Bass You Quotes & Sayings

The worst words I could ever hear as a bass player was, 'Can you play the root notes?' — Peter Hook

'El Otro Lado' has heavy emphasis on the bass and loads of nice little touches and sounds you really notice on a big system. — Subb-an

I think a novelist must be more tender with living or 'real' people. The moral imperative of having been entrusted with their story looms before you every day, in every sentence. — Rick Bass

Punk was perfect for lazy people, because anyone could do it
you didn't even need to know how to play your instrument, assuming you knew how to plug it in. There was really no difference between Sid Vicious and anyone in London who owned a bass. — Chuck Klosterman

Ruxs' sweaty forehead was pressed against the side of his face, and that sensual bass-filled voice groaned in his ear over and over. "Love you, Chris. I love you. I love you." Ruxs — A.E. Via

Fit in where you don't: make your own space..be different..don't give in. Exist somewhere you're not suppose to, or where you don't want to. Be your own men; do what you want, and don't hurt anybdoy — Rick Bass

I'm not a real musician. If you give me a bass guitar and you ask me to improvise something, or even be with some musicians and follow them, I wouldn't be able to do it. And I want to change that. I want to be able to be in a group and take my guitar and play with them, without someone showing me, "Okay, you're going to do this and that," because music has always been a big part of my life. — Marion Cotillard

I've been making Bass Communion music longer than any kind of other music. I don't know if you picked up a copy of a vinyl release I put out a couple of years ago of something called Altamont ... — Steven Wilson

I never forget the first time I was on 'Top of the Pops', my bass player said: 'You've made it!' I did used to think, when I was younger, that I'd be on there one day. — Bonnie Tyler

The more specific you are about your resolution, the better your chance of sticking with it. Don't just say, "I want to lose weight." Say, "When my arm jiggles, I want it to look less like a pelican's throat-pouch choking down a bass. — Colin Nissan

I've been in a band, so I understand the politics. Sometimes the bass player doesn't like what the guitar player is doing, and you have to sort of even that out. — Ric Ocasek

If it's wild to your own heart, protect it. Preserve it. Love it. And fight for it, and dedicate yourself to it, whether it's a mountain range, your wife, your husband, or even (god forbid) your job. It doesn't matter if it's wild to anyone else: if it's what makes your heart sing, if it's what makes your days soar like a hawk in the summertime, then focus on it. Because for sure, it's wild, and if it's wild, it'll mean you're still free. No matter where you are. — Rick Bass

I used to listen to music from the frosting down. As a word nerd, lyrics are really important to me, and then the melody. Playing in the Rock*A*Teens was the first time I ever heard music from the bottom up. I was hearing songs I'd heard a million times on oldies radio, and I'd be like, "Wow, listen to what the bass is doing!" When I was first singing in bands, I'd just get out there with my machete, wildly whacking away at the foliage. But you learn how to listen. When I feel I'm doing it right, it's 90% listening and 10% output. It's not "look what I can do!" — Kelly Hogan

I took piano lessons when I was real little. And you know ... I hated it.
But by the time I was in junior high, I had some kind of knowledge of the keyboards. In my very early years I played keyboards and bass. — Anne Boleyn

Since I was a kid, I always wanted to figure out how to make a bass line that was a pendulum - like, gravity would control it, and then you could make it play different notes. — Bjork

I always think of a voice as an instrument, whether a voice is a trumpet, or violin, or bass. You know what I mean? A horn or wind instrument versus a string instrument. Horn instruments are definitely more toward jazz. — Debbie Harry

There's an enormous difference between being a story writer and being a regular person. As a person, it's your duty to stay on a straight and even keel, not to break down blubbering in the streets, not to pull rude drivers from their cars, not to swing from the branches of trees. But as a writer it's your duty to lie and to view everything in life, however outrageous, as an interesting possibility. You may need to be ruthless or amoral in your writing to be original. Telling a story straight from real life is only being a reporter, not a creator. You have to make your story bigger, better, more magical, more meaningful than life is, no matter how special or wonderful in real life the moment may have been. — Rick Bass

