Thats probably why it’s often bands full of talented musicians that make great music. A bassline for a guitarist is probably different than a bassline for a bassist.
It’s also interesting to see the difference between Paul’s early bass lines and his later bass lines. His early period bass lines are very similar to the kind of thing I might put in as a “basic line.” That is, mostly roots and fifths, maybe a third, maybe a walk-up or a walk-down now and then. Somewhere along the line Paul’s bass line composition skills became elevated. I wonder if it was gradual or if it happened more like a sudden jump? I’d need to go through the albums and listen carefully to find out, I guess. Probably more time than I want to invest just to answer that question…
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Hi Jason. I’ve been watching the McCartney 3, 2, 1 miniseries and is amazing what is left uncovered when the tracks are isolated and some parts look to go in a different direction than the whole piece but a the end just enrich the sound of the combined track.
I hadn’t heard of that miniseries. I’ll see if I can check it out. I’d like to see the Get Back documentary, too, but I don’t subscribe to Disney+ (I’m already paying for two different streaming services, and that’s not one of them). I’ve only seen bits and pieces on YouTube.
Someone has put it up on YouTube but obviously there are some cuts as YouTube wouldn’t let them post recordings of certain songs.
My newest guitar has given me a burst of inspiration and enthusiasm, which is cool. I was improvising over the bridge section of a song I’ve had on the back burner and ended up composing a decent solo for that part. More fun than I’ve had in a while, actually! 
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If it feels fun, it is fun!
Rock on.
Continuing to have fun with the new ES-339. Actually recorded something today: more new lead stuff that I worked on over the “Mundi Dolore” chord progression I’ve had hanging around.
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I used a Travis picking variant for the guitar part in Ninety Miles An Hour (Down A Dead End Street), and I’ve been playing around with different patterns since then. I haven’t played much fingerstyle lately, so dusting it off is satisfying.
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Made another recording with the ES-339, today. This one was one of the “guitar challenges” from these forums: Need Your Love So Bad (Intro Solo).
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Since I recently started playing some more electric guitar (after a long period of mostly sticking with acoustic) I decided to refresh my memory on general fretboard knowledge (with an eye towards lead playing). Doing exercises for quickly finding intervals (especially R/3/5/7) and note names.
Also decided to look at arranging a guitar-oriented version of a classic hymn. I decided to give How Great Thou Art a shot and see how well it translates. I always heard it with a pipe organ rather than guitars, so I’m a little worried it won’t work out well. The pipe organ is just way more “majestic.” I guess we’ll see how it turns out.
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Hi Jason, interesting project. Organs and guitars are polyphonic instruments but six strings cannot match what the organ can do, but in the other side electrical guitars can provide thick sounds that can emulate the grandeur of other instruments.
Just caught up on the latest posts I’d missed when first posted, Jason. Love what you are doing with Mundi Dolore. Sounds so good and as Darrell said in his comment, I’m still getting a hint of Pink Floyd in a good way.
Good point about electric guitars. However, I didn’t use any in my arrangement, sticking with acoustic guitars.
In the end, it’s not the same goosebump-raising experience as being in a room with a pipe organ and big congregation singing (where you can literally feel the air moving), but I’m still pretty happy with my recording.
How Great Thou Art (guitars/vocal)
Thanks, David. Hopefully I can circle back around to Mundi Dolore soon. I’ve got some other stuff I’m working on first, though. Taking advantage of holiday vacation.
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Hi Jason. I can see what was your approach. It worked very well. I remember entering a small church in Zurich, many years ago, and someone was playing the organ. I still remember the feeling.
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I think his progress was also due to new possibilities in recording the bass from around the time of Rubber Soul. Geoff Emerick’s book includes some interesting details on how they worked.
For me, his best bass performances are in Taxman, Rain, Fixing a Hole and Come Together.
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Those are definitely good ones. (I remember being astonished the first time I listened to Come Together – not just the bass, the whole song.)
I’ve been writing a song named Shade (written on guitar – also has a vocal, a composed bass line and a guitar solo). This evening I tried playing it on piano. My piano skills are super rusty, but man the chords sounded good on piano. I think piano makes it easier to play around with inversions and voice-leading. Maybe that’s something I should work on with guitar. I think it’s more about the way I’m thinking about putting together chords on the keyboard vs. the way I think about putting together chords the fretboard.
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And as far as I know some of the artists we might think of as primarily guitarists compose and write songs on the piano.
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Today I decided to do an exercise where I harmonized the A harmonic minor scale, and then see if I could create a nice progression from the resulting chords.
This is a short recording of me practicing the progression I came up with. I start and stop a couple times, and it’s not a whole song. It’s not polished, but you should get the idea (and I threw on some reverb to make it sound nicer).
Practicing an Am Chord Progression
The progression is:
| Am | G#dim7 | Cmaj7 | Fmaj7 | Dm7 | Bm7b5 | G#dim7 | E7 |
It isn’t purely based off of the harmonic minor notes; it’s mixing natural minor and harmonic minor.
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