“WHY are bassists favorite meme subjects?” asked a friend over pizza.
“Well. It’s just that an average person cannot comprehend the massive importance a great bassist brings to the band dynamic. You look at the bass guitar and see four strings. People then ask, ‘how much skill do you really need to play four strings?’” I replied.
But yes, great bassists are becoming rarer and rarer these days. Bassists were rare back in the day—when compared to guitarists or drummers—when organic music ruled the airwaves. Currently, popular music borrows elements from EDM and bass sounds are produced by triggering them from software controllers connected to computers or other digital consoles.
Understandably so, one cannot go through a harana with only a bass guitar. Thus, the decline of its popularity. And with the misconception comes a ton of memes. Farm animals fleeing at the sound of a bass solo; male guitarists hanging out with female fans, while the bassist is left alone etc.
Well, if the drums and bass make up the basic rhythm section—the backbone of the music, then the drums without an effective bass player is just an earful of repetitive patterns bordering on noise. But with the bass directing the notes, the music is made whole.
Here is a random reason why an effective bass player is good for a band: A good bassist is a disciplined master of the background. An effective bassist sprinkles on his notes on a song just like how someone does with salt in a cake mixture. The perfect amount of salt is needed for people’s taste buds to recognize the sweetness of a dessert. But put in too much, and that cake is as good as rubbish. A good bassist finds a way to both dominate and disappear at the same time.
But what about Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers)? What about those guys who are virtuosos but end up playing three notes per second for an entire minute? Of course, just because you’re a bassist doesn’t mean you’re the most timid of the group. The art form is perfected not just in playing the right notes but also finding your own flavor, groove, voice as a bassist as well. You can shred if you like, but does it serve the song? Or at the very least, does it serve the moment? Whether it’s to show off a little skill or to troll the drummer?
I told my friend all of these things and more until enlightenment befell us. And then we moved on. Good bassists are important. Great bassists who are good are rare. But the world moves on, not short of funny bassist memes that poke fun at these masters.