How to know when your bass playing becomes composition and what to do about it.
When you first picked up the bass, did you know you would end up being your band’s secret badass? Admittedly, it’s a strange kind of badassery, in that you don’t need to brag or be cocky. It’s simply the quiet confidence of knowing that you’re not just driving the musical train, you’re the engine.
Many of us are more than content hanging back from center stage and driving from the rear, choosing instead just to make folks move by improving the groove, all while having little to prove. Of course, this doesn’t describe every bass player. But if the shoe fits, there can be a flip side: Having a play-it-cool personality can sometimes mean playing it too cool. Some of us struggle with self-promotion and owning our contributions to the music. But your creative input is worth something. Modesty to the point of undervaluing your creativity can lead to less money in the bank, especially when it comes to your contributions to songwriting.
Of all the possible income streams, songwriting—and related publishing income—has always been the real golden goose of the music biz. Think about it: The most prosperous bassists, say, the Paul McCartneys and Stings of the world, wrote much of their respective band’s material. That’s one of the reasons the non-songwriter players, typically the bassist (and maybe the drummer, too—looking at you, Ringo) are often the least financially successful members of the band. Of course, you can earn a pretty good living on bass without songwriting, but having even partial credit for cocreating a song is worth claiming if you pitched in ideas that go beyond following a chart with groove and panache. There’s more than one way to handle this; some bands, like U2 and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, split the music writing credit equally.
Note that, in the U.S., copyright law covers the melody and the lyrics. Generally speaking, it doesn’t cover chord progressions, arrangements, or parts. (Which is why the 2015 jury verdict supporting Marvin Gaye’s heirs’ allegation that Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” infringed on Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up” was so messed up—but I digress.)
“If you create a part that is fundamental to the song’s structural foundation, or that takes the song in a new direction, like sketching out a new prechorus or bridge, you may be doing more than adding to the arrangement.”
But that doesn’t mean you have to be McCartney banging out “Scrambled Eggs” on piano to be involved in a song’s creation. Bass players have as many good creative ideas as anyone. The key to getting credit is in (1) knowing when one of your musical ideas rises to the level of songwriting, and (2) speaking up about it.
Let’s take a look at a couple of contrasting examples from Fleetwood Mac. John McVie’s grim, minor riff at the end of “The Chain” from 1977’s Rumours largely defines that section of the song. The composition as a whole simply wouldn’t be the same without it. That’s probably why he shares a songwriting credit with his bandmates—one of his few songwriting credits with the band.
Compare that with Christine McVie’s composition “Say You Love Me,” from the previous album, 1975’s Fleetwood Mac. When the chorus arrives, John McVie launches into a clever countermelody that dances up, down, and around the vocal while hitting all the necessary harmonic beats. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, pause right now and go appreciate this nugget of low-end gold.) Arguably, the bass on the “Say You Love Me” chorus is more substantive musically than the “Chain” riff. It’s an awesome arrangement ingredient, but is it essential to the composition? Could a singer/guitarist kumbaya their way through a solo acoustic rendition without including that part? Sadly, the answer is yes, they absolutely could. No songwriting credit for Mr. McVie.
There are countless examples of brilliantly composed bass lines—consider McCartney’s carefully crafted part on George Harrison’s composition “Something,” or Rufus bassist Bobby Watson’s incredible performance on Michael Jackson’s “Rock with You,” or pretty much any Motown track with James Jamerson—that don’t merit songwriting credit.
If you play originals or back up original artists onstage or in the studio, there may be times when you’re called on to do more than interpret a chord chart. If you create a part that is fundamental to the song’s structural foundation, or that takes the song in a new direction, like sketching out a new prechorus or bridge, you may be doing more than adding to the arrangement. You’re participating in the songwriting.
If that’s the case, it could be time for a delicate conversation with your cowriter(s), whether that’s the artist or bandleader, the producer, or your bandmate. I have talked with pro players with hit songs who sometimes agonize over this part of the job, or at least play it very carefully, so as not to eliminate themselves from future work. But if you do create something that’s essential to the composition and decide to assert yourself and stake your claim for a share of the songwriting splits, be fair, be cool, and get it in writing. Just remember that you are a badass, and get to it.
As a member of Bob Marley and the Wailers, he was one of reggae’s original creators.
Bass is about connection—within the music, among the players, and between the musicians and the listener. Even if you can only hear a song’s bass line, say, in a noisy, crowded room, or through an adjoining wall, you might be able to recognize the song—and conjure up all the memories and emotions of how that song speaks to you. Simply through bass. In the musical conversation between rhythm and harmony, bass bridges the gap, gluing everything together. And chances are, as the bass player in your band, you’re not only providing that musical groove glue, but you may also be holding the band together practically and interpersonally. And the whole time, you’re making everyone and everything feel and sound good.