All my life I just wanted to be a beatnik. Meet all the heavies, get stoned, get laid, have a good time. That's all I ever wanted. Except I knew I had a good voice and I could always get a couple of beers off of it. All of a sudden someone threw me in this rock 'n' roll band. They threw these musicians at me, man, and the sound was coming from behind. The bass was charging me. And I decided then and there that that was it. I never wanted to do anything else. It was better than it had been with any man, you know. Maybe that's the trouble. — Janis Joplin

According to Shelby, the longer you know someone, the longer they have to let you down. But sometimes, the longer you know someone, the more time they have to surprise you. — Alexis Bass

Just because you play bass, doesn't mean you have no presence. — Jimmy Page

Marketers have long known that a name can make all the difference when you're trying to move the merch. The kiwifruit was once the Chinese gooseberry, after all - at least until the produce peddlers wised up - and the Chilean sea bass was once the singularly unappetizing Patagonian toothfish. — Jeffrey Kluger

A lot of modern amps and preamps sound great when you're jamming by yourself, but don't hold up in a band situation. The sound isn't dense enough, and the lows and highs tend to get soaked up by the bass and cymbals. — James Hetfield

I played a lawyer once, and I had about three or four weeks before we shot, so I was able to go to court and watch lawyers at work. Some were good lawyers and some were bad lawyers, but it was essential. The more time you have to prepare, the better. Always. — Ben Bass

The aficionado, or lover of the bullfight, may be said, broadly, then, to be one who has this sense of the tragedy and ritual of the fight so that the minor aspects are not important except as they relate to the whole. Either you have this or you have not, just as, without implying any comparison, you have or have not an ear for music. Without an ear for music the principle impression of an auditor at a symphony concert might be of the motions of the players of the double bass, just as the spectator at the bullfight might remember only the obvious grotesqueness of a picador. — Ernest Hemingway,

Like, when we did Parliament and Funkadelic and Bootsy, it was actually one thing. But there were so many people that you could split them up into different groups. And then, when we went out on tour and they [the record companies] would see us all up there together - we had five, six guitars playing at one time, not including the bass! -, they said: "Wait a minute, that's just one whole group, selling different names!" But it wasn't - we had enough people in the group that each member would have a section to be another group. So now we're finally starting to get them to understand that. — Gary Snyder

I'm making music for other people to listen to for pleasure. And hopefully, later on maybe they'll listen to it and go, "That bass line, boy, did you hear the way those drums interacted with that?" — Lauryn Hill

Instead of thinking in terms of chords, I think of voice-leading; that is, melody line and bass line, and where the bass line goes. If you do that, you'll have the right chord. [These voices] will give you some alternatives, and you can play those different alternatives to hear which one suits your ear ... Keep the bass line moving so you don't stay in one spot: if you have an interesting bass line and you roll it against the melody, the chords are going to come out right. — Paul Simon

Zimbabwe's stock market was the best performer this decade - but your entire portfolio now buys you 3 eggs — Kyle Bass

How we fall into grace. You can't work or earn your way into it. You just fall. It lies below, it lies beyond. It comes to you, unbidden. — Rick Bass

You know, whenever I was presented with a challenge that brought up feelings of fear or self-doubt, I almost always said, 'Yes'. — Saul Bass

You," I said, "have this whole tall, dark stranger thing going on. Not to mention the tortured artist bit."
"Bit?"
"You know what I mean."
He shook his head, clearly discounting this description. "And you," he said, "have that whole blonde, cool and collected, perfect smart girl thing going on."
"You're the boy all the girls want to rebel with," I said.
"You," he replied, "are the unattainable girl in the homeroom who never gives a guy the time of the day."
There was a blast of music from inside, a thump of bass beat, then quiet again.
"I'm not perfect," I said. "Not even close."
"I'm not tortured. Unless you count this conversation. — Sarah Dessen

