Focus On: Reggae Bass

In this first section I will lay the groundwork for our course by demonstrating some essential techniques, and discussing the equipment and people important to the development of reggae bass.

Around 1960 a style of music called ska was created in Jamaica. It is a style that combines calypso or mento, jazz, and R&B. This style of music is characterized by upbeats or afterbeats, as they are often called, played by the piano and guitar. Traditional ska songs often feature a walking bass movement in contrast to the upbeats played by the chordal instruments. One of the pioneers of ska bass was Lloyd Brevett who played upright bass and was a member of the group the Skatalites. In the mid 60's ska evolved into a style called rock steady which had a similar feel, still featuring the guitar playing upbeats, but at a more relaxed tempo. The slower tempo and R&B influence of rock steady allowed the bass players to experiment with more rhythmic, broken, syncopated bass lines, and with it came the development of the "one drop" drum groove. Jackie Jackson is one of the great session bass players of this short lived rock steady era. From these two styles, among others, emerged Reggae music in the late 60's. Reggae still featured the guitar playing upbeats but also incorporated organ, the one drop drum groove, which is a beat created by Winston Grennan and popularized by Carlton Barrett. This groove essentially drops the one normally played by the bass drum and instead often plays the bass drum and side stick together on beat 3. Reggae also had lyrics that were more socially driven, and for us bass players came the inverted role of guitar and bass. It has been said as compared to rock music, the role of bass and guitar switched places in reggae. The guitar role in rock is much more melodic and out front and the bass is more steady and supportive. In reggae the guitar takes on a more supportive, repetitive role and is less melodic, while the bass plays the featured melodic role many times. Some of the major players in reggae were Aston "Family Man" Barrett, Brian Atkinson, Flabba Holt, Boris Gardener, Leroy Sibbles, George Fullwood, Derrick Barnett, and later Robbie Shakespeare and many others. Unfortunately, many bass players and sidemen were not credited on the early ska, rock steady and reggae sessions.

When I think of Reggae bass tone I think of massive bottom end, thick, heavy, full low end, just the epitome of bass. Almost stage rattling bottom and fullness but a certain clarity at the same time so that the melodic nature of the basslines can be appreciated. To produce the required deep, rich bass tone for reggae music technique is extremely important, but the type of gear you use will also play a role.

First with basses, the Fender Jazz has been the preferred bass for many legendary players. That being said, many legends have used Steinberger, P Basses, and basses made by other reputable manufacturers. For strings, flatwounds will give you a thuddy, less twangy sound which is more appropriate than the tone of a traditional roundwound string. I personally prefer a coated string such as those made by Elixir, they provide me with the most versatility, clarity and consistency with a full bottom rich and not too bright or twangy tone. Experiment with turning down the treble on your basses eq while using more of the neck pick up if you have a two pickup configuration. Normally you will either have a pickup blend knob or separate controls for each pickup. With a blend knob you simply turn the knob towards the front pickup, with the separate controls you can experiment with turning off the back pickup or using less of it. There are no definitive settings, let the music and your playing style and taste determine your sound.

There are many amps that will work well for reggae music, obviously if you are on a big stage you would benefit from something similar to an Ampeg SVT in order to really move some air and create some rumble on the stage. But these days many manufacturers like TC Electronics, Aguilar and others, sell capable products that would function well. Traditionally 15 or even 18 inch speakers would supply the huge amount of bottom end desired in reggae but today there are 10 or 12 inch speaker combinations that provide similar bottom with clarity. Again, the eq section of your preamp should be set up so that the upper frequencies are minimized and the lower frequencies emphasized.

Reggae is not a technically driven style of music, but there are techniques that contribute to its characteristic sound. First, the right hand can be used in a few different ways. Most reggae bass players are emulating the sound of the acoustic bass. So with that in mind you can play pizzicato style with one or two fingers, looking to place them in that sweet spot which gives you the deep, round, fat tone desirable in reggae. One thing to try is playing closer to the fretboard than to the bridge. As you move closer to the bridge the tone becomes more sharp, thin and edgy, very desirable for some types of music, but not reggae. So on each bass and possibly each song you play it may be a slightly different spot, but between the fretboard and neck pickup is a good place to start on a jazz style bass, on other pick up configurations maybe an inch or less from the neck is a good place to start.

Another right hand technique used by many of the session bass players on those classic reggae hits was to use the thumb. Used correctly this produces a very warm and round tone very effective in reggae. What you sacrifice in facility you gain in fatness of tone. You can also use some sort of foam or other material placed under the strings just in front of the bridge to provide muting and that thuddy sound. In more modern day reggae and reggae influenced music the thumb has been used in a more muted fashion with help from the palm to mute.

With the left hand it is often beneficial to finger passages more in the middle range of the fretboard, where it is warmer and the notes sing a little better. You can also use your fingers not being used to finger a note that will mute the strings for a more upright bass type sound. Of course slurs and hammer ons are useful because of the melodic nature of reggae bass lines.

In this section I will demonstrate the styles and bass lines that contributed to the evolution of reggae showing you some common patterns and approaches used when playing reggae bass.

Here we introduce the ska style. As stated before it is characterized by the 8th note upbeat accompaniment from guitar or piano and a brighter more lively tempo. Some say the name ska came from vocalizing that upbeat rhythm played by those instruments. I take two different approaches to this early Jamaican ska groove over the same 1-4-5-4 progression in E. Example 1 borrows from 60's pop music with its 8th note feel outlining the roots in bar 1 and getting a little more movement in bar 2 by using the major 3rd over the B chord and using the 6 for some color before ending on the 2, which leads us nicely back to the E chord because that same B is the 5 of E. I also again use contrast to hopefully make the line feel better and be more dynamic. You will notice the first bar is more legato and bar two is a little more rhythmic while also using more variety in the selection of notes. This is one type of rhythmic groove that would work in this original ska style.
Another groove more closely associated with the ska style is the walking style bass line. It normally uses less notes of the scale than a traditional jazz walking bass line, also with less rhythmic variation, ghost notes and swing, but is still heavily influenced by that style. The notes are played nice and legato, connecting the notes of each chord smoothly by a half or whole step interval frequently, or 5 to 1, 1 to 5 intervals. Remember these lines were often played on upright bass so keep that approach in mind. This is a bouncy groove and our function bass-wise is to provide the foundation but also provide this counter-melody that drives the groove.

Now rock steady was slower than ska and moved away from the walking bass approach to a more rhythmic, sparse bass approach. These lines were sometimes doubled by a guitar as in this example. This will be over a 1 to 4 chord progression in the key of F. We begin by establishing the 1 chord playing the root with an eighth note rhythm. We let that breathe for a second and then set up the 4 chord with another 8th note rhythm using the 2, G, the major 3rd, A, and the 5, C. This leads us to the root Bb of the 4 chord where we re-establish that 8th note rhythm played at the beginning of the phrase. Then finally we have the part with the most movement, this phrase begins on the last 16th of beat 2 using the 5, F, and slurs into the 6, G before finishing the rhythm by going back to the 5, major 3rd, D, C which is the 9 or 2 and ending back on D the major 3rd.