It’s hard to think of any player who embodied this idea of bass as connection more than Aston “Family Man” Barrett. Though (like most bass players) he’s not exactly a household name, he truly should be: As the long-time bassist, arranger, and coproducer of Bob Marley and the Wailers, his musical innovations and memorable lines are exceedingly familiar to anyone who has ever heard reggae music. “Fams,” as he was known, died in February of this year at 77, leaving a long legacy of reggae mastery.
Indeed, as Family Man was one of reggae’s original creators, he helped birth the bass-heavy Jamaican genre into existence from its stylistic precursors, ska and rocksteady. Together with his younger brother, drummer Carlton “Carly” Barrett, Fams created and established much of the hypnotic pulse and infectious vibe that characterizes reggae rhythms. Family Man’s feel was firm yet relaxed, his tone deep, dark, and plush. It was with these bottom-heavy colors, coaxed from a Höfner “Beatle” bass in his early years, then from his flatwound-strung Fender Jazz bass, that Aston Barrett crafted snaky, syncopated hooks and short melodic phrases that bolstered the vocal melodies while playing against the bouncing backbeats of the rhythm guitar and organ.
Before building his first bass from plywood and a length of 2“x4”, Barrett’s first musical love was singing along to American soul artists on Jamaican radio. “When I’m playing the bass, it’s like I’m singing,” Fams told music journalist Bill Murphy in a 2007 Bass Player magazine interview. “I compose a melodic line and see myself like I’m singing baritone.” You can hear his vocal-like bass stylings in songs like “Is This Love” and “Waiting in Vain.” These and many other Barrett bass lines serve as countermelodies, animated motifs that play against each song’s main vocal melody. Family Man’s parts are often easy to sing along to, so it’s easy to imagine Fams singing them in his head.
“Fams not only kept that intragroup connection strong, but he also went beyond the bass, creating and composing many of the intricate, interconnecting parts you can hear in any Bob Marley and the Wailers recording.”
The Barrett brothers played in several early reggae bands before joining the Wailers full-time in 1972, including famed producer Lee “Scratch” Perry’s house band, the Upsetters. In 1969, when the original Upsetters lineup couldn’t make a U.K. tour due to a scheduling conflict, Aston and Carlton’s band the Hippy Boys became the new Upsetters. In this group, they backed a pantheon of early reggae artists, including the Wailers, a vocal trio with Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer. The Upsetters eventually became the core of the Wailers’ rhythm section. Tosh and Bunny Wailer left the band in 1974.
It was years before, though, well before he had children (and he had a lot of children) that Aston Barrett began calling himself “Family Man.” This reflected how he saw it as his role to keep the band together. As the Wailers’ bandleader, arranger, and co-producer, Fams not only kept that intragroup connection strong, but he also went beyond the bass, creating and composing many of the intricate, interconnecting parts you can hear in any Bob Marley and the Wailers recording. But his primary musical connection was with his brother, Carly. Among other reggae conventions, the Barrett brothers pioneered the “one drop” rhythmic style, in which the bass and drums skip the downbeat—dropping the one—as you can hear in the bass and drum parts of songs like “Trenchtown Rock” and “One Drop.”
I met Family Man at the photo shoot for that 2007 Bass Player cover story, and again in 2012 when Phil Chen and I interviewed him onstage during the weekend he received his Bass Player Lifetime Achievement Award. During the photo shoot, we also shot a short video interview, which you can find on YouTube, where he demonstrates the “One Drop” bass line, plucking with his thumb between the end of the neck and the neck pickup. Even barely amplified, you can feel the depth that comes from Family Man’s bass approach. In the Marley years, that huge “earth sound” came from two Acoustic 18" speaker cabinets and two 4x15 cabinets. “You need them that big to get that sound,” Barrett told Murphy, “because reggae music is the heartbeat of the people. It’s the universal language what carry that heavy message of roots, culture, and reality. So the bass have to be heavy and the drums have to be steady.”Aston "Family Man" Barrett, Bob Marley & the Wailers bassist - 2007 Bass Player mag. interview 1/2
Here's the first part of Bill Leigh’s 2007 interview with Bob Marley & the Wailers' bassist Aston "Family Man" Barrett.
When you’ve built your entire life around guitars, our columnist says, it’s shockingly easy to connect their history with just about anything—including dogs.
I was talking to my wife the other day about selling guitars. My daughter wants a car, so I’ve been unloading a few nice electrics on fellow collectors with the hope that I can get my girl something safe to drive. My wife and daughter were joking about how much guitars are a part of our lives, and how I can connect anything to guitars, design, and music.
