 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: kfeder@hotmail.com
Date: 2006-06-27 15:15
This post is not clarinet or klezmer specific but I wanted to post it on the general clarinet board as well if it's ok.
I've been coordinating...wrangling together... an amateur ensemble these past few years and since my background as a musical director is very limited I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the role of the bass in an ensemble. In terms of keeping the beat does the drummer and the bassist have a different function?
Also it seems like a number of people are interested in playing bass even though they double on other instruments. The fact that different individuals seem to be vying for the position of bassist leads me to think that they perceive it as a really key instrument to play. The heart of the ensemble?
I don't know, I'm just playing clarinet........
Also......any thoughts on electric versus acoustic bass? And issues on amplification in a klezmer group that has about a dozen people? Sometimes the guitarist likes to go electric. Other band members think he is too loud when amplified.......Ken
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2006-06-27 23:25
It seems like you need to decide between pure acoustic and being amplified, but if you amplify the guitar you're going to have to amplify everyone to get a good sound balance. That adds the sound tech guy into the mix (so to speak:))
As to your first question--the bass plays a different, yet similar role to the drummer with rhythms, etc. But, the bass lends a more musical influence in that he/she can play up and down the scale along with the music and drums don't do that.
As to amplification...you can get away with using an amp with the bass guitar and not anyone else because of the low tones of the bass. They don't "cut" through the blend as much as a lead electric guitar. You would, however, have to have a qualified person (or someone with a good ear) to set the volume and make the bass player leave it alone. Otherwise you'll have people getting up and leaving in the middle of your set. Mix is everything with ensembles--Klezmer included.
If you go for amplification for the whole group you're going to be talking some serious bucks and some serious time spent on getting a good overall sound. That's very difficult. For now, you might look into either getting a good standing bass player, or a cooperative electric bass player and someone with good ears and tech advice.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2006-06-28 06:10
The bass is one of the most important things. My view is that the bass should generally be more focused on keeping than the drums.
About acoustic vs. electric - I prefer acoustic in almost any situation, unless the amlified sound you get is really horrible (some pickups are just bad), and I'd still prefer acoustic most of those times too.
For a really good and interesting example of bass and drums playing check out Tony Williams (drums) and Ron Carter (bass) play together (for example on some Miles Davis albums).
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-06-28 14:07
The bass (either acoustic or electric) adds "presence" to the sound of your group. Just listening to the bass part by itself doesn't give you a clue as to how this works, and to an uncritical listener out front the group may sound pretty good without those plucked notes in there. But, there's a certain lack of "rhythmic feel" without a bass player, and it's something the group will sense even if the listeners don't miss it all that much.
We tend not to rehearse if both the bass and the drummer can't be there. With one or the other, it still works, but without both it really sucks.
A couple of other points:
1) First (and foremost) it's not a bass guitar. A bass guitar is that big bellied thing that you see playing with Mexican groups. It has six strings, just like the others, although it spends most of its time on three of them. It serves a similar function in the traditional Mexican mariachi groups as does the regular bass in other groups.
Hearing a well-played bass guitar is something that most of us never get to do. I listen to quality mariachi groups all of the time down here (they are common at baseball games and other public gatherings), and listening to a good bass guitarist is a joy indeed.
What your bass player is slinging about his or her neck is an electric bass, with four strings, a flat fingerboard with frets across same, and a similar range to the classic bull fiddle / doghouse bass / big box with rosin all over it. It plays much the same as an upright played pizzacato, but doesn't have all of the features/stylistic elements that an upright possesses. If nothing else, you can't bow an electric bass...
(Another joy is finding that a classically trained double bass player, a meek and mild person who you have known for years through an orchestral association can also strap on the electric bass and play as funky as the best of the rockers. It's part of their toolkit (if they want to work regularly), but some hide it so well you would never know the other side of their personality existed.)
2) Amplification has been around for the acoustic bass since the 1940's (vacuum tubes and honking big resistors and all); it's not a new phenomenon. What is somewhat new are bass players who have only played rock and pop style bass. They are the ones who think that music means "loud".
We use both acoustic (with an amp) and electric bass, depending on the style of tune that's being played. Most competent bass players can perform equally well on either type of instrument.
I don't rag on bass players who want to haul only one bass to rehearsal. However, they both better show up with bells on at a job, and the right one should be played with a given style.
(I once had a bass player tell me that he was up to playing combo stuff, only to have him show up with an electric bass for the one run through before the job. He didn't play the gig, for what that's worth.)
One good thing about amplification with the bass (and the electronic piano setup) is that you can feed some of the bass and piano output through the vocal monitors. This will help the vocalists a lot more than you (and they) might think.
