Rhyme And Reason

I have been playing my bass a lot the last few hours, and I'm in love with 3 lines that I just have to share.

The three lines, from three different songs, are all pretty different. But the songs are fundamentally similar in their dominant bass presence.

The three songs are:

Muse - New Born
Metallica - Orion
Interpol - The New

I start learning a really tough line by modifying it down to a skeleton that's easy enough to play. Then I'll play the full line at a slower rate, and finally I'll rock the whole line at game speed.

The New - Intro
G|--------9-----10-9---------7---9---10-9------9---10-9-------7---9---10-9--| D|-10-10---10-------10-9-9---9---9-------7--7---7------7-0-0---0---0-------| A|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------| D|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

'The New' is the easiest line, but it may sound the coolest. This is a line that I just picked up tonight, and I learned it in about 10 minutes at full speed. The rest of the song is similar to this line.

Orion - Excerpt from bass solo

G|---------11-----9-----|-----9--------------|---------11-----9-----| D|------11-----7-----7--|--9-----9-----9-----|------11-----7-----7--| A|--9-------------------|-----------7------7--|--9-------------------| E|----------------------|----------------------|----------------------|

G|--9-9-9-9-9-9-9-6---------|---------11-----9-----|-----9--------9-----| D|--------------------9-7-----|------11-----7-----7--|--9-----9-----------| A|------------------------9-7-|--9-------------------|-----------7-----7--| E|-----------------------------|----------------------|--------------------|

The bass solo in 'Orion' is like 3 minutes long, and it's like this for the most part. There's a loop that Cliff Burton plays, and at the end of each loop is room for improvisation. The 4th bar of this excerpt is an example of that, before returning to the beginning of the loop. It's neat and allows for some creative wiggle room. And it sounds rad. It took me an hour to learn or so.

New Born - Main Line
G---9---- | G ---5-------5-------4-------4-------8-------8-----|
D-----7-9 | D -----3-5-----3-5-----2-4----2-4-----6-8-----6-8-|
A-7------ | A -3-------3-------2--------2------6-------6-------|
E-------- | D ---------------------------------------------------|

While all these lines may look standard, they're all played really quickly. 'New Born' is the fastest, and I've been trying to master it for the longest time. I've known the line for about a year, and I leave it and come back to it periodically. This is easily the toughest line of the three, if you listen to it, you can understand why. I still don't have it down.

Link:

New Born @ 2:04
Orion @ 4:00
The New @ 0:05

Comparing these three songs, the bass line spends a lot of time on the 7th and 9th frets of the D and G string. I've found that this area of the fretboard sounds really aurally attractive for some reason. Why is that?

Anyway, thanks for reading.

'Guess you could say I gave you my edge'