Marcus Miller: Purple Haze

Groovy, as ever!

You know, I’ve never seen a post where a guitar player wants to do bass lines. If Marcus wants to play guitar, so be it. Why are so many bass players trying to prove themselves by playing guitar parts? The bass is such a beautiful instrument and so different from guitar, why is this happening? Please help me understand why bass players see the need to play guitar lines.

Craig, I agree but i think alot of bass players hear something that sounds so sweet on the guitar they reproduce it.

I play the bass guitar myself and stuff like aerosmith and others i cant think of atm do follow that type of thing here and there.

Given most bass guitar players in the music i listen are there for back up and backup alone its no wonder people are wanting more and do this type of thing.

It disapoint’s me since when me makes the bass sing he makes it sing but the overdrive at the start BIG THUMBS DOWN!

I happen to think that musical expression should have NO limits, whether its a bassist doing guitar parts or a keyboardist doing guitar parts….it’s all about ..expression.

Here’s why bassists need to learn guitar and other instrument’s melodic and accompanying lines: It makes them better musicians and not just yet another bass player knocking out roots. If you pass judgement on what is happening in the music, you are not really listening to the music.

That’s like asking why sax players quote other sax players.

We play melody lines for the same reason any other instrumentalist does. We like it. We have something to say. We like to have our own voice every once in a while.

I doubt Marcus was thinking, “Oh, I want to play that guitar line!”. Most likely, he was saying something more like, “That tune rocks and I have a way I’d like to interpret it.”.

Personally, I’m glad he did! I enjoyed his take on Purple Haze.

whaaat? this is horrible. Poor Jimi doing cart flips in his grave.

No rules