Bass Around the World #9: Grunge Bass Lines
The word “grunge” in American slang stands for dirt. Yes, the early '90s were all dirty in that sense as grunge music annihilated all the hair metal bands and brought some proper inner feelings of doubt, neglect, social alienation, isolation, or abuse into the limelight of popular music. It was a total game changer in this sense.
As an alternative rock genre and subculture, grunge emerged during the mid-1980s in the Washington area, with the main centre in Seattle. Musically, grunge can be any music with heavily distorted, fuzzy guitars, driving bass lines and drums. It took a lot of influences from metal and punk music but mixed in indie rock vibes. Nirvana's Nevermind, Pearl Jam's Ten, Soundgarden's Superunknown, Alice in Chains' Dirt, and Stone Temple Pilots' Core were commercially very successful albums in the early-to-mid 1990s and grunge was the biggest music on Earth at the time.
Kurt Cobain from Nirvana was seen as the new John Lennon, but he struggled with such a heavy burden and the enormous pressure that fame put on him. His death in 1994 (at the infamous age of 27) was the peak and also start of decline of grunge culture which brought the ‘’true to oneself’’ etos into modern rock music.
Lesson time
In today's example, we're gonna play a eighth-note pulsating line from "Dumb," a track from the album In Utero. The original tuning is in Eb, so if you would like to play with the album version, tune the entire bass down by a semitone (Eb, Ab, Db, Gb).
It’s a short song of less than 3 minutes consisting of three basic parts: verse, chorus and bridge. All pretty straightforward as it should be for the vibe and feeling of this kind of composition.
The verse part is built on a pulsating eighth-note line that beautifully links the minimalist four-chord harmony (Em, A, G, and C). Note the melodic ornaments with a lightly phrased G note before the A note and use of open strings. The line has a strong melodic character due to variations in passing tones. Krist Novoselic is a master at melodic and sometimes peculiar semi-tones linking root notes and fifths.
The chorus consists of two chords: Em and G. The bass line maintains an eighth-note pulse with anticipated notes. Very cool use of octaves and a fine slide into a higher E provide dynamics and melodic movement. Novoselic is intuitive and avant-garde when it comes to note choices. He is not afraid of distinctive intervals (such as the major seventh in the Em chord) or chromatic passing notes that give the necessary tensions and refreshment in a combination with minimalist guitar parts.
"Dumb" is a great example of an extremely simple but melodic, strong, and efficient grunge bass line.
Keep your inner time, be true to yourself, and tune the bass into Eb.
Source: Wikipedia
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