With the electronic amplification, adding to the mix only involves a couple of extra cables and some know-how. With pure acoustic instruments, this is only possible with another level of miking. It's very nice to have this flexibility for so much less than a pair of extra mixer imputs would cost.
3) If it's R & B or rock or modern pop, I have it done on the electric bass. If it's anything else, it's done on the acoustic bass. While in the case of the bass players that I have used it's usually automatic, I do check to ensure that we're on the same page.
R & B with a doghouse/upright bass is kind of cheesy. There are some fingerboard moves in R & B that require frets and that flat neck to execute. Ditto here for most "modern" rock (after the 1950's). However, most of the decent stuff that Elvis did was done with doghouse (upright) bass, and the "traditional" sound of that instrument is a good part of the checked sports jacket, male quartet backup sound of classic EP numbers.
You can do classic Sinatra/Martin/Darin stuff with an electric bass. However, it doesn't sound as dry as the originals, and you totally lose the arco ability found in many of the classic charts.
And, playing the likes of a Glen Miller tune with an electric bass is just sick. You can do it, but stylistically, it just doesn't sound that good.
Regarding volume:
It's a constant problem to keep it regulated with amplified instruments. This is where the concept of a group leader comes into play.
Part of the problem is the way that the players "hear" themselves play. Put the speaker in front of the piano, bass or guitar, and they will have to goose the volume to clearly hear what they're doing. Solution: put the amps to the rear of these worthies' location in the set-up. That way, the sound travels past them on the way out to the listening audience.
However, there is an additional tendency on the part of amplified folks to think that their self-selected "universal gain knob level" is right for every occasion. Solution: check the sound out front, make the appropriate adjustments, and stick to your position. You should do this prior to performance, after the group has started (here's where a deputy comes in handy; I use vocalists who are not performing in a given tune), and (in some venues) as the room "fills" and the field onto which you are projecting your performance changes acoustically.
Most of this "balancing" has to do with vocalist levels (at least for me), since the instrumentalists are pretty good about regulating their intensity. Some vocalists have off nights and may need a touch more, some venues differ in their layout and structure (hint: never, ever play facing a wall of glass windows if you can avoid it), but it's likely that the most carefully balanced setup will need to be tweaked to deal with the current conditions.
But, a guitar player who insists upon 10 all of the time, when he should probably be playing at 4 (even though, in both cases, it's the amp that's actually doing the playing), needs to be turned down and kept down. If s/he can't deal with the restrictions, then s/he probably iisn't that good of a guitar player, no matter how good her/his "chops". Get a new player.
With all things musical ensemble, it's important to have everyone realize that the total sound output is what matters to the listener. This is a hard point for some to grasp, but it is the core issue when playing before others.
Most of us who play music in one form or another (I'd say in the high 90% range) are sensitive to these issues. However, you occasional run across "rock crossover" folks and specialists like church pianists who "don't play well with others". When that occurs, it's time for the group leader to step up and take charge, as uncomfortable as doing so may be.
The group leader (or a deputy) should make these decisions from actually listening to the group in a performance setup, and their word, not that of a single musician in the group who may have some ego problems, should be "the law". Ignore this at your peril...
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2006-06-28 17:57
Terry, is the difference between electric bass and bass guitar only in English? We call it both electric bass and bass guitar here, and both terms are very common, the latter more. Also there are 5 and 6 strings electric basses, and some don't have frets. I actually know one player on each (5 strings, 6 strings, and fretless) so there are probably more than I thought.
By the way, looking at the location of my ISP in the above post, not only it is not in Nahal Malkishua, I don't even know where that is 
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Author: ginny
Date: 2006-06-28 21:51
The typical rhythm section in small groups is usually keyboard (can solo - Klez is accordion), bass, rhythm guitar and drums. These folks need to listen and stay on the same part of the beat. The pitched rhythm instruments also keep the harmonic structure or rhythm and add variety. A drummer cannot do the former. For me bass is where I follow the chord structure, not just the rhythm... particularly important for styles, such as Klez, that can involve improv.
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2006-06-29 08:19
clarnibass - the guitar-shaped instrument, most commonly with four strings and frets, is usually called a "bass guitar" in England, and most probably in the US too. Terry is being a little pedantic to insist on using the term "electric bass" ("Fender bass" is occasionally used too) to distinguish it from the Mexican acoustic instrument. A better convention is to refer to the Mexican instrument by its Castellano name guitarrón (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitarron).
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: SolidRockMan
Date: 2006-06-29 12:33
The church group I play in can have over 15 people on the stage covering vocals, keyboard, electric and acoustic guitar, violin, cello, brass, woodwinds, bass and drums. We do some hymns but mostly contemporary Christian music.
