More Latin (Salsa) stuff

Hi again. Here's my transcription of the bassline in the video below,and a copy/paste of the video description:

Hi again.

Several friends have asked me to play some Salsa tunes on YouTube. Since that's a style that I also enjoy a lot, I've decided to record my version of this cool bassline. "Escarcha" ("Frost") was released in 1987 on the "Héctor Lavoe Strikes Back" album. I was convinced that the bass player on this album was the great Salvador "Sal" Cuevas, but according to All Music Guide, Oskar Cartaya was the one in charge of bass duties. Also a terrific player.

It's not common to use a fretless bass guitar to record Salsa tunes. Actually, I don't know of a Salsa hit that features a fretless BG. But I've always liked the idea and that's why I decided to use my fretless Bongo for this recording. Of course, I'm not trying to mimic the tone on the original recording (which seems to be a Jazz Bass) but simply sharing my sonic idea of a bass guitar in a Salsa context. I don't play my fretted basses so close to the fingerboard, but I like to do it on the fretless, looking to emphasize the "mwah" factor. Roundwounds also help a lot, but I feel sort of paranoid about puting roundwounds on an uncoated fretless fingerboard. Anyway, I also like the darker tone of flats for this type of music. For sections in which I wanted more punch, I moved my plucking hand closer to the bridge.

Most slurred notes on this bassline are played with hammer-ons for sure, but I used slides instead, also trying to get the most of the distinctive qualities of the fretless bass. Playing an non-tempered (fretless) instrument over a tempered (fretted) one makes slight pitch differences even more noticeable, specially on the high register. I tried to do my best to sound the less out-of-tune possible. There's also a little rushing here and there (well, rushing is the reason why the song ends at a much faster tempo than the one at the beginning. But the recording doesn't follow me, so my mistakes are the most evident :=( ). The angle in which the camera captured the performance makes the fingerboard positions look farther from the headstock than one normally thinks they are (from the player's point of view).

Hope you find this new effort enjoyable and helpful. I know there are lots of bassists interested in learning to play Salsa and, although I still have lots of things to learn and this performance is far from "perfect", I think it may shed some lights. Anyway, remember that in most cases, playing Latin music isn't about technical difficulties or dazzling technique but playing with authority. Have fun! :=)

Escarcha (Bassline)

Some Latin stuff you might find interesting

Hi again.

Here's my video and transcription of "La Candelosa", a great song from the Vallenato genre. For those of you who are unfamiliar, here's some info as I put it in the video description:

Hi again.

First off, here's the translation of the text at the beginning of the video: "La Candelosa" (That's hard to translate. It refers to a woman who's so hot that burns). "Musical piece written by Israel Romero and recorded by El Binomio De Oro in 1986. Bass cover by Alvabass, just to show an (improvable) demonstration of an extraordinary bassline recorded by Rangel Torres (R.I.P.). Audiovisual material created with no profit intention and without claiming any kind of intellectual property".

This is an example of a Colombian music genre called Vallenato. Originated in the Caribbean coast area, it's basically music for party created with the accordion as the most prominent instrument. A percussion instrument called caja vallenata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caja_vallenata) is used exclusively in this kind of music. Further reading about Vallenato can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallenato

The basslines are anything but pedestrian. Melodies and chords while supporting the rhythm section at the same time make this style a very challenging one for any bass player. Dedicated Vallenato players use their thumb along with index, middle and sometimes ring finger for plucking the strings (that's why I'm not a dedicated Vallenato player: I use I-M strictly, and only use my thumb for some chords). "La Candelosa" is an example of an uptempo Vallenato tune, but there are slow-paced ones as well. For those ones, an electric guitar is added for accompaniment, duets with accordion and (less common) solo parts. You'll hardly hear an electric guitar on songs like "La Candelosa". Also, there are two basses in some sections of this song (shown on split-screen). In my opinion (as I say in the video title), this is one of the best (if not THE best) Latin (tropical) basslines ever created.

The bass part for this song, as lots others from "El Binomio De Oro" during most of its existence with the original singer, Rafael Orozco (who was killed in 1992), was recorded with a Kramer Stagemaster Imperial bass ( http://www.vintagekramer.com/alum.htm ) which featured an aluminum neck. You can see it in live action, along with the late Rangel Torres at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctawlifEYbU&fmt=18 (Rangel Torres died on a plane crash in 1994)

La Candelosa

Bassline for Rush's "Limelight"

Hey! It's been a while since my last post. Here's my transcription of the bassline that the awesome Geddy Lee recorded for this terrific song:

Limelight Bassline

Some people may think different about the meter shifts, but anyway I can guarantee that this transcription definitely works as written. Enjoy!

Bassline for Chic's "Le Freak"

Here's the bassline for a great song from the Disco era, courtesy of the awesome Bernard Edwards.

Le Freak Bassline Plus Tab

Bassline for Led Zeppelin's "The Lemon Song"

Hi again. Here's my transcription of John Paul Jones' awesome bassline for "The Lemon Song". Legend says that he improvised it from beginning to end and recorded it in one take. If that's true, thay guy is not from this planet.

The Lemon Song Bassline

And here's my attempt at it:

Bassline for Rush's "Freewill"

Hey! here's my transcription of the bassline for this awesome song:

Freewill Bassline Plus Tab

Notice that, for the sections in which the song's tempo shifts to half speed, it would be more appropriate to write "quarter note = 80" instead of "eighth note = 160" since the pulse is still based on quarter notes (just at half speed), but I preferred to annotate the tempo change that way just to give the idea of same tempo, but different beat unit. Here's a video of myself trying to play the line:



I've just noticed that Yvon and rd have joined as followers of this modest blog. Thank you so much! :)

Perhaps the most rhythmically complex song in The Beatles catalog

Here's the bassline for "Happiness Is A Warm Gun". Nothing complicated from a technical standpoint, but it's a really interesting song because of the many meter changes it has. There are lots of cool stuff going on there, like the final 3/4 section in which the whole band is playing in such meter but Ringo keeps pounding in 4/4. At some points it seems that the bassline was doubled an octave higher by a guitar, so I added some octave double stops where I judged them to be appropriate. And yes, there's a low C at the very end of the song.

Happiness is a Warm Gun (Bassline)