Inspiration!

Avram

Avram

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Probably been posted before, but if so, lets do it again anyway:

List at least one song that really inspired you (actually gets you excited) to play the bass guitar. I'll go first...

Woodpecker From Mars
by
Faith No More

This tune, more than any other I can remember, has inspired me to learn and play the bass. Mostly because it epitomizes the sound, style and focus of attack I strive to achieve with this instrument. I have the most fun with my bass when I use it as a percussion instrument, like a key-less piano.

What inspired you to pick up the most under-appreciated and under-explored instrument in modern music?
 
DMV

by

Primus

I had never heard anything like it when I heard the first time and thats what got me started.
 
Avram said:
.....

List at least one song that really inspired you (actually
gets you excited) to play the bass guitar. I'll go first...

Woodpecker From Mars
by
Faith No More

This tune, more than any other I can remember,
has inspired me to learn and play the bass. Mostly
because it epitomizes the sound, style and focus of
attack I strive to achieve .........

What inspired you ....... ?
Click to expand...


  • I don't associate style, focus of attack etc etc with a song.

    To the degree that I do vary my style, the reason has zilch
    connection to any recorded performance or session of any
    particular tune. I may find a style inspiring, and when the
    set, the room, or more usually the boss, calls for that style,
    then I haul it out of my bag. Notice what calls up a style:
    "Room", "Set", or "Boss". "Tune" or "Song" is NOT included
    cuz the style of a song is not cast in stone.

    But I still think I can offer a tune that should be easy enuf
    to find as MP3 or maybe youtube, where you can hear the
    style and the bass voicing that pulled me in and keeps me
    going:

    Jimmy Smith playing Herbie Hancock's "Watermellon Man".




    #%&@#%&@#%&@#%&@#%&@#%&@#%&@#%&#%




    When a tune has that funky simplicity and that kinda cool
    up-but-laid-back riddm, thaz the environment where bass
    really thrives, really delivers, really serves. And the bass
    voice of a B-3 is the bass voice I like to get from electric
    bass guitar. The difference in playing style means that no
    one will ever mistake bass guitar for a Hammond organ,
    but if you just compare voices of a few sustained notes it
    comes clear that electrons don't care whether your user
    interface is a keyboard and pedals, or fingers and strings.

    It must not be overlooked that the tone wheel in a B-3 is
    an analog magnetic tone engine, akin to PUs and strings
    but in a different shape. Unlike various other organs, it is
    NOT an occilator or transistors. It is actual moving parts,
    moving magnetic material rapidly past a wire wound coil,
    the same effect as with strings and PUs. Way cool.
 
Very good question
:)

Arround the world- Red Hot Chili Peppers

Just a impressive bass line when you beginning to play!
 
Space Cowboy - Jamiroquai. I don't think Stu plays the same lick twice in the whole song. Funky, yet refined. Mojo.
 
Iron maiden - all of them, I was a big fan those days.
Infectious grooves - Punk It Up!
 
I think the cure was a big influence.

David Bowies China Girl was quite an influence.

Plus most of Steve Harris' work in Iron Maiden.


These days im encouraged to try different things by seth horan and victor wooten.
 

Steve Harris here as well. I remember starting with Phantom of the Opera, Powerslave, The Clairvoyant.
I have Phantom in some recording with my ancient Ibanez "Oar" bass. The fun we had back then.
 
simpler...

Something and Rain, by the Beatles.
Besides being playing metal all my life, I still feel old Macca Rules!
 
Initially, when I first started playing I would have to say Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath) was a huge influence. But once I got into Rush, Geddy Lee has been and always will be the biggest influence on my playing.

As to a specific song that really gets me excited to play bass....
wow, where to begin.


While songs like La Villa Strangiato, YYZ, and the entire 2112 album are fun to play and really get my juices flowing, if I had to pick just one song that I really just love playing. Hands down it would be..... Cygnus X-1, off the A Farewell to Kings album.
 
I started Bassplaying because we didn't find a bassplayer for our band, so I sang and played bass. As I played guitar some years, I used to play the "powerchords on one string"-method alot. After some time I realized how cool the Bass-parts of Steve Harris were and how "more" Bassplaying can be. Over the years I also played drums in a band.
I still have guitars and still play them when I write songs and record them, I also still have a e-drumset, but the bass is THE instrument I play and love!

So I was not really inspirated by someone to start playing bass, but maidens harris "showed" me to love the instrument.
 
two more

Just heard two songs that always inspired me:
Police's Spirits in a Material World
ELO's Last train to London
 
"Suck my kiss"- Red Hot Chili Peppers
There is actually a bunch of Chili Peppers song that inspire me. Flea is a maniac!!!!
 
The first song I acctully heard the bass in was My Generation by The Who.

And some songs that made me crap my pants like seven years ago were

46 & 2 by Tool

Bring Out Your Dead by Anti-Flag (the whole album Mobilize has AWESOME bass)

and of course, the entire A Show Of Hands by Victor Wooten.
 
Steve Becker said:
Space Cowboy - Jamiroquai. I don't think Stu plays the same lick twice in the whole song. Funky, yet refined. Mojo.
Click to expand...


Make sure you're talking about the right version bro... the album version was not played by Stuart...

He played on the music video version and "Stoned Again" mix. Let me know if you've heard them!
 
Iron Maiden then Black Sabbath with Geezer Butler playing then Cliff Burton.Those were the main people that inspired me to play.
 
violent & funky
by
infectious grooves

(robert trujillo is a monster on bass ! if you don't know him, you have to check infectious grooves out ! it is nothing compared to his work with metallica, or suicidal tendencies, or black label society, ...)
 
"Who's Loving You" by Michael Jackson. There is so much you can do with this bass line that I never play it the same way twice. Just reminds me that the right choice of notes can be equally as impressive as shredding.
 
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