I am not Lilah, but I could be
August 21, 2008 4:16 PM   Subscribe

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) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
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


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