Another problem with the bass guitar is that for most of the time, you’re not really supposed to hear it. You’re supposed to feel it. It’s the holy spirit of the power trio. Playing the bass guitar is really sometimes not so much like playing a melody or even playing notes as it is focusing the emphasis within a measure or within a song. If the drummer is telling you, the listener, when to clap your hands, the bass player is telling you how to move. He’s pushing you with his notes, synchronizing hips. His notes are the dark Sharpied balls of fury in the kid’s drawing, while the singer and the guitar player delicately outline the actual flower. And it’s a weird psychological place to be—playing an instrument that’s meant to be felt, not heard, like a well-behaved child. It’s one of the reasons the bass player always looks to the other players, the ones who are always seen and heard, not forgotten in the shadows. But the bass guitar is an instrument of the shadows, the land below middle C, the bass clef not even included in fake books. It’s the land of subtext, the swamp, the unlit basement.
The Bass Guitar as a Mode of Being,
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