Bass Solos Explained

This is what we've all been waiting for: insight to the mysteries of the bass solo.

John Hoffman passed this along from Guam. The insight comes from a bass player in San Fran, Mike Billo. He's pretty well nailed it, IMHO.

Jazz band w/upright

Everybody stops but the piano player vamping lightly, the bassist goes way up the neck with a lot of badly intonated poopity poop poop formless twiddling, with optional grimacing & grunting. Bar chatter goes up.

Hybrid blues-rock w/Rickenbacker

Bassist going off on extended noodling (also in the high register and sounding like pop-pop poopity poopity poop, only much louder, maybe with EFX). Guitar player can't count to 12 and steps in to attempt drunken riff-based call & response pissing match. Drummer rises to the challenge. Organist goes to the bar.

Funk w/exotic wood plank

Band drops out except for drums, bass solo sounds like small-screen version of Normandy Invasion, lots of chattering machine gun poppitypoppitypoppitypoppity SLAP. Not as prone to high register noodling though. Mid-neck assault and slightly back-bent posture, right and/thumb to appear as a flailing blur. Don't attempt to look serene and spiritual doing this unless you are Vic Wooten. Can sound like angry chattering squirrels throwing nuts at a tin roof..... unless you are Vic Wooten.

Classic Blues w/ Fender P

There are no bass solos. Don't. Exception: One real slow showpiece grinder at the end of the set...keep the sludgy bottom groove while the rest of the band backs way off so people can marvel at the thick pelvis pushing thump AND the absolute lack of definition in those 30-yr-old BBQ sauce & nicotine - crusted flatwounds. The audience loves to cheer for the quiet kid on the non-flashy instrument.

Once.

Trad. Bluegrass w/ Kay upright

(say "string bass" or "doghouse")

Only once per night, and the rest of the band just plays lightly the downbeat chords for each section, the bass player keeps playing the same 1-5 pattern finishing up with a slightly flashy and attention-getting three note ascending run back to one. Pentatonic minor is a hanging offense, eighth notes are edgy.

Country w/Peavey

No solos. Ever. Bluegrass is the country version of jazz (chops-focused), if you want a solo go there. Roots are deep, keep them there. Fifths always work in country. Maybe if it's a loose night you can play a solo in "mama don't allow", but it better be the normal boogie-woogie arpeggio. Extended chords invite flying bottles. Keep it Dorian.

Nu-punk-grass

hippie guys with fiddles and mandolins and kilts and dobros and dreadlocks and overalls with no shirts and the bass player is a young college symphony guy who met the banjo player at a party and they shared a hand-rolled cigarette and the most amazing tri-tone arco ragas entered the cosmic flow, maaaaaan.......

Coffee-house w/fretless boutique bass

Sensitive Singer-Songwriter takes break from introspective lyrical navel-gazing and gives bassist an entire spaciously empty verse in a landscape of pastel wanderey DADGAD-tuned acoustic guitar. Bassist - rip thru some pseudo Jaco Manring cliches – furious Phyrgian fretless smeary honks, growls and noodles, sliding chords with pointlessly overdone clusters of harmonics. Sounds like angry cows in a rainstorm.