bass players' stairway to heaven equivalent

AndyWhite

Guitareaxe wrote: »

I think the stairway thing is outdated, kids don't wanna learn that so much anymore (Thank god!).

Anyway, when I was learning guitar (Mid to late 90's), most bass players in music shops annoyed me with

"Peace sells" by Megadeth (not correctly though)

red hot chilly peppers, the bass line that features strongly in.... every second song of theirs

For whom the bell tolls - Metallica (worst bassline/song/(I learned it too!) ever!)

Anastasia - Metallica , Its not a class solo, its a simple arpeggio drill, its not a work of genius any idiot who learned some theory could write a progression of arps in one frickin octave, its possibly the worst excuse for a bass solo ever.

I in turn annoyed them back with (on the guitar)
Slayer and Strapping young lad riffs etc ;P
Some of which I learned mainly because it was fast and technical and used to bother beginner bass player metal heads.

I consider myself extremely lucky to have narrowly missed "bands" like Korn, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot etc and their rise to popularity. I just got out of my tweeney years in the nick of time, I feel sorry for anyone who learned guitar and bass from watching those guys, and even more sorry for the guys in music shops who had to put up with it.

Anyway, if more kids learned some Jazz in those days instead of Metallica on the bass then we would have had more successful bass players in the last 2 decades.

However if more Kids learned the faster trash metal of Metallica on the guitar instead of Nirvana and stairway then I think we would of had a lot more successful guitarists. Fricken fast baddass riffs and solos - shame about the basslines.

I truely hope that nowadays kids are learning more complicated basslines and styles now that we have the interweb everywhere. I love bass but never in music has a title been claimed by so many, and deserved by so few as the title of "Bassist"....well maybe "guitarist" !

Right. numerous things wrong with this post. firstly, flea is an absolute genius. you say that every second chili peppers song has the same bassline? name 2. dosed and otherside have the same chord progression, i know, and you can play one bassline over the other but they are nowhere near the same.

I appreciate that you may not like metallica and thats fine. I havent been arsed to learn many of their songs on bass because its not my style of playing but nonetheless, cliff burtons bass solo (spelled "anesthesia", named after the sedative, not a disney princess) is amazing. it is not simply "a load of arpeggios". you clearly, like the guys you heard playing it, never got past the intro of the piece. (and before you ask, i do have knowledge of music theory.
also, the bassline in for whom the bell tolls is brilliant. however, you cant hear it clearly enough on the cd so everyone, including myself when i started bass has learned it wrong. have a good listen to it properly.

good bass playing has been steadily declining and becoming more rare since about the seventies. I have been playing eight years now and consider my standard to be far below the level heard in music from thirty years ago, yet i could play, with ease, most songs being released today.

Guitareaxe

Dude Im a huge metallica fan!
and flea is superb on the bass, just not the people who used to bug me by attempting the bass lines. Your right the bass lines do differ but funk is funk and many chilli songs sound the same. As for Cliff burton, I honestly dont thing that solo is anything to write home about, the tone is terrible, its not my idea of a good solo, in fact its just about awful, if I played that on a guitar as a solo on stage Id be shot. we all have different tastes in music, personally the bassline in the first few metallica albums, minus justice obviously, are poor, with for whom the bell tolls being particularly bad, I know and can hear the bassline in the song, its as bad as the riff, just terrible but I admire Burtons stage presence and tenacity. Thankfully metallica features 2 brilliant guitarists to make up for their string of poor bassists, and their current bassist is brilliant, even if the songwriting isn't what it used to be.

Morf

One of the first songs i attempted was Chromatic Fantasy by Jaco. Talk about ideas above my station. The chord progression at the end is farking beautiful but short.

Malice

Guitareaxe wrote: »

metallica features 2 brilliant guitarists to make up for their string of poor bassists, and their current bassist is brilliant, even if the songwriting isn't what it used to be.

I can see the points you're making even if I don't agree with them . I think you're the first Metallica fan I've met that prefers Rob Trujillo over Cliff Burton!

beng128

For me when trying out basses i play "Pretty Little Ditty" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers because it has both finger style playing and slaping.

Pretty Little Ditty would not be the stairway to heaven for Bass (but i wish it was)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn88p4vAwHk


Please watch this and don't mind the tuning up bit at the start........

....and dont say Crazy Town did this first.

Mental Mickey

fourmations wrote: »

hi all

just a bit of a doss here..

if Stairway is the quintessential song
you hear teenageers playing while trying guitars
in the music stores

what is the bass players equivalent
(the song everyone plays while learning)

cheers

4

Orion by 'Tallica

loveissucide

One of the obvious Pixies hits in my experience.

dogbert27

As mentioned above The Pixies (my one was Here Comes Your Man), Thin Lizzy Dancin In The Moonlight and my very first song Ocean Color Scene The River Boat Song