Bassline - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A bassline is the term used in many styles of popular music

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

, such as jazz, blues, funk, dub and electronic music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

for the low-pitched instrumental part or line played by a rhythm section

Rhythm section

A rhythm section is a collection of musicians who make up a section of instruments which provides the accompaniment section of the music, giving the music its rhythmic texture and pulse, also serving as a rhythmic reference for the rest of the band...

instrument such as the electric bass

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

, double bass

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

, tuba

Tuba

The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...

or keyboard (piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

, Hammond organ

Hammond organ

The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, in the 1960s and 1970s it became a standard keyboard...

, electric organ, or synthesizer). It is also used sometimes in classical music. In solo performance basslines may simply be played in the lower register

In music, a register is the relative "height" or range of a note, set of pitches or pitch classes, melody, part, instrument or group of instruments...

of any instrument such as guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

while melody

Melody

A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...

and/or further accompaniment

Accompaniment

In music, accompaniment is the art of playing along with an instrumental or vocal soloist or ensemble, often known as the lead, in a supporting manner...

is provided in the middle or upper register. Basslines in popular music

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

often use "riffs" or "grooves", which are usually simple, appealing musical motifs or phrases that are repeated, with variation, throughout the song. Bassline riffs usually emphasize the chord tones of each chord (usually the root note, the third note, the fifth note, and the octave of a chord), which helps to define a song's key. At the same time, basslines work along with the drum part and the other rhythm instruments to create a clear rhythmic pulse.

The type of rhythmic pulse used in basslines varies widely in different types of music. In swing jazz and jump blues

Jump blues

Jump blues is an up-tempo blues usually played by small groups and featuring horns. It was very popular in the 1940s, and the movement was a precursor to the arrival of rhythm and blues and rock and roll...

, basslines are often created from a continuous sequence of quarter notes in a mostly scalar, stepwise part called a "walking bass line." In latin, salsa music

Salsa music

Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...

, jazz fusion

Jazz fusion

Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...

, reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

, electronica

Electronica

Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...

, and some types of rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

and metal, basslines may be very rhythmically complex and syncopated

Syncopation

In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...

. In bluegrass and traditional country music, basslines often emphasize the root and fifth of each chord. Though basslines may be played by many different types of instrument

Musical instrument

A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...

s and in a broad musical range

Range (music)

In music, the range of a musical instrument is the distance from the lowest to the highest pitch it can play. For a singing voice, the equivalent is vocal range...

they are generally played on bass instruments

Bass (instrument)

Bass describes musical instruments that produce tones in the low-pitched range. They belong to different families of instruments and can cover a wide range of musical roles...

and in the range roughly at least an octave

Octave

In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

and a half below middle C

Middle C

C or Do is the first note of the fixed-Do solfège scale. Its enharmonic is B.-Middle C:Middle C is designated C4 in scientific pitch notation because of the note's position as the fourth C key on a standard 88-key piano keyboard...

. In classical music such as string quartets and symphonies, basslines play the same harmonic and rhythmic role; however, they are usually referred to as the "bass voice" or the "bass part."

Instruments

Most popular musical ensembles include an instrument capable of playing bass notes. In the 1920s, a tuba

Tuba

was often used. In the 1930s and 1940s, most popular music groups used the double bass

Double bass

as the bass instrument. Starting in the 1960s, the louder, easier-to-transport bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

replaced the double bass in most types of popular music, such as rock and roll, blues, and folk. By the 1970s and 1980s, the electric bass was used in most rock bands and jazz fusion

Jazz fusion

groups. The double bass was still used in some types of popular music that recreated styles from the 1940s and 1950s such as jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

(especially swing and bebop), traditional 1950s blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, jump blues

Jump blues

, country

Country

A country is a region legally identified as a distinct entity in political geography. A country may be an independent sovereign state or one that is occupied by another state, as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, or a geographic region associated with a previously...

, and rockabilly

Rockabilly

Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...

.

In some popular music bands, keyboard instruments are used to play the bass line. In organ trio

Organ trio

An organ trio, in a jazz context, is a group of three jazz musicians, typically consisting of a Hammond organ player, a drummer, and either a jazz guitarist or a saxophone player. In some cases the saxophonist will join a trio which consists of an organist, guitarist, and drummer, making it a quartet...

s, for example, a Hammond organ

Hammond organ

player performs the basslines using the organ's pedal keyboard. In some types of popular music, such as hip-hop or house music

House music

House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...

, the bass lines are played using synthesizers, sequencers, or electro-acoustically modeled samples of bass lines. In electronic music and house music

House music

, bass lines are often performed on electronic devices such as the Roland TB-303

Roland TB-303

The Roland TB-303 Bass Line is a bass synthesizer with built-in sequencer manufactured by the Roland corporation from late 1981 to 1984 that had a defining role in the development of contemporary electronic music.-History:...