Kim Bass, Receptionist, was nowhere to be seen. This was fortunate, as I was so irritated with the way she'd treated me, I might have bitten her on the arm. I'd been a biter as a kid and I can still remember the feel of flesh between my teeth. It's like biting a rubber bathing cap, in case you're curious. — Sue Grafton

From where you are you can hear in Cockle Row in the spring, moonless night, Miss Price, dressmaker and sweetshop-keeper, dream of her lover, tall as the town clock tower, Samson syrup-gold-maned, whacking thighed and piping hot, thunderbolt-bass'd and barnacle-breasted, flailing up the cockles with his eyes like blowlamps and scooping low over her lonely loving hotwaterbottled body. — Dylan Thomas

I find that once you start helping others, it makes you feel better about yourself. It helps you figure out what you want to do with your own life. — Lance Bass

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was so pissed off at what happened, at myself, I didn't think."
He stroked a hand down her hair first, then gave the choppy ends a quick tug. "I'm not angry with you."
"I know. You could be, but you're not. So I have to be even sorrier."
"Your logic is fascinating, and elusive."
"I can't pay you back with sex or salt-crusted sea bass or whatever because you're too busy taking care of me. So now I've got this black mark in my column against the bright shiny star in yours, and - "
He tipped her head up. "Are we keeping score?"
"No. Maybe. Shit."
"How am I doing?"
"Undisputed champ."
"Good. I like to win." He brushed her bangs back to study the injury himself. "You'll do. Let's eat. — J.D. Robb

You've got to have a sense of humor to keep your sanity. — Lance Bass

As survivors, we've been conditioned to be victims sexually. Many of us have never learned to say no or to set limits on our sexual activities ... To heal, it's important that we take control, that we make active choices concerning if, when, and how we want to explore sexuality. Especially in the beginning, you need to put your own needs about sex ahead of anyone else's. — Ellen Bass

I'm sorry I didn't tell you I loved you when I knew I did. Most of all I'm sorry I gave up on us when you never did. — Chuck Bass

So, I come here to check on you and low and behold you're here. I wasted an entire night in Miranda's backyard when I could've been ratting food in your kitchen and watching the bad ass Chuck Bass on the television screen. — Abbi Glines

I've always been a fan of instructional videos. The bass-player ones are insane. The music on them is fascinating. It's not something you hear on CDs or would really ever play in bands. You listen to it and are like, 'What is happening?' It's this blizzard of notes in weird time signatures, and they're trying to teach you that. — Fred Armisen

As you heal, you see yourself more realistically. You accept that you are a person with strengths and weaknesses. You make the changes you can in your life and let go of the things that aren't in your power to change. You learn that every part of you is valuable. And you realize that all of your thoughts and feelings are important, even when they're painful or difficult. — Ellen Bass

So I am one of those bass players who can do something and musically, it was back then and now it is even more, if you noticed on the new album, I am not playing all the time anymore. — Miroslav Vitous

I might be turning into a guy who talks to himself, though." After a pause, I added, "Yep. I've been meaning to speak to you about that. — Jefferson Bass

The nature of process, to one degree or another, involves failure. You have at it. It doesn't work. You keep pushing. It gets better. But it's not good. It gets worse. You got at it again. Then you desperately stab at it, believing "this isn't going to work." And it does! — Saul Bass

Even if chords are simple, they should rub. They should have dissonances in them. I've always used a lot of alternate bass lines, suspensions, widely spaced voicings. Dfferent textures to get very warm chords. Sometimes you're setting up strange chords by placing a chord in front of it that's going to set it off like a diamond in a gold band. It's not just finding interesting chords, it's how you sequence them, like stringing together pearls on a string ... Interesting chords will compel interesting melodies. It's very hard to write a boring melody to an interesting chord sequence. — Jimmy Webb

