Challenges Worship Teams Face in Small Churches -- Part 5 (The Missing Bass)
Posted on February 5, 2011 with 1 comment
Many smaller churches, like the ethnic Asian churches where I often make my rounds, lack the personnel to make up a full band. Sometimes it's the drums they're missing. Sometimes male vocalists. There just seems to be an abundance of female singers and male guitar players in the church! What I see most often, though, is the absence of bass players. When there is no bass on the worship team, you can really feel a void. After all, bass pretty much holds everything else up. If you're doing a very sparse, acoustic set, perhaps with just vocals with guitar and/or piano, then you could get away with not having bass. However, if you have drums, bass is pretty much a must. Things sound unbalanced and just plain...weird. If you're wondering why your worship leading and congregation singing lack energy, this might be the very reason why.
I've often pondered why this is the case and why there aren't more bass players. Maybe it's because bass is not a flashy instrument. It's close enough to a guitar that, if you're going to sling one over your shoulders and play a stringed instrument anyway, you might as well just go with the all-utility guitar. After all, if you're in a group sitting around a fire pit at the beach singing along to just one instrument, it's certainly not going to be the bass. It would have to be the guitar. Guitar players get a lot of glory on the stage, particularly electric. Electric guitar players enjoy a good amount of head banging along with the drums and lead singer. They can do instrumental solos and get some serious applause when they do.
I can recall junior high dances (back when they actually had live bands instead of DJ's like my son's school dances today), the band would finish the evening with the obligatory rotating-solo song. So the guitar goes waling for about 16 bars, and people would clap in delight. Then the drums would go off on an amazing show of rhythm for about 32 bars, thundering through odd beats and crashing cymbals to the screams of feverish female fans in the room. That would always be followed by the bass solo. This is where things would get much more subdued. Unless you're a music aficionado, you just don't appreciate the mad skills of the bass player. People sincerely tried to appreciate it, but many just looked puzzled. Unless he/she is really, really good and showy player, the bass solo -- all 8 bars -- would always be met with a polite round of applause before the rest of the band would come back in for the grand finale just before filing out the gym to meet our waiting parents outside.
I think bass players are the coolest cats in the room. Most bass players look disaffected by the madness in the house while they hold up the world. They might be the most cerebral, as they are music theory in action. Real bass players aren't in it for the attention. They're good, and they know it. I had the amazing opportunity to do some live gigs with the legendary Leland Sklar (James Taylor, Phil Collins). I got to hang with him a lot between takes and during rehearsals, as I was standing right in front of him as one of the background vocalists. He still uses the same 4-string bass which he's had since the 70's and sees no need to go to 5- or 6-string bass, as he knows it is the player and not the instrument which creates great sounds. He just sits behind his monstrous beard and plays perfectly each time.
I don't think I'll ever be a Lee Sklar, but I am now quenching my long-time curiosity and finally learning the bass. So far, it's been fun, and I'm enjoying playing along with songs on my iPod which, until now, I had played on other instruments. I'm seeing music in a whole new, different light. I would invite more musicians, particularly guitar players, to pick up this instrument. After all, we're dealing with the lowest four strings on your already-familiar instrument and playing notes instead of chords all the time. You might even be in more demand if you do. And you'll look really, really cool.
I've often pondered why this is the case and why there aren't more bass players. Maybe it's because bass is not a flashy instrument. It's close enough to a guitar that, if you're going to sling one over your shoulders and play a stringed instrument anyway, you might as well just go with the all-utility guitar. After all, if you're in a group sitting around a fire pit at the beach singing along to just one instrument, it's certainly not going to be the bass. It would have to be the guitar. Guitar players get a lot of glory on the stage, particularly electric. Electric guitar players enjoy a good amount of head banging along with the drums and lead singer. They can do instrumental solos and get some serious applause when they do.
I can recall junior high dances (back when they actually had live bands instead of DJ's like my son's school dances today), the band would finish the evening with the obligatory rotating-solo song. So the guitar goes waling for about 16 bars, and people would clap in delight. Then the drums would go off on an amazing show of rhythm for about 32 bars, thundering through odd beats and crashing cymbals to the screams of feverish female fans in the room. That would always be followed by the bass solo. This is where things would get much more subdued. Unless you're a music aficionado, you just don't appreciate the mad skills of the bass player. People sincerely tried to appreciate it, but many just looked puzzled. Unless he/she is really, really good and showy player, the bass solo -- all 8 bars -- would always be met with a polite round of applause before the rest of the band would come back in for the grand finale just before filing out the gym to meet our waiting parents outside.
I think bass players are the coolest cats in the room. Most bass players look disaffected by the madness in the house while they hold up the world. They might be the most cerebral, as they are music theory in action. Real bass players aren't in it for the attention. They're good, and they know it. I had the amazing opportunity to do some live gigs with the legendary Leland Sklar (James Taylor, Phil Collins). I got to hang with him a lot between takes and during rehearsals, as I was standing right in front of him as one of the background vocalists. He still uses the same 4-string bass which he's had since the 70's and sees no need to go to 5- or 6-string bass, as he knows it is the player and not the instrument which creates great sounds. He just sits behind his monstrous beard and plays perfectly each time.
I don't think I'll ever be a Lee Sklar, but I am now quenching my long-time curiosity and finally learning the bass. So far, it's been fun, and I'm enjoying playing along with songs on my iPod which, until now, I had played on other instruments. I'm seeing music in a whole new, different light. I would invite more musicians, particularly guitar players, to pick up this instrument. After all, we're dealing with the lowest four strings on your already-familiar instrument and playing notes instead of chords all the time. You might even be in more demand if you do. And you'll look really, really cool.