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April 04, 2007
Upright Bass
Pandora Podcast Nine catches up with Seth Ford-Young and his standup acoustic bass. You can hear Seth's upright playing on the latest Tom Waits album, Orphans. In this show, he and Kevin Seal talk about arpeggiated bass lines, bowed bass, and how to get percussive sounds by smacking the strings. They also talk about how bassists choose their notes when improvising a walking bass line in jazz or blues. So much variety can be plucked out of just those four strings. (10 min.)Click through to the next page to hear bass examples in rock, jazz, swing, pop, R&B and punk. Also see Seth demonstrate arco and pizzicato techniques, and view a list of the musical terms discussed in the episode.
MUSICAL TERMS INCLUDED IN THIS PODCAST
| Walking bass | Bass function | Fretless bass | Arco |
| Upright bass | Double-bass | Arpeggio | Plucked |
| Acoustic bass | Outlining the chords | Leading tone | Pizzicato (or "pizz") |
| Woofer | Chromatic step (half-step) | Bass riff | I-vi-ii-V |
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Here's Seth bowing the string, playing arco. |
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Here's some pizzicato playing. Seth's index and middle fingers work together, forming a claw that plucks the strings. |
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Seth slides his hand down the neck of the bass to raise the pitch of the note. |
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The top of the bass is called the "headstock." |
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For that "one-six-two-five" chord sequence Seth is playing through, here's how it's usually written: I vi ii V. Uppercase Roman numerals indicate major chords, and lowercase represents minor chords. These examples happen to be in the key of C, so Seth is playing C, then A minor, then D minor, then G7. |
WALKING BASS
by Ella Fitzgerald (Keeter Betts) |
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by Paul McCartney (Paul McCartney) |
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by Van Morrison (John Klingberg) |
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by Traffic (organ bass by Steve Winwood) |
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by the Shins (Dave Yanul Hernandez) |
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by Jellyroll (Seth Ford-Young) |
ARPEGGIATED BASS LINES
by Steely Dan (Chuck Rainey) |
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by Stevie Wonder (Nathan Watts) |
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by Jimi Hendrix (Noel Redding) |
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by Elvis Costello & the Attractions (Bruce Thomas) |
BASS RIFFS AND OSTINATI
by the Temptations (Bob Babbitt) |
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by the Beatles (Paul McCartney) |
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by Fugazi (Joe Lally) |
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by PJ Harvey (Steve Vaughan) |
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by Primus (Les Claypool) |
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by Mia and Jonah (Seth Ford-Young) |
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by Myles Boisen (Seth Ford-Young) |
UPRIGHT BASS (DOUBLE BASS)
by the Stray Cats (Lee Rocker) |
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by Violent Femmes (Brian Ritchie) |
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by Soul Coughing (Sebastian Steinberg) |
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by Myles Boisen (Seth Ford-Young) |
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by Tom Waits (Seth Ford-Young) |
EIGHTH NOTES WITH CHROMATIC LEADING TONES
by the Rolling Stones (Bill Wyman) |
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by Led Zeppelin (John Paul Jones) |
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by Squeeze (John Bentley) |
HAMMERING EIGHTHS
by U2 (Adam Clayton) |
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by Liz Phair (Brad Wood) |
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by Chavez (Scott Marshall) |
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by Pavement (Mark Ibold) |
FAMOUS SONGS WITH THE I-vi-ii-V CHORD PROGRESSION
by Joni James (written by Frank Loesser and Hoagy Carmichael) |
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by Clifford Brown (written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart) |
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by Dinah Washington (written by W.B. "Buddy" Johnson) |
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by the Beatles (written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon) |
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by Wham! (written by George Michael) |
Comments
Fantastic . It's aboat time we can learn aboat what realy matters. Thanks ED
Posted by: Edward at April 7, 2007 08:01 PM
Superb podcast! Can't wait to hear all the others. I'm going to d/l and archive them to play back via my Squeezebox.
