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18 thoughts on “How not to play country bass guitar?”

  1. Nice tone. He obviously knows how to play traditional country but then decided to have some fun with it. What a bass player does off stage when no one is around should not be an issue.

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  2. I learned country bass the hard way – By being called out by an engineer in a session!
    60’s, 70’s, and some 80’s Nashville bass playing had rules. Here’s a few:
    1. In a 1/5 pattern, always play the chord root twice in a row when changing chords. Ex: 1/5 1/5 1/5 1/1 4/1 4/1 4/1 4/4 5/2 5/2 5/2 5/5 1/5 1/5 etc…
    2. Use walk ups from 1 to 4 Ex: 1/4 11/23 4/1. Walk down to the 5 Ex: 1/5 11/76 5/2. Use walks sparingly! Turn arounds, leading into chorus or bridge. Don’t walk up 1 to 5 Ex: 1/5 13/4#4 5/2…
    The reason for these “rules” is simple. When you’re playing with a room full of musicians on a session, the acoustic player, tic tac bass, and piano often play the same bass patterns. If you don’t play together, the low end gets muddied and it sounds like a squadron of bombers with the frequencies beating against each other.
    All that said, rules are made to be broken!

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  3. Maybe not traditional country…..but has anybody heard “That Was a Cold One”? About as funk-country as you can get! TIme and place for everything.

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