For this project, I decided
to produce a piece with my recently acquired bass guitar and experiment with
simple and sustained notes and plucking techniques to explore how manipulating
these different methods of creating music with a bass guitar can effect the
music itself.
I decided to start the piece
with how playing the bass starts for me – turning on the amp and plugging in
the guitar. I start with a click of the on switch and let the exposed cable
make its natural noise before being plugged into the guitar. I found that the
static created by the exposed cable contributed to the experimental nature of
the piece and showed that this part of the process of making music with a bass
guitar can sometimes be a part of the music created.
I then made the piece with
three notes – A, E and D. I began by simply tapping my finger on the fifth fret
of the E string to create a short A note, and then by plucking the A string at
the same time, and by allowing that noise to sustain over the tapping of the E
string I found that I had an interesting effect on my hands. I then repeated
the process to the same effect with the seventh fret on the A string (E) while
plucking the E string, and then finally with fifth fret on the A string (D) while
plucking the D string.
I then bookended the piece by
ending it with the amp being turned off, as the piece began with the amp being
turned on.
Something that I kept in mind
as I worked on this was that I was making a piece without form – the three
notes I play really don’t qualify as musical except for their rhythm. Since I
have no real songwriting ability, I was happy to let my lack of experience lend
itself to creating something experimental and formless for this project.
I didn’t know this at the
time I first experimented with my bass, but I found that I was trying to recreate
sounds from “One of these Days” by Pink Floyd. The piece begins with an
understated yet rhythmically powerful bass line that serves as a great
foundation for a really energetic song. The main difference between my piece
and song with that bass line is that mine stands alone and without other
instruments. Thus, my approach was to attempt to make a piece with a bass line that
could stand independently. I feel that I succeeded with this, as my piece presents
itself as an experiment with simple notes that lay under the same sustained note,
as well as an acknowledgment that any music created with an electric bass
guitar such as mine begins with the delivery of electricity to the instrument,
and ends when that supply is cut off.
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