I am not Lilah, but I could be

August 21, 2008 4:16 PM

I'd like to be able to play "The Night" by Morphine on the bass guitar, and other tunes that sound like that. Can you help me get started? Or find a better place to ask this question?

I've been playing bass guitar for a few years, but just straightforward pop/rock and a little country/folk. I'd like to take a stab at moody-jazzy-postrock like "The Night" or "Audrey's Dance" or this other bit from Twin Peaks.

I'm mostly self-taught, but like to think I know a bit of theory. I'd like to think that if I had a nudge in the right direction I could pick it up. So an ideal answer might be something like:

"The Night" is B-Dorian/blues in Db composed of [this series of notes] with an occasional Eb thrown in, a standard i-v-VI progression for this type of music--see this URL for more on this style of music.

Although links to actual tab for these tunes (I did look already, but did not find) are certainly welcome. I do know this book exists, but it's rather expensive at the moment.

Bonus (or alternate) question: What would be the best bass guitar forum on the web for someone who is a bit of a novice and not devoted to metal?

posted by Martin E. to media & arts (6 answers total)

The thing with Morphine though, is that I'm pretty sure Mark Sandman played everything (at least everything where he plays a bass -- don't get me started on the tritar) on a two-string fretless bass (it's always called a "slide" bass, so I'm just assuming the fretless bit) in some odd tuning. So, I'd start by getting the setup right, which might actually make your final task comically easy.

Just fer instance, I'm a big Sonic Youth fan. I know a bit about theory as well, but that wouldn't get me anywhere near playing the vast majority of their output. However, you just put a screwdriver under your strings and spend a couple minutes tuning your guitar all funky and a lot of their songs become ridiculously easy to play (excepting the noisy bits).

Mark Sandman Wikipedia article here, which talks a bit about his choices of instruments.
posted by LionIndex at 4:37 PM on August 21, 2008

Self-correction: he doesn't play with a fretless bass, he uses a finger slide.
posted by LionIndex at 5:16 PM on August 21, 2008

What would be the best bass guitar forum on the web for someone who is a bit of a novice and not devoted to metal?

This would be it.
posted by Wolof at 11:10 PM on August 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

I'm going to say that I prefer Basschat to Talkbass. I find it a little friendlier.
posted by Cantdosleepy at 4:31 AM on August 22, 2008

It's not post-rock related at all, but bassko is a really good blog with lots of bass-playing, guitar-playing and theory books.
posted by MrMisterio at 2:46 PM on August 22, 2008

I'm going to say that I prefer Basschat to Talkbass. I find it a little friendlier.

I find Basschat a little sleepy, activity-wise, although perfectly pleasant.
posted by Wolof at 6:42 PM on August 22, 2008