So Mr.Bass why do you think you should become an Usher? asked the interviewer.Chuck smiled.
Because I'm Chuck Bass. — Cecily Von Ziegesar

You have the right to set ground rules. This means deciding if, when, and how you want to see the people in your family. Many survivors feel that if they open up the channels at all, they have to open them up all the way. When you were a child you had two options - to trust or not to trust. Your options are broader now. — Ellen Bass

You could maybe go to a music school and actually meet girls who know how to play the
bass. Typically the ones you pick up in bars only know how to unzip your pants. — Abbi Glines

I think that where it came from and the initial birth of it - it did come out of a jam at Bruno's studio, you know? He was playing drums. And Jeff Bhasker, who co-produced the record with us, is on synths, and I was playing bass. — Mark Ronson

Have you ever thought that radical ideas threaten institutions, then become institutions, and in turn reject radical ideas which threaten institutions? — Saul Bass

If your concentration is getting bad, take up bass fishing. It will really improve your ability to focus. If you aren't ready when that fish hits, you can't set the hook. — Lee Trevino

To be a great band it's like you have that telepathy. You know when the bass player's in back of you without even looking. You know when your guitar player's coming up to you to lean up to you and sing into your microphone. You just know these things. You feel it. You feel the energy of it. — Scott Weiland

Funny story: I was hanging out with Adam Shankman for Samantha Ronson's birthday, and Lance Bass was there. I don't really know Lance, but he comes over to me and goes, 'Hey, I just wanted to let you know I'm a fan of 'Pretty Little Liars' and I'm rooting for your character.' It was surreal! That's how 'PLL' has changed my life. — Ryan Guzman

It really is the best feeling in the world when everything that used to make you dizzy with desire becomes so wedged in your life that it changes from something you craved to something you belong in — Alexis Bass

There is much more to playing the clavier than playing written music. Do you realize with accompanying there is often nothing written out but the bass line
the left hand? There might be a few notations as to a suggested harmony, but it is up to me to fill in the music, at the proper volume, style, and harmony for the soloist
often instantly. I've heard it said that Bach questioned wether the soloist or the accompanist deserves the greatest glory. — Nancy Moser

Scottish bagpipe has two tenors and one bass - three drone pipes - and then the one chanter. If you put bagpipes together, it creates such a fine sound. — Yoshi Wada

So often survivors have had their experiences denied, trivialized, or distorted. Writing is an important avenue for healing because it gives you the opportunity to define your own reality. You can say: This did happen to me. It was that bad. It was the fault & responsibility of the adult. I was - and am - innocent. The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass & Laura Davis — Ellen Bass

I love the percussion. It's a right brain, left brain thing. There are different beats, but cooperating together. It's your whole body doing it, you're doing the snare drum and the high top with your hands and the bass drum with your foot. You're this whole motion machine. — Shalom Harlow

Unless you're singing something that's kind of in rhythm with the bass, the melodies, it's just difficult. — Kim Gordon

Playin' bass runs and singin' lead vox, is sometimes difficult, but I have three words for you: Practice, practice, practice! — Glenn Hughes

You know, I was a community activist, so I'm used to standing out in front of an elected official's office and protesting. — Karen Bass

You get this really cool groove when you're playing just piano, bass, and drums where everyone's sort of feeling each other's space, which is the only way to put it, but it really is true, and everyone's sort of sitting in their own pocket. It's kind of jazz-like. — John Darnielle

After all, which would you rather do, pal, screw Bridget Bardot's brains out or read reviews of her movies? — M.T. Bass

If you look at a record under a microscope, the high frequencies are short jagged edges ... and the low frequencies are long swinging ones are deep bass sounds. When it cut it at half speed, you're getting more of those on the record. — Herb Alpert

If you put a Mars bar in one of Glenn Hughes' hands and a bass in the other, he'll choose the Mars bar. — Gary Moore

