Advanced Bass Playing

Scott Giambusso: Hi! My name is Scott Giambusso. I'm a bass player. I've been playing in the Washington area for 40 years almost now, 1968, 67. I teach in Montgomery College. I teach the electric bass and I teach standup bass, and I honk on the tuba. What I would like to do is explain the mechanics of bass playing to you; exactly what you need to know and to know your role and the game is rhythm. Your job is to tie the drums to the guitar and the piano and I want to show you that there are three elements in music; melody, harmony and rhythm, but there is rhythm in everything and that's our job first. Rhythm is first and foremost. So, I'm going to play an example here of that. I'm going to play a rhythm of a famous melody, hopefully you can figure out what it is. I'm just going to hit it like drummer it goes (Music). Now, I'm going to take this rhythm and I'm going to just give it one note. Now, I'm going to add some more notes to it, and its forming a bass line as appearing before us and it could be anything, but what is it? Sounds kind of Reggae to me almost. Okay, this song that I'm doing, just to give you an example of what rhythm is in everything is. If you recognize that, its from the Wizard of OZ, its Somewhere Over the Rainbow. So, from Somewhere Over the Rainbow, I came up with a kind of a Swaggie rhythm, just to give you an example of how there is rhythm in everything.