Originally Posted by dcuny
That said, I agree with your analysis. There are a lot of songs where I think the bass is playing some sort of root & fifth sort of thing. Then I actually listen, and... nope. Not locked into the kick drum at all, but it just works. It just blows me away what the bass player is doing, and I'd never even noticed. But that's the point, right? wink
Very well spoken.

It wasn't too long ago (maybe 12 years) where I thought the bass players role was basically to support the kick drum. That may be true in some music (perhaps country is a good example) but there can be much, much more including melodies and even solo work. And as you point out, there can be much more than root and fifth; although it could be argued that root/fifth is the backbone of many popular songs. It is much more versatile an instrument than I ever gave it credit for with infinite possible permutations even within a given song.

I'm still curious on how bass lines can be categorized and how many "dimensions" might be required to characterize them.

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