Andy is one of the best bass player and bass compositor of the 80's... As good as Marr in therm of riff writing he never get the sucess he deserved. Negliged by Morrissey and not very supported with his former best friend Marr... I'm happy he's fine and looks happy nowadays
Andy Rourke was a first-class bassist, he drove the songs to be something special. remove his lines from any Smiths song and it sounds hollow. and quite frankly I get tired of people who still push the facade that Johnny wrote the basslines, and that Andy and Joyce were session musicians. Andy deserves the praise, he was a genius in his own right and i just hope that people actually give him the recognition he deserves for his musicianship, compositions and his talent now he's gone. bass may be my second instrument, but even just listening to his isolated tracks made me become a better player on both guitar AND bass. RIP Andy, the world lost a legend
Love you Andy. Your music saved my life and changed my bass playing... forever grateful. Im so sad to hear the news but you will forever live through the speakers in our ears, fingers and hearts Love from Argentina.
Beautiful words, perfectly expressing what many of us fans feel. I learned to play bass guitar to The Smiths songs and fell in love with Andy's melodic basslines. His legacy lives on.
Ha no way. I actually managed to nail Barbairsm Begins at Home the hard way but I've got to admit the tuning sounds awesome. It seems to really get that poppy, twangy sound.
Same here.. more tricky to play but you don't keep having to swapping bass guitars live which is a pain. You can get close to the sound by playing close to the bridge which is where Andy seems to play a lot of the time as well.
Andy Rourke kind of played the power riff while Johnny Marr played the melody and the chiming atmospheric sound. Point is that while everyone was looking at Morrissey and Marr, Rourke was stealing the show.
Very true. Your bass sounds great tuned up. Another thing to consider is the use of vari-tune in the mastering, shifting the songs out of tune. E.g. This Charming Man or Still Ill are painful to play along to without retuning. Early songs Pretty Girls Make Graves, I Don’t Owe You Anything & How Soon Is Now, I think are all in standard tuning. Later songs tuned up to F# include Last Night I Dreamt, Bigmouth, Queen Is Dead & There Is A Light. I think Headmaster is probably tuned up, and in general, any song without an open E in it is probably tuned up. Rush And A Push is drop D, and it’s easier to play in D standard, (all strings down a step) but that is a pain. You may be right about Stop Me, I learned it in Standard and haven’t tried it in F. It doesn’t seem that Andy’s memory is super great for that period of his life. There were a lot of substances involved. In reality, probably half to 2/3rds of Smiths songs he played in F# tuning.
Cheers man. Yep you are right about the vari-tune thing. I didn’t include that as I’m sure it was recorded in F# but changed during mixing/mastering. Points for discussion: Pretty girls. Yep there is a low E on the recording but it just appears at the end. Overdub? If you watch footage of them playing it live in ‘83 he doesn’t play the low E. He plays in F#. How Soon is dropped E. Last Night is standard. Headmaster standard. It has a number of low E’s throughout the tune. It’s been so long since I played Stretch out that I’ve forgot at the time of writing. Meat is Murder though is open E on guitar and standard on bass. It has low E’s though out and a slapped octave low E to high E. I think you are right re rush and a push. I’ve tended to play it standard and miss out the low D’s. You may well be right about Rourke’s memory and of course he was just estimating off the top of his head. We play an even mix of early and later songs on our set and it’s about 50/50. F# to standard.
Hi Justin, I think you are correct about Pretty Girls and How Soon Is Now. Andy mentioned in an interview that he played Shoplifters and How Soon in Drop D, but neither song has a low D in it. Drop E makes sense for How Soon and he probably meant to say Rush And A Push instead of Shoplifters. But I am 100% positive Last Night I Dreamt is in F#. And I am not hearing any low E at all on Headmaster, and in the live video he appears to be in F#. The long held E (on the D string) sounds like an open string to me. Here’s a video of a dude who is nailing all the notes but is making a ton of extra work for himself because he is in standard tuning (no low E in sight) ua-cam.com/video/P0UhVax_hmw/v-deo.html F# tuning for the win 😀 -Glen
@@andyrourke1812 I'm with you now on Last Night too. It makes sense with the choice of notes that he plays. Its not too hard to replicate in standard though too
Amazing tip! But beware, my fellow bassists: As you force your strings a whole tone up across the board, you're putting too much tension on the neck. A capo on the 2nd fret would do just fine.