Popular music

In modern popular music, the bassline is generally played by an electric bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

player. The bassline bridges the gap between the rhythm part played by the drummer and the melodic and harmonic lines played by the lead and rhythm guitarists. Bass players also perform fills

Fill (music)

In popular music, a fill is a short musical passage, riff, or rhythmic sound which helps to sustain the listener's attention during a break between the phrases of a melody....

in between the phrases of the vocal melody, and they may also perform bass runs or bass breaks, which are short solo sections. Rhythmic variations by the bass, such as the introduction of a syncopated figure can dramatically change the feel of a song, even for a simple groove.

"In any style, the bass's role in the groove
Groove (popular music)
Groove is the sense of propulsive rhythmic "feel" or sense of "swing" created by the interaction of the music played by a band's rhythm section . Groove is a consideration in genres such as salsa, funk, rock, fusion, and soul...

is the same: to keep time and to outline the tonality. When developing bass lines, these two things should always be your goal"

Walking bass

A walking bass is a style of bass accompaniment or line, common in baroque music and jazz, which creates a feeling of regular quarter note movement, akin to the regular alteration of feet while walking

Walking

Walking is one of the main gaits of locomotion among legged animals, and is typically slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined by an 'inverted pendulum' gait in which the body vaults over the stiff limb or limbs with each step...

. Thus walking basslines generally consisting of unsyncopated

Syncopation

notes

Musical notation

Music notation or musical notation is any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols.-History:...

of equal value, usually quarter note

Quarter note

A quarter note or crotchet is a note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note . Often people will say that a crotchet is one beat, however, this is not always correct, as the beat is indicated by the time signature of the music; a quarter note may or may not be the beat...

s (known in jazz as a "four feel"). Walking basslines use a mixture of scale

Musical scale

In music, a scale is a sequence of musical notes in ascending and descending order. Most commonly, especially in the context of the common practice period, the notes of a scale will belong to a single key, thus providing material for or being used to conveniently represent part or all of a musical...

tones, arpeggio

Arpeggio

An arpeggio is a musical technique where notes in a chord are played or sung in sequence, one after the other, rather than ringing out simultaneously...

s, chromatic runs, and passing tones to outline the chord progression

Chord progression

A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...

of a song or tune, often with a melodic shape that alternately rises and falls in pitch over several bars. To add variety to a walking bassline, bassists periodically interpolate various fills, such as playing scale or arpeggio fragments in swung eighth notes, plucking muted percussive grace notes (either one grace note or a "raked" sequence of two or three grace notes), or holding notes for two, three, or four beats. Some songs lend themselves to another type of variation: the pedal point

Pedal point

In tonal music, a pedal point is a sustained tone, typically in the bass, during which at least one foreign, i.e., dissonant harmony is sounded in the other parts. A pedal point sometimes functions as a "non-chord tone", placing it in the categories alongside suspensions, retardations, and passing...

, in which the bassist holds or repeats a single note (often the tonic or the dominant) under the chord changes.

Walking basslines are usually performed on the double bass

Double bass

or the electric bass

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

, but they can also be performed using the low register of a piano

Piano

, Hammond organ

Hammond organ

, tuba

Tuba

or other instruments. They can also be sung. While walking bass lines are most commonly associated with jazz and blues, they are also used in rock

Rock music

, rockabilly

Rockabilly

, ska

Ska

Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...

, R&B, gospel

Gospel music

Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....

, latin, country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

, and many other genres.

Examples

Walking bass in the pedal part of baroque organ music (J.S. Bach's Nun komm' der heiden Heiland, BWV 659, from the Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes

Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes

The Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, BWV 651–668, are a set of chorale preludes for organ prepared by Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig in his final decade 1740-1750, from earlier works composed in Weimar, where he was court organist...

Walking bass often alternates quarter notes:

giving rise to the term.

Many boogie-woogie basslines are walking bass lines:

Walking bass often moves in stepwise (scalar) motion to successive chord root

Root (chord)

In music theory, the root of a chord is the note or pitch upon which a triadic chord is built. For example, the root of the major triad C-E-G is C....

s, such as often in country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

In this example, the last two quarter notes of the second measure, D and E, "walk" up from the first quarter note in that measure, C, to the first note of the third measure, F (C and F are the roots of the chords in the first through second and third through fourth measures, respectively).

In both cases, "walking" refers both to the steady duple rhythm (one step after the other) and to the strong directional motion created (ibid); in the examples above, from C to F and back in the second, and from root to seventh and back in the first.

