 
Bass lick Dissections: "Menemaniku" (NOAH, 2019 : Keterkaitan Keterikatan)
 
Hello, we meet again in another edition of Bass lick Dissections...
...with me, Lanlan.
This time it's the song "Menemaniku."
This song was written by David
...and the backstory behind this song is...
...we did quite a few arrangements for this song.
To the point where there were like five different ones.
The last one I told you about like this was "My Situation"
...which had lots of versions.
But the difference between this and "My Situation" is...
...at that time there was just an issue with tempo for "My Situation."
We made a slower version, a faster version...
...and in the end took the one in the middle.
Now, for this song, "Menemaniku" we actually made...
four or five different arrangements...
in different genres.
There's a BritPop one,  a minimalist one, there's a...
yeah, like this final one, like an American alternative rock one.
And all of them were complete.
The arrangements were all full, each one complete...
and in the end we chose and the vote fell to this version.
Straight to the bass lick?
We'll start from the intro...
where there's the first verse.
There's nothing too strange there.
At most, there's a bit of flashiness just before going to D#
There's a little backstep to F# first
...before running to D#.
Why do I do that? Because...
just instinctually, I really like slides.
So the bigger the effect of the slide the more I like it.
And if, for example, we don't go to F# first...
It would just go like that.
If we go to F# first...
...well, it adds just a little, but...
in previous videos I've mentioned...
it's the small details, when they're all together...
...become...amazing...
This song, from beginning to end...
must be played...
running.
So, there's nothing like this:
There's no pattern variation, no change in playing.
It's all like this:
So the fingers of your right hand...
just keep going---duh, duh, duh, duh, duh...
Ok, for the chorus, on the first note on the downbeat...
we use the octave effect...
To get us to the low note.
For those of you that have a five-string bass, use the fifth string here...
Yeah, you can tell from here I really do like slides.
What's interesting about the chorus is...what is it?
That thick-thin calligraphy analogy, you still remember it?
Although you're playing the bass line constantly running...
but you can make it not boring...
by giving it dynamics.
Just now, as you're playing the chorus and playing the verses...
differentiate the power of the two.
So don't play it all loudly, or play it all softly.
The intensity of the power you're playing...
that's what you should be regulating.
So the verses should be less intense than the chorus.
And the closer you get to the chorus, the more you build it little by little.
From the part where it goes "semua tak ada lagi," that's already building up.
Then the chorus again, and the second chorus is exactly the same as the first.
At the end of the chorus there's a slightly different chord.
It goes to C# here.
There we don't use another slide because, yeah, it's too much to do it twice.
There, it's straightaway quiet, mute it immediately.
Now, because we very rarely play this song live...
...then you could say...
like, in terms of fruit, this one didn't ripen on the tree...
...the bass lick for this song.
Because we rarely play it.
So this bass lick ripened on the table.
Now, in the recorded version, at the interlude...
there's nothing really going on there...
where the guitar goes:
 
The bass only comes in here, just comes in on the E...
and it only goes like this:
And I'm always itching to add something in there.
My current impulse is to do this:
There I think there's freedom for a fill-in.
If you want to put in your own fill-in for your own version
...but just a small one there...
I reckon you can because there isn't too much going on there.
Then...
the interlude goes like this:
In this interlude, for the first time, I stop on F#
in the high octave.
But then I go straight to the low F#.
Then at the end of the interlude you hear...
there's a break down.
You have to play alongside that, so that it feels together.
Now, the final chorus
I do the final chorus a little differently
to how I do the first chorus.
In the first one there's that F#
Going to the low F#
but then I slip in the high a little bit.
Then the second one:
You could say that's stealing the beat too
...but it's not stealing it as much as in "Kau Udara Bagiku."
This bit in the final chorus.
But the idea is the same, stealing the beat.
Then here:
This is the same issue as the issue with
the last fill-in of "Kau Udara Bagiku"
...the far-reaching one.
When I was editing the video for "Kau Udara Bagiku"
I ended up editing out the part where I say I regretted...
...making a fill-in like that.
Because playing it live is hard!
Playing it live I struggle, because it's so far.
The coda is pretty fun, because...
this is tricky, you know?
Like, for "Kau Udara Bagiku" the bassline is agile
but the pattern of the bassline gives you some relief from plucking
for your right-hand fingers.
While this one...
is just running the whole way. Tight, right?
There's no break to breathe, you just have to keep going.
So if you want to slip in anything slick, it's a fair amount of homework
for you to practise.
In this song I don't use two strings at the end
because I'm already using the octave effect.
That gives enough rumble.
Ok, let's leave it there, for the Bass Lick Dissection of "Menemaniku."
Stay healthy, everyone.
Stay safe.
Stay sane and...
keep yourself occupied through this quarantine time.
And follow the recommendations of the government and health experts.
If you have to leave the house...
Wear your mask.
And if you have to leave your house, when you come home
have a wash straightaway and change your clothes.
Hopefully everything will return to good soon...
...to normal and good.
And until we meet again in the next video.
Bye.