I would say that most basses are going to need a small tightening of the truss rod to counteract this. I've always muddled through Smiths songs in standard, but it would make sense to do this on a bass with an easily accessible truss rod. If I were in a Smiths cover band I might even set up a P bass with one gauge lighter strings to counteract the tension and make them feel more normal under your fingers.
@@justinatkinson1316 now I'm confused...so perhaps both Marr and Andy were tuning up for Morissey I would assume? Love the sound and never knew these things until now.
Andy is one of the best bass player and bass compositor of the 80's... As good as Marr in therm of riff writing he never get the sucess he deserved. Negliged by Morrissey and not very supported with his former best friend Marr... I'm happy he's fine and looks happy nowadays
Rourke is who I pay the most attention to when listening to the Smiths...but maybe that's why I became a bass player lol
@@leoray1234 i am
RIP :(
Andy Rourke was a first-class bassist, he drove the songs to be something special. remove his lines from any Smiths song and it sounds hollow. and quite frankly I get tired of people who still push the facade that Johnny wrote the basslines, and that Andy and Joyce were session musicians. Andy deserves the praise, he was a genius in his own right and i just hope that people actually give him the recognition he deserves for his musicianship, compositions and his talent now he's gone. bass may be my second instrument, but even just listening to his isolated tracks made me become a better player on both guitar AND bass.
RIP Andy, the world lost a legend
Such sad news today…RIP Andy ❤
Love you Andy. Your music saved my life and changed my bass playing... forever grateful. Im so sad to hear the news but you will forever live through the speakers in our ears, fingers and hearts
Love from Argentina.
Beautiful words, perfectly expressing what many of us fans feel. I learned to play bass guitar to The Smiths songs and fell in love with Andy's melodic basslines. His legacy lives on.
This is so valuable for anyone putting a smiths cover band together, or for any bassist who wants to learn and play these songs..I hope they find it!
Makes sense because Marr put a capo on 2nd fret in a lot of songs.
Ha no way. I actually managed to nail Barbairsm Begins at Home the hard way but I've got to admit the tuning sounds awesome. It seems to really get that poppy, twangy sound.
Same here.. more tricky to play but you don't keep having to swapping bass guitars live which is a pain. You can get close to the sound by playing close to the bridge which is where Andy seems to play a lot of the time as well.
So did I. I learned that whole album within a week back in the day. I never found Barbarism difficult to play to be honest.
I played in a covers band for a few years. All you have to do use use a guitar capo. it sounds just fine. no need to retune the bass
Andy Rourke kind of played the power riff while Johnny Marr played the melody and the chiming atmospheric sound.
Point is that while everyone was looking at Morrissey and Marr, Rourke was stealing the show.
I'm new to playing bass and I've never seen the bas play like that thank you for this new eye opener
Yep it’s not just plucking the root notes. Rourke is a good example of that.
Probably one of the most simple 'secrets', yet something I hadn't thought much about! Can't wait to give it a go. Thanks!!
RIP ANDY 💔🕊️
Very true. Your bass sounds great tuned up. Another thing to consider is the use of vari-tune in the mastering, shifting the songs out of tune. E.g. This Charming Man or Still Ill are painful to play along to without retuning.
Early songs Pretty Girls Make Graves, I Don’t Owe You Anything & How Soon Is Now, I think are all in standard tuning. Later songs tuned up to F# include Last Night I Dreamt, Bigmouth, Queen Is Dead & There Is A Light.
I think Headmaster is probably tuned up, and in general, any song without an open E in it is probably tuned up. Rush And A Push is drop D, and it’s easier to play in D standard, (all strings down a step) but that is a pain. You may be right about Stop Me, I learned it in Standard and haven’t tried it in F.
It doesn’t seem that Andy’s memory is super great for that period of his life. There were a lot of substances involved. In reality, probably half to 2/3rds of Smiths songs he played in F# tuning.
Cheers man. Yep you are right about the vari-tune thing. I didn’t include that as I’m sure it was recorded in F# but changed during mixing/mastering.
Points for discussion:
Pretty girls. Yep there is a low E on the recording but it just appears at the end. Overdub? If you watch footage of them playing it live in ‘83 he doesn’t play the low E. He plays in F#.
How Soon is dropped E.
Last Night is standard.
Headmaster standard. It has a number of low E’s throughout the tune. It’s been so long since I played Stretch out that I’ve forgot at the time of writing. Meat is Murder though is open E on guitar and standard on bass. It has low E’s though out and a slapped octave low E to high E.
I think you are right re rush and a push. I’ve tended to play it standard and miss out the low D’s.