Seriously, you can present me with just about any topic and I can probably wrap some guitar lore around it. My wife asked if I had ever connected guitars and animals, and I got to thinking about it. Maybe I had? But, just to show her I can tell a tale, this month I’ll be writing about our dogs and “mutt” guitars!
So, back in 2015, I was searching a pet-finder website, looking to add a dog to our family. The kids wanted a dog, and even my wife, who has awful allergies, accepted the fact that we all had a lot of love to give to a pet. I was searching adoption agencies, primarily looking for a dog that didn’t shed, when I happed upon the cutest little puppy! His name was Bucky, and the story went that he and his littermates were born in a barn in Ohio. The mom had passed away shortly after giving birth, so the litter was being rescued by a local adoption group. I started to fill out the forms and do all the paperwork to get little Bucky, but then I saw he also had a brother that hadn’t been adopted! So along with Bucky came his brother Brody, and that spring, we welcomed two of the sweetest little boys into the family.
These two were trouble from the get-go, but we loved them, and I have to say that the year we got them was one of the best years of my life. The boys looked pretty similar, each having a light tan color; almost vanilla. But no one could figure out what breeds they were. Like, they were total mutts! Some terrier, some poodle, some hound? We heard it all. In the end, it really didn’t matter, because these mutts were ours, and we were gonna love them, no matter what.
Okay, so back to guitar land. This topic got me thinking about “mutt” guitars. See, back in the day, a lot of guitar factories all over the world would try to use up parts. The CBS Fender era was a notorious time for strange designs that were meant to use up stock. The Japanese makers did the same, with similar results, but a little more extreme. All the time, I see guitars that had left a factory with a mixup of parts, and sometimes I’ll see something that I’ve never seen before. These “mutts” can perplex and bewilder collectors because it seems like some of these were one-offs.
“The CBS Fender era was a notorious time for strange designs that were meant to use up stock.”
Take, for instance, the mutt I’m presenting here. The body and neck are from the late-’60s Valco run of guitars, known as Lexingtons. I’ve written about Lexington guitars before and how much I like them, but this guitar is a total weirdo. Why? Because the pickups, electronics, and tremolo are all Japanese sourced. Which begs the question, why are we seeing a factory stock guitar with a mix of such disjointed parts? Well, these were the mutts!
The Valco company, located in Chicago, was in the final years of production, and started sourcing out bodies and necks to Japan. In other words, those parts were made in Japan, shipped to the U.S., and Valco would then put on their U.S. parts and pickups. But this strange bird was finished off in Japan—which is where I found this guitar—using a super old tremolo, the odd switches, rando pickups, and a really basic bridge that didn’t allow for any intonation. How did it sound? Meh. How did it play? Meh. It was simply a hastily made guitar, using up leftover parts.
Mutt guitars are a real mixed bag. Some are okay, some are amazing, and some are real stinkers. But there is some fun in finding these rarities. If you have the time, the search is the greatest thrill, just like finding two good dogs. This one is for my mutts, Bucky and Brody!
For this month’s question, Breaking Benjamin guitarist Keith Wallen chimes in with reader Benoit Champagne and PG staff on where they’d like to see themselves grow in their musical pursuits.
Question: What’s one area you’d like to improve on in your music?
Guest Picker - Keith Wallen
A: I think there is always room for improvement for myself musically. The moment you stop trying to improve or stop caring about ways to innovate your skills or approach, you’ve kind of given up or resolved yourself to the level you’re at, even if it’s unconsciously. Playing guitar is such an amazing form of expression, but it can go hand in hand with writing, so I think songwriting is what I’d most like to improve upon. Finding that perfect combination of chords, melody, and lyrics is not easy, but I think all of us songwriters strive to come as close as we can. I know I do!
Current obsession: My newest obsession is my new signature ESP Custom Shop guitar that I got this fall. It is, for all intents and purposes, my “weapon” to go into battle with for all my solo/non-Breaking Benjamin shows. Shout out to Tony Rauser at ESP for helping me to create my ultimate dream guitar! It’s basically a souped-up E-II M-I, which is another ESP guitar that I’ve owned for almost five years now and absolutely love. I now have my own version of my favorite guitar, complete with Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck pickups, a unique crow design, a matte finish, and my logo set for the inlays.
Reader of the Month - Benoit Champagne
A: I’ve been working on practicing scales and modes at 40 bpm and lower. 60 bpm and higher is a lot easier. If you start very slow and gradually speed up, that’s where I see a lot of improvements and ease reflected in my playing—no matter the fingering pattern or speed involved.