Bass run

A bass run (or "bass break") is a short instrumental break or fill

Fill (music)

In popular music, a fill is a short musical passage, riff, or rhythmic sound which helps to sustain the listener's attention during a break between the phrases of a melody....

in which the bass instrument

Bass (instrument)

Bass describes musical instruments that produce tones in the low-pitched range. They belong to different families of instruments and can cover a wide range of musical roles...

, such as an electric bass

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

or a double bass

Double bass

(or instruments, in the case of a marching band) and the bassline are given the forefront. The bass part for a bass run often differs from the usual bass accompaniment

Accompaniment

In music, accompaniment is the art of playing along with an instrumental or vocal soloist or ensemble, often known as the lead, in a supporting manner...

style, in terms of the register, timbre

Timbre

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...

, or melodic style that is used, or the number of notes per beat which are played.

A bass run may be composed by the performer or by an arranger

Arranger

In investment banking, an arranger is a provider of funds in the syndication of a debt. They are entitled to syndicate the loan or bond issue, and may be referred to as the "lead underwriter". This is because this entity bears the risk of being able to sell the underlying securities/debt or the...

prior to a performance, or it may be improvised

Improvisation

Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...

onstage by the performer using scales, arpeggios, and standard lick

Lick (music)

In popular music genres such as rock or jazz music, a lick is "a stock pattern or phrase" consisting of a short series of notes that is used in solos and melodic lines...

s and riff

RIFF

The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....

s. In some cases, a bass run may incorporate a display of virtuoso

Virtuoso

A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument. The plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine form sometimes used is virtuosa...

techniques such as rapid passages or high notes. During a bass run, the main vocal or melody

Melody

A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...

line usually stops, and in some cases, the percussion

Percussion instrument

A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...

or drums

Drum kit

A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

may also stop. The technique originated in the marches

March (music)

A march, as a musical genre, is a piece of music with a strong regular rhythm which in origin was expressly written for marching to and most frequently performed by a military band. In mood, marches range from the moving death march in Wagner's Götterdämmerung to the brisk military marches of John...

of the "Sousa

John Philip Sousa

John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....

school", though its resemblance to call and response

Call and response (music)

In music, a call and response is a succession of two distinct phrases usually played by different musicians, where the second phrase is heard as a direct commentary on or response to the first...

techniques familiar to African American musicians indicates an earlier origin.

Electric bass

In a rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

song in which the bassline consists of low-pitched quarter notes played on the electric bass, a bass run may consist of a rapid sequence of sixteenth notes in a higher register, or of a melodic riff

RIFF

played in a higher register. In some cases, the bassist will select a "brighter"-sounding pickup or increase the treble response of the instrument for a bass run, so that it will be easier to hear.

In a pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

song in which the bassline consists of notes plucked on the electric bass, a bass run may consist of several bars of percussive slapping and popping.

In a funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

song in which the bassline already consists of percussive slapping and popping, a bass run may consist of a virtuostic display of rapid slapping and popping techniques combined with techniques such as glissando, note-bending, and harmonics.

Double bass

In a jump blues
Jump blues
Jump blues is an up-tempo blues usually played by small groups and featuring horns. It was very popular in the 1940s, and the movement was a precursor to the arrival of rhythm and blues and rock and roll...

tune in which the bassline consists of low-pitched quarter notes played on the double bass in a scalar walking bass style, a bass run may consist of a bar of swung eighth notes played using a percussive slap bass style, in which the right hand strikes the strings against the fingerboard.

In a swing tune in which the bassline consists of low-pitched quarter notes played on the double bass in a scalar walking bass style, a bass run may consist of a descending chromatic scale played in a higher register.

In a bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

tune in which the bassline consists of low-pitched quarter notes played on the double bass on the root and fifth of each chord

Chord (music)

A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...

on beats one and three (of a 4/4 tune), a bass run may consist of a walking bass line played for several bars.

Wind bass

In a marching band

Marching band

Marching band is a physical activity in which a group of instrumental musicians generally perform outdoors and incorporate some type of marching with their musical performance. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments...

context, a bass run may consist of a several bar unaccompanied passage composed for the tubas and sousaphones which displays either rapid passages of notes or higher-register techniques. In New orleans jazz, the tuba may provide a walking bass line similar to that of the double bass.

External links

- 244 million bass lines in F

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sttpeVdSYTs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sttpeVdSYTs An audio/video example of a walking bass line played on electric bass guitar, created specifically to accompany this Wikipedia entry (GFDL/Creative Commons) by Dave Muscato, session bassist, for information purposes only.
Bassline News
Bass guitar

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Instruments

Popular music

Walking bass

Examples

Bass run

Electric bass

Double bass

Wind bass

See also

External links