exception to my “no noises rule”, jazz basses make a specific noise that fits more aggressive playing! Although Musicman Stingrays can also do that, they don’t do other styles with the same versatility as a Jazz.   

…Jonesy had a particularly tasty thumpy/grungy-Jazz-bass tone, particularly in the early days of Led Zepp. Some of his lines on Led Zeppelin II sound really garagey and wonderful, really enhances the general raw sexiness of that album’s sound in general. Tasty bass!

Just so you know, this conversation is NOT helping my bass envy at all, y’all

ewe2 said

You can’t really call yourself a bass rockanrollplayer until you’ve at least tried to nail a few Zepp bassanythinglines

Fixed it for ya

JPJ is indeed very funky/RNB with his lines, he does a lot of variation of a simple idea over a song. He’s not an all-over-the-place player like Roger Glover of Deep Purple is, because Glover is more free to do that with the organ providing some of the basic chord progressions. Zeppelin was a 3-piece band with a singer, so JPJ had to hold down the rhythm and more of the chord progression, with a lot more space to do that in. Doesn’t mean that Dazed and Confused and Ramble On aren’t physically challenging though! And to really nail JPJ funk you have to play The Crunge  

Indeed. The Crunge is an absolute Jonesyfest, the only reason I even bothered not to skip it in the beginning (now I listen to it partly for the joy of ribbing Plant mercilessly about his laughable [and entirely unserious] vocal improvs, I do love to hate that song ).

Hnnnggh I want a Les Paul because Zeppelin, and also once I played the guitar solo to Something on a LP and nearly died a happy death of tone perfection.

But first I want a bass guitar… probably a Precision Jazz. I recently had a dream that someone was showing off their basses to me and I was as green as this thing of beauty (oh how I want it)

I also dreamt that someone came to this thread and was like, ‘This thread is too much about guitars and techie things that I don’t get’ and I was like ‘…so why are you here’

You didn’t know I was bass-obsessed? Hm. Could have sworn I have always been quite explicit about how much I love playing/listening to/enthusing over bass.

The first thing I’m gonna do when I get one is re-reading WIAWSNB with bass. That’s the best part. I’ve already learnt the line, mostly… I just need a Real Bass™ to play it on.