The Inferiority Complex of The Bass Player
As bass players, we have suffered at some point of not being on the foreground of the action, not feeling as important enough just because we aren't under the spotlight as much as other instrumentalist.
The truth is that:
1) Your Ego is telling you that. Our role is very unique and one of the most important.
2) When we are young and unexperienced, we try to get over this inferiority complex by learning crazy impossible solos of saxophone players, piano players, trumpet players. Don't get me wrong, I think that stepping out from the comfort zone is a good thing and it will improve our technical abilities, as long as that doesn’t come from a place of insecurity about our role.
3) One of the consequences of point 2 is that we start taking solos using just the higher register of our instrument which by the way is still called double-bass or upright bass etc… It takes the name from the lowest adult singing voice.
Doing that is kind of like going against the primary nature of our instrument by cutting all the low frequencies that actually distinguish us from the other instruments.
The bass is cool because is bass, is low and is great because you can actually also reach very high notes. How many other instruments can get that low and warm sound? We should embrace that!
4) The bass player gets most of his/her income from playing bass lines in tune. What does it really mean to play a bass line? Definitely it doesn’t mean to be on the spotlight, at least for most of the time. Definitely doesn't mean to play just the right notes.
A bass line can bring the level of the music played on the bandstand to a higher level because it gives us the power to influence the decisions of the soloist in that very moment, change the colors of the harmony if actually you know it really well and create a lot of things that overall will make the music sound better.
5) When you are soloing is mostly your moment, maybe you have someone comping for you and you still have the power to play a solo that in a way is the continuation of the idea of the soloist that preceded even if you decide to contrast it.
When you are comping you are still soloing but together with the band, and that i find to be a really interesting process because the bass is not the main sound but the sound needed to create the MUSIC.