Posted by: sleepysurf at April 9, 2007 08:10 AM
Re: Reggae, Ska, Rocksteady and Dub
You have to believe that I am not the type to respond to anything I hear over the internet, let alone something that does not require my active response, but I truly have to thank you. I listened to your podcast about reggae music history/styles and I was delightfully impressed. I am even ashamed to even say that I am a Jamerican (First generation American through Jamaican parents) and I learned quite a bit from "dem white boys pun da intahnet". You?ve won me over. From this point on I will ?actively? listen to Pandora.com
Posted by: Maine at April 9, 2007 03:05 PM
That was a great podcast guys!
Posted by: Jeff Anthony at April 10, 2007 10:56 AM
Thanks for clarifying some of the nuances of Jamaican music. Very informative and interesting insights. Keep up the good work!
Posted by: Pete at April 10, 2007 11:33 AM
The podcasts are frikkin' awesome, you guys. You're doing a great thing for music.
JB
Fightmaster,
http://songfight.org
Posted by: JB at April 11, 2007 10:00 AM
First time for me: istening to the real background of music Bravo Zulu Thanks
Posted by: John Goodwin at April 12, 2007 02:42 PM
Just listened to Upright Base or as you like to call it #9 #9 #9, lots of good info & easy to understand even if your not a music major. You guys are awesome. When you run outta things to put on the pod can you maybe give us some info on the harp, an often misunderstood instrument the average laymay can't identify in a song like drums, guitar or piano.
Posted by: Sunshine/Rainbow at April 13, 2007 04:05 PM
Why can't I comment on the post about lyrics?
Posted by: Alberto García at April 15, 2007 09:39 AM
very cool, makes me want to practice, like to hear the difference between the standard fretted electric bass that I play from the upright bass. nice, would lik to to see video, to get more of a visual sense.. still very good
Posted by: mike at April 15, 2007 07:43 PM
Hi Sunshine/Rainbow - you mean harp as in harmonica, right? A chromatic and blues harmonica episode would be interesting, agreed.
Hey Alberto - the conversation and comments don't open up until the episode actually airs. For now, it's just a preview, so no comments yet.
Mike - video is something we definitely want to do, so stay tuned. It may be sooner than you think (mwah ha ha).
Posted by: Kevin Seal at April 16, 2007 10:42 AM
I was asking about the harp like in the fairytale about the giant and the beanstalk but yess deff do one, if you get a chance on the harmonica, my mom always plays, but never blues. please please, meantime great info.
Posted by: Sunshine/Rainbow at April 16, 2007 05:30 PM
Okay, just making sure. I actually don't know of many contemporary recordings featuring harp... Joanna Newsom, Erin Hill, and Stephanie Bennett are all that come to mind.
Do you have any to recommend?
Posted by: Kevin Seal at April 16, 2007 08:58 PM
Hi! I used information from that site its great.
Good luck.
Posted by: tidhfg at May 22, 2007 06:56 PM
Hi, I am a upright bass fan and i was wondering if any of you kind people have any upright bass videos, bass lessons for free to share with me.
Thanxx!
Posted by: George at July 26, 2007 10:06 AM
Great info guys..thanks so much.
I really need to find some free velocity layered double bass samples, can't get any good ones.
Do you have any or any bass loops I can cut up to rearrange ?
Do you have a site at all where you put up .wav or high quality mp3s.
Keep it up...great info!
Posted by: hooker at October 10, 2007 08:36 PM
Hi, George,
I don't really know of free bass lessons, but does anyone else out there know?
And Hooker,
Yeah, similarly, I don't have bass samples to post, but someone out there in the Great Wide Interweb must, right? Sharers of the world, unite!
Posted by: Kevin Seal at October 25, 2007 12:35 PM
Alas, too much spam, gotta shut down the Q&A for a while... check back later, and it should be back up. Thanks.
Posted by: Kevin Seal at December 26, 2007 11:12 AM