We definitely see the bass as a key instrument. I will fill in on the bass if the main player can't make it and I'll do this at the expense of playing the sax and clarinet. It 'fills out' the sound and (as Terry has very neatly put it), adds 'presence'.
As Terry has said, the mix is everything in any ensemble and this has to always take precedence over invidual egos. One recurring problem we have is with 'creeping' volumes - the lead guitar seems loud, then the bass player thinks he's too low so he turns up a bit...now the keyboard is getting drowned out so she turns up a bit, etc etc. Before long it's just a wall of noise and those playing acoustic instruments can't even hear themselves. We're kept under control by a team of sound engineers who do all they can to help everyone out, but just don't take no for an answer where volumes are concerned...
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-06-29 16:43
Ah, contemporary Christian music. I was first exposed to this when the lead clarinet player at a local church for some strange reason decided to crap out the day before the big two performance presentation of their Christmas program.
As everyone else in the area, already had something in the works, the Clarinet 1 in the community orchestra in which I (a newcomer to the Houston area) was playing bass clarinet suggested me for the part. No rehearsal, minimal review of the music, but nothing very complicated so I took the substantial fee and filled the slot (and played a little bass clarinet for them in the bargain).
Most of it was classical stuff, but there were about seven scenes from what I would term a "Christian musical" about the birth of the Christ. And, that was where it got surreal.
I've not been a churchgoing being from the get-go (parents and grandparents were all freethinkers), so my exposure to "Christian" stuff outside of traditional art music has been limited to what I read in the papers, see on television, and so forth. None of that prepared me for the stuff I had to play that fine holiday season.
What did prepare me was the dozens of theatrical productions that I had played in the pit for over the preceding thirty odd years. For the segments from the Christian musical were much like stuff from (say) The Fantastics - light, jazzy music with a back-beat and a very strong lyric line. In effect, it was like a cocktail lounge or cruise ship job, only in a church.
I don't recall any specifics on the stuff, but the melody line in the chorus of one of tunes, sung by the BVM herself, went something like "La la, la la - la la, Jesus; la la la la, la la - la la, Jesus". That one line is fused into my mind, and I can hear it just as clearly now as when I played it some fourteen years ago. Change the words, and it would have fit in well with any of twenty Broadway shows of my experience.
Mega churches down here all have their own orchestras, but I had no idea of the depth of the types of music that has been produced for these groups. From what some of my sidemen have told me, it's usually monotonous, all in the same two or three keys (the better to accommodate the guitar players in the "praise band mix"), and very often more like a droning chant than like music. Whatever turns people on...
Regarding the variations on the term "guitar", if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, I generally call it a duck. Guitars normally have six strings (although, as I mentioned, the Mexican musicians of my acquaintance generally only use three of them on the bass instrument).
But, basses, of both varieties, were originally configured with four strings (and they are the most common today in just that form). That's not to say that there are not five string basses. I watched a player last night in a combo job use a five stringed upright (doghouse), a situation where the art music attachment was of limited (to say the least) utility. But, the base instrument (pardon the pun) was still a bass, not a guitar (as guitars are known by those who play them in regards to tuning and all).
On the other hand, how can you go against popular opinion. Just as I play "a funny saxophone" in the eyes of most (rather than an extended range bass clarinet), so too will all of those bass players be playing "bass guitar".
In the job I witnessed last night (which had one of my sax players and one of my vocalists as featured folks), the sound people at the "internet cafe" where they appeared had the classic "up the volume" problem. The keyboard started out too loud, there one microphone circuit started buzzing (due to (so help me God) a strobe light that was in use for some bizarre reason), then the other vocal circuit user wanted more volume, and before you know it, it was about 20% too much for the space.
I think that with "young" folks, the idea that loud is good is now so ingrained that there's no way to deal with it unless you are in the position of authority. Much like the change that "butter" now means "margarine" to most folks, it's a shift away from "old music values" that's not going to change back.
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: SolidRockMan
Date: 2006-07-02 20:46
"all in the same two or three keys (the better to accommodate the guitar players in the "praise band mix") "
The fundamental aim of Christian music is to glorify God, so one of the unusual requirements is for songs to be accessible to groups of many different sizes and instrument mixes. Most smaller groups are guitar centered so the the songs are not generally pitched in keys that suit horn playing.
"and very often more like a droning chant than like music. Whatever turns people on..."
Christians generally don't come to church for a musical experience and the group is not there primarily to deliver a performance. As I said the fundamental aim is to glorify God - while the music should be enjoyable as music, it is the lyrics that express so much for the worshipper. In this context a little repetition is no big deal!
Post Edited (2006-07-02 20:47)
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