Solo Bass!

Disclaimer : It is Solo bass, not bass solo
and the ! was to make up the 10 characters.

Im looking at hints at tips with writing bass only songs. I can make basslines for songs with guitar etc. But I was hoping for some advice on making bass only songs
If not advice, maybe some resources, like a DVD, book or website or something. pref not youtube vids though, cause thats not overly valuable cause its usually people's own way of doing it, and Id rather hear your way of doing it, rather then hearing you tell me someone elses way, if you know what I mean? =/

so yeah..

Any suggestions?

Trying playing walking basslines as they are more melodic in structure than your standard riff/groove oriented bassline. The Beatles were great for this kind of thing, Paul McCartney played some really melodic bass lines. By playing a melodic bassline you are moving the focus of the melody to the bass. I understand you played keyboards before? So I will assume you know chords and chord progressions etc, so perhaps you could come up with a chord progression using simple triad chords, say start with a simple 4 chord progression, then pick notes out of each chord to form your melody. You could then try inverting chords, taking the notes of CMajor for example CEG, and play ECG or combinations and variations of these notes and then try and make them lead into the next chord. This is what I do anyway, and I write drum and bass and the bassline is used as the focus point of my songs, hope this helps in some way.

Well,i'd use a lot of chords,tapping,fills,Pull offs,and stuff that make a simple riff sound wonderful and melodic but at the same time so chuggy and groovy. I will come up with more advice later.

O_o you can make that O_O
i wanna learn XD
i really have no idea about it, i should say slides/hammer ons/tapping and SPEEEEED XD

I am doing this exact thing with my music these days. A very basic way of putting this is, you have to make sure there is no emptiness. Fill every space with music. EXAMPLE: If you are trying to play say...a skynard song bass only, you will have a lot of empty space where guitar, drums and vocals would normally be. In addition, bass lines like that are absolutely NOT standalone bass lines. They are just supplying low-end. If you're doing solo, you must supply the rhythm as well as the melody, and skill level permitting, percussion also. Remember, It's ENTIRELY up to you to make sure the audience doesn't get bored. NO EMPTY SPACES unless it's artistically necessary. It's most certainly a struggle to accomplish all of this, but practice. I'll upload some of my solo stuff soon so you can see my approach to solo bass.

Yeah DTL, thatd be awesome.

Yeah, Ive seen alot of solo stuff on youtube and that, that best one I ever saw was that one with the busker, has like, 10 million views or something, amazing. I get the gist of what it MAYBE should sound like, but Id love to see your approach to it!

It's very rough, but this is just an example

Dropthelines585 wrote:It's very rough, but this is just an example

nice

Dropthelines585 wrote:It's very rough, but this is just an example

That was a pleasure to listen to man

Or you can go this route

lol, my cam is out of focus and i look fat

Dropthelines585 wrote:Or you can go this route

5 starred

Get a loop pedal, seriously man.

I struggled to come up with decent solo bass tunes, but now that i can hold down a solid core underneath and move around, change the structures very easily. It makes it alot easier to flow.

I was thinking about that last night actually.