Bassline for Rush's "Freewill"

Hi again.

This time I've taken advantage of my vacation time to select some demanding material for my advanced students to practice standard notation reading without thinking of techniques like slapping or tapping. Just plain fingerstyle. "Freewill" is an excellent piece since it has many meter changes and can be confusing if you're not used to that. Besides, it isn't as technically demanding as "YYZ", for instance, but it isn't piece o'cake either. I transcribed the bassline in its entirety and have it ready as a gift for my students (not the beginners, of course) for the time when classes start again. To me, this is one of the most complex "short" songs written by the guys from Toronto, and this video is intended as a support material for my students' work, although I don't plan to tell them about this (I want to see how clever they are). Also, I found the video very amusing to make because I didn't want to use my camera's live sound but my bass' signal recorded direct through my soundcard as I've already done before, but now I had to put the original Rush recording as well to play along with it. So I plugged my Rickenbacker into my practice amp and its line out to my PC soundcard. Used a media player for the song and recorded my performance along with it (and the video as well, of course). Then wrote down start/end times in the video and did some cut-paste-mix to make the original track, the direct audio recording of my performance and the video to match. Cool! The bass' sound isn't processed. The only effect applied was normalizing the final mix.

Lots of mistakes as usual, but the ONLY one that really upsets me is the mess at 3:44. AARRGGH!! But I didn't want to take the risk of more takes that maybe would be worse than this (this was the second one, BTW). I hope that those of you interested on learning this cool piece find this effort useful.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Bass
• Bassline
• Rush
• Freewill
• Permanent
• Waves
• Geddy
• Lee
• Alvabass
• Rickenbacker
• Ric
• 4003
• Polyrhythms
• Playalong

[mastadon1111]

do u bi-amp? u can get ALOT closer to his sound this way

[Alvabass]

Thank you so much for your comment! I've been extremely curious about bi-amping my Ric (for studio recordings, at least), but haven't done it yet. I need a proper cable for that. I tried with a stereo cable with two mono plugs on one end and a single one on the other, but didn't work. BTW, the Ric-O-Sound kit has been discontinued.

[specterblade92]

dude where did you gt the rickenbacker bass its so sick

[Alvabass]

I bought it brand-new in Sam Ash in early 2006. Thank you for your comment!

[NR92CP]

Alva, you're a great bassist. I love your YYZ cover, and your "Eruption" on bass cover. However, I have to agree that you play this a little too staccato, but if that's your style then that's fine, I'll back off. Just thought I'd let you know.

[Alvabass]

It's OK, man. I really appreciate your opinion. Thank you so much! :)

[NickHill668]

hey alva its nick! man its been a while since ive seen your awesome bass playing hope all is well :)

[ROCKnROLL1406]

Nice Job..very tight..but you seemed bored playing it

[CygnusKC]

Pretty good. Always love it when people spread Rush's music and keep it alive. Now for some constructive criticism: while technically precise, your playing sounds choppy. Geddy himself said in a bass magazine interview that he often lets his strings "ring out". Maybe you should let them ring out a bit. I think you'll notice that your sound will closer replicate the bass perfection that is Mr. Geddy Lee...

[RyneProductionz]

Wow :O You're amazing

[vectron12]

i guess some people have never heard of slurs before

[bigbadkmomo]

I can hear you well and you do Geddy justice .Real good man.

[flavy1000]

@belial1237

Yes...I now understand..perhaps you are right ont the fact about sixteenth or eight rests..it`s a fine line to get Geddy`s sound..jajaj!

And the worst is..that he plays it a different way many times..live..or studio..

I`l pay attention to that

BTW..who are the tabas from...to say..it is Geddy himself who wrote them?

Thanks for the data..and for commenting!

Flavy

[belial1237]

@flavy1000 you miss understand what i mean though i know it's a quick staccato but this sounds a bit robotic and i have gone into a deep listening and i find it's really quite fluent, and i have the geddy lee bass tab book and there wasn't very many eighth and sixteenth rests in the man riff nor in the solo.

[Xanadu1115]

Sounded good. Love that Rickenbacker tone. Too much staccato though.

[flavy1000]

No, it is not false..perhaps, you dont know what stacatto means...It`sO.K with Avabass baslines

Try again and don`t be so straightminded,please!

Flavy