I know it was a gift from God. My father was a preacher and my mother worked in churches all her life. My father had a very deep bass sounding voice and my mother had an in-between soprano voice. Not great singers, but they had great tones to their voices. I think that had a lot to do with it. Also, I really believe my voice was a gift from God. I believe if you take care of it, He will help you take care of it. — Darlene Love

Today you go into make a modern recording with all this technology. The bass plays first, then the drums come in later, then they track the trumpet and the singer comes in and they ship the tape somewhere. Well, none of the musicians have played together. You can't play jazz music that way. In order for you to play jazz, you've got to listen to them. The music forces you at all times to address what other people are thinking and for you to interact with them with empathy and to deal with the process of working things out. And that's how our music really could teach what the meaning of American democracy is. — Wynton Marsalis

Obviously, a bass sounds like a bass and a guitar sounds like a guitar, but the way you play the guitar reflects your personality. — Paul Simonon

I wouldn't want to hear Beethoven without beautiful bass, the cellos, the tuba. It's very important. Hip-hop has thunderous bass. And so does Beethoven. If you don't have the bass, it's like being amputated. It's like you have no legs. — Lou Reed

From the first moment that I can remember, I had identified myself as a bass player and it had everything to do with my father, who was a bass player. And he loved music, you know, as much as anybody I've ever seen. And that dynamic I just thought as somehow was a straight pass to me. — Edgar Meyer

I can understand why some of these drummers and bass players become cult figures with all of their equipment and the incredible amount of technique they have. But there's very little that I think satisfies you intellectually or emotionally. — Ken Burns

Sometimes I imagine I can feel the earth pause in its rotation, can feel it pause and look at us as if wondering, Just who the hell do you think you are? — Rick Bass

When you sign on to be an activist in northwest Montana, people in the grocery store will avoid eye contact, particularly if they're hanging out with outspoken opponents to your views. — Rick Bass

Nothing will get you into trouble so deep or as sad as faith. — Rick Bass

I want a big dark room you can barely move in, with bodies grinding close together. I want to hear a thousand songs played incredibly loud. I want to dance so fast that my hair grows long enough to trample on. I want my voice to be thunderous above the throb of bass. I want to get so hot that I have to crunch ice in my mouth. — Jenny Downham

Peacock bass like to hide at ambush points, away from the strong canal currents. If you fish early and know those peacock hangouts, you will have little or no trouble catching peacocks on lures and live bait. — Mark Hall

Eventually as a teenager, I was pulled up on stage by James Brown's saxophone player, Maceo Parker, during one of his concerts and scatted on his stage for 20 minutes. After I was done, Maceo's bass player got down on one knee as if he were proposing, took a string off of his bass guitar and coiled it up around my ring finger. He hushed the crowd and said into the microphone, "Wendy, from this day forward you are married to music. You have a gift from God. You must devote your life to using this gift or else you will deprive the world of something so special." I got the chills. — Wendy Starland

If his voice hasn't been the melody of my life, it's been the bass line, so subtle you don't notice it until it's missing. — Jodi Picoult

I buried her like a pagan. I put deer bones in with her, for her journey; a blanket, for warmth; flowers, cedar fronds, stones from places we'd been, grouse feathers, a tidbit of raw venison hamburger, and a swatch of my own hair. A headstone, a footstone. I planted an aspen tree above the headstone, to give her shade, and to someday provide leaf-music in the breeze. It took a long time before I was worth a damn again. How to measure the eleven years of magic she brought to us? How, now, to say thank you? Too late, as usual, for these sorts of things. — Rick Bass

For my money, Ray Brown is the greatest living bass player. Every great thing that's happened on bass since Ray Brown
all of us point back to him. That's where it started, you know. Ray Brown is definitely a walking master, and to get to play with him is obviously an opportunity that no one should ever pass up. — Christian McBride