Current obsession: Expanding on two-handed tapping. That’s something I have put aside for many years, but am currently getting back into with the scales and chord knowledge that I’ve acquired over the years. I find that this allows me to expand on my fretboard mapping knowledge with a different point of view.
Editorial Director - Ted Drozdowski
A: I’d like to establish a better, more disciplined practice routine, for chasing inspiration. When I was touring, everything flowed like water; now it’s more like pancake batter.
Current obsession: In almost every spare minute of the past two years, I’ve been working on a feature-length film called The River: A Songwriter’s Stories of the South with my cosmic roots band, Coyote Motel. Now, it’s screening at film festivals, winning laurels, and the soundtrack is coming out. I am obsessed with getting this trippy film into the world and having as many people experience it as possible.
Associate Editor - Jason Shadrick
A: It’s always a struggle to turn the microscope inward on your own playing. Plus, the target you are aiming for is always moving. Currently, I want to not focus so much on the craft of guitar playing, but more the art. A friend recently told me that I should look for the vulnerability in my playing—and I don’t disagree.
Current obsession: I’m binging on the original Broadway cast recording of School of Rock. My daughter recently was cast in a production, and it has become her gateway into the world of loud guitars. Next stop: AC/DC.
Managing your instrument’s humidity and temperature are important pieces of a year-round maintenance regimen.
Here in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, we’re going from the dry, cold conditions of winter to the warmer, humid conditions of spring. As you probably know, these fluctuations can impact the well-being of your beloved instruments. So, here are some tips from our team on how to effectively care for your acoustic guitars during these seasonal shifts.
Before delving into specific tips, it's crucial to understand how seasonal changes affect acoustic guitars. Wood, the primary material in our guitars, is highly responsive to variations in temperature and humidity. When exposed to dry and cold conditions, wood tends to contract, leading to potential issues like cracking and changes in playability. Warm and humid conditions can cause the wood to expand, resulting in swelling, warping, or changes in tone.
Combating Dryness
As winter transitions to spring, the first challenge guitar owners face is the lingering dryness from the colder months. Low humidity levels can pose a threat to your acoustic's health, making it crucial to take preventive measures. One option is using a room humidifier to maintain an optimal humidity level for your instrument. Aim for a relative humidity of around 45 to 55 percent, as this range is ideal for preserving the integrity of the wood.
Regularly monitoring the humidity in the guitar’s environment is essential. Hygrometers, inexpensive devices that measure humidity levels, can also be placed in the guitar case or the room where it's stored. This allows you to make necessary adjustments promptly. In extremely dry conditions, consider using a guitar humidifier inside the case to provide localized moisture, preventing the wood from drying out.
Guitars that use alternative materials like high-pressure laminate (HPL) are better equipped to handle many of the issues that arise with seasonal changes. Our recently reconfigured X Series includes different models with HPL backs, sides, and tops in various wood grain patterns. They’re durable, reliable, affordable, and still maintain that classic Martin tone, while not being affected by changes in temperature and humidity.
Gradual Acclimation
And as the temperatures rise during the transition to spring, it’s important to acclimate your guitar gradually. Sudden changes in temperature can lead to stress on the instrument. When out playing live, give your guitar time to adjust to the changing environment by keeping it in its case as long as possible. This gradual acclimation helps prevent the wood from expanding too rapidly, reducing the risk of structural issues.
Humidity Control
While spring brings warmer temperatures, it also introduces higher humidity levels. We suggest using dehumidifiers or air conditioning to maintain a balanced humidity level. In addition to controlling the overall humidity in your home, storing your guitar in a hardshell case with moisture-absorbing packets can provide an extra layer of protection against excessive moisture.
Regularly inspecting your guitar for any signs of damage, like cracks or loose braces from swelling wood, and changes in playability, like unusually high or low action, is crucial during the warmer seasons. Addressing issues promptly, by taking the steps mentioned above, can prevent long-term damage and ensure the longevity of your instrument.
Year-Round Maintenance
Regardless of the season, regular maintenance is key to preserving your acoustic guitar’s health. Keeping your instrument clean and well-hydrated is important. Using high-quality guitar polishes, cleaners, protectants, and detailers can help maintain the wood's moisture and protect it from environmental factors. It’s crucial to choose products specifically designed for acoustic guitars to avoid any adverse effects. By following this advice, you can ensure that your instrument remains in optimal condition despite the changing seasons. If you’re a Martin owner, you can also visit our website to find an authorized Martin service center near you to help you with routine maintenance and repairs for your guitars.
Whether it’s combating dryness with humidifiers, gradually acclimating to warmer temperatures, or controlling humidity during the spring, these tips will help you safeguard your acoustic guitar and enjoy its beautiful tones for years to come.