You may well be right about Rourke’s memory and of course he was just estimating off the top of his head. We play an even mix of early and later songs on our set and it’s about 50/50. F# to standard.
Hi Justin, I think you are correct about Pretty Girls and How Soon Is Now.
Andy mentioned in an interview that he played Shoplifters and How Soon in Drop D, but neither song has a low D in it. Drop E makes sense for How Soon and he probably meant to say Rush And A Push instead of Shoplifters.
But I am 100% positive Last Night I Dreamt is in F#.
And I am not hearing any low E at all on Headmaster, and in the live video he appears to be in F#. The long held E (on the D string) sounds like an open string to me. Here’s a video of a dude who is nailing all the notes but is making a ton of extra work for himself because he is in standard tuning (no low E in sight) ua-cam.com/video/P0UhVax_hmw/v-deo.html
F# tuning for the win 😀
-Glen
@@andyrourke1812 ok yes you are right regarding Headmaster! it's F# not a low E. And the baseline actually works perfectly in F# cheers man.
@@andyrourke1812 I'm with you now on Last Night too. It makes sense with the choice of notes that he plays. Its not too hard to replicate in standard though too
Amazing tip! But beware, my fellow bassists: As you force your strings a whole tone up across the board, you're putting too much tension on the neck. A capo on the 2nd fret would do just fine.
Thanks Man. I hear what you say but I have a rather old 80’s Fujijen p bass which generally sits in F# year on year. It’s never affected it at all.
RIP Andy 😞
I'm assuming that they tuned up to suit Morrissey's natural vocal range. Great vid!
After 30 years trying to copy his work thus comes as a revalation to me. A REVALATION
Completely agree Tristan! so simple yet powerful!
Never knew this, would have saved a lot of work playing barbarism for all these years in standard tuning 😆
My right ear enjoyed this
R.I.P. Andy Rourke...
Yep. This Charming Man is another one that's way easier to play in F#.
This answers the question I had last night when I grabbed my bass guitar and tried to play along with the Smiths. Lol.
my right ear loved this!
Interesting - as a guitar player, this makes sense, as the gtr was usually capo'd on 2.
Yep although there are one or two songs where bass is in standard while guitar F#. one example being I Don’t Owe You Anything from the first album.
Ok over 5 mins to tell us to tune up two semitones. Got it.
Great, finally nailed Well I wonder with this tip, thanks!
Oh MONO.
It’s been too long. ❤️
the secret is that he was a great bass player lol
Thanks for this!
No problem Kimber
Great bass tone
I can play most of The Smiths bass lines. I will post videos on my channel very soon
Did they do the tuning thing because of Moz voice?
That seems to be the explanation most mentioned
Quality geez
Just here to ask about that sweater
Edward Kim the one I’m wearing?
@@justinatkinson1316 Yeah!
It’s by Pretty Green.
Thx for sharing this. Just to clarify when you say tuning up to F# you mean each string is tuned up? Or is it just the E string get tuned up?
You tune each string up a whole step
what ur bass setup sounds exactly like Andy rourke
Thanks Tom. Watch this space there will be another video on that subject soon
@@justinatkinson1316 ok thanks a lot do you think I could recreate a similar tone with a mustang bass or is it more p bass specific
@@tomhudson7522 I think the Mustangs have p bass pickups so yes you should be able to get the right tone
@@justinatkinson1316 ok thanks a lot !
Does tuning up to F# put a lot of strain on the neck? Have you had to adjust your truss rods? Thanks for the videos. Bass sounds great
I would say that most basses are going to need a small tightening of the truss rod to counteract this. I've always muddled through Smiths songs in standard, but it would make sense to do this on a bass with an easily accessible truss rod.
If I were in a Smiths cover band I might even set up a P bass with one gauge lighter strings to counteract the tension and make them feel more normal under your fingers.
I assume it was in order to match Marr's capo so that Andy can play open strings?
It certainly creates a unique sound. Yes that’s the reason . Although Marr was tuning up too in the 80’s rather than using a capo.
@@justinatkinson1316 now I'm confused...so perhaps both Marr and Andy were tuning up for Morissey I would assume? Love the sound and never knew these things until now.
👏👏👏 felicitaciones saludos desde buenos aires
The secret is heroin
Can I just use a capo?
Yeah you can do although I tend to find that some of them don’t put enough pressure on bass strings
Secrets??? 😁😀😂😄😆
Zzzzzz.....
I see.. So you need to be in the right tuning otherwise it doesnt sound good. Respect.