The bass, no matter what kind of music you're playing, it just enhances the sound and makes everything sound more beautiful and full. When the bass stops, the bottom kind of drops out of everything. — Charlie Haden

You can't beat two guitars, bass, and drums. — Lou Reed

Visualizing how you want to be is [an] effective way to move toward your goal. — Ellen Bass

Guitar is for the head, drums are for the chest, but bass gets you in the groin — Suzi Quatro

Hip-hop is when you have crowd participation; when you chant at the audience and they chant back at you; when you wave your hands in the air like you just don't care; or some breakdancing. Everything today is just low-beat, real bass-y, bass-y, good rap records. — Flavor Flav

The press is like a big bass, you just stick a hook in their mouth and they'll take it. — James Woods

Try to reach for a simple, visual phrase that tells you what the picture is all about and evokes the essence of the story — Saul Bass

You can actually go to school and college to learn how to play and get technical with the electric bass. — Stanley Clarke

Perhaps you've heard the one about the difference between a bass player and a large pepperoni pizza? The pizza can feed a family of four. I — Spider Robinson

My radio's loud like a fire alarm:
The floor vibrates, the walls cave in,
The bass makes my eardrums seem thin.
Def sounds in my ride, yes the front and back ...
You would think it was a party, not a Cadillac! — LL Cool J

Receiving feels wonderful once you get used to it. But first you must acknowledge how scary it is to be open. If, as a child you were left to fend for yourself or there were strings attached to getting what you needed, you learned that nurturing was either unavailable or unsafe. But now, receiving doesn't have to mean owing something back. Start asking for at least one thing you want every day. — Ellen Bass

One thing people always ask me is 'How do you play outside?' ... I have no idea how to teach that, but when I was discussing this with our bass player Jesse Murphy, he said 'tell them to go cliff diving' ... In other words, when you're jamming, you have to take risks if you want to find new sounds ... — John Scofield

Ain't no deserving, or otherwise,' Silo said, his bass voice rolling out from deep in his chest. 'There's what is, and what ain't, and there's what you do about it. Regret's just a way to make you feel okay when you're not making amends. A man can waste a life with regrets. — Chris Wooding

You see an artist, a creative person, can accept criticism or can live with the criticism much more easily than with being ignored. Criticism makes you feel alive. If somebody is bothered enough to speak vituperatively about it, you feel you have touched a nerve and you are at least 'in touch.' You are not happy that he doesn't like it, but you feel you are in contact with life. — Saul Bass

Boy you got my heartbeat runnin away
Beatin like a drum & it's comin your way
Cant you hear that
Boom badoom boom boom badoom boom bass
He got that super bass
Boom badoom boom boom badoom boom bass
Yeah that's that super bass — Nicki Minaj

My style is clubby and groovy - you can jump to it, but you don't just have to just jump to it. It's not just really bass-heavy and hurts your ears; you move with it, and it sounds kind of tribal. — Ansel Elgort

You don't have to just hit nails with hammers, you know; you can use a hammer to beat somebody's brains in, to make armor or break a car window. You can do all kinds of things with your instrument outside of its surface purpose. My bass is my crutch but the best crutch I could have. — Stephen Bruner

I started playing bass in my friend's band for some reason. It was just something I did because, well, he asked me if I wanted to play bass and he played me this song - Nirvana's version of "Molly's Lips", the Vaselines song - and he said, "You can do this! This is not hard!" and it's like a two-note song. I learned that and then I thought I was a genius. — Jens Lekman

Journalism is my first love. But music comes in a close second. What's important for me is that whatever you do, whatever your passion is, you should have another passion - something in your life. And when I put on that musician hat and I put the bass in my hands, I'm not Lester Holt the TV guy anymore. I'm just Lester Holt who likes music. — Lester Holt

I tell you the groans of the damned in hell are the deep bass of the universal anthem of praise that shall ascend to the throne of my God for ever and ever. — Charles Spurgeon