Is Roger a good bassist?

[daemonspudguy]

I personally argue yes. He is not the most technically proficient bassist, but he is by no means a bad one. One of the highlights of the This Is Not a Drill tour for me was the opening bassline to Have a Cigar.

[voices2010]

He is definitely not the best in technique but he is in creativity. during my adolescence what stayed in my memory the most were the bass lines of roger waters and mike rutherford who didn't respect technique much either. I think Roger's way of playing is theatrical... he has moments and absences and I enjoy it more than when someone replaces him, even Mr. Samson himself

[Floydophile]

Mr. Samson? Did I miss the "News"? ;-)

[daemonspudguy]

I once heard someone compare Roger's bass playing to be being close to that of rhythm guitar, and I think that's often an apt description.

[aybesea]

Meh... he's certainly not at the top of my list (Chris Squire, John Entwistle, Phil Lesh, Mike Gordon, Geddy Lee)... but then again he's decidely not bad. His style obviously works for PF.

[Simond]

You mention Phil Lesh (quite rightly) but let's not forget Jack Casady too..... an incredible player.

[aybesea]

Absolutely! Jack is pretty special.

[daemonspudguy]

He apparently was a major influence on Les Claypool, FWIW.

[MrFender]

I would equate his bass playing with Nick's drums - not great by any means BUT...you put the four members together and something special happens.

Not unique to PF, many bands have that chemistry where the whole is more than the sum of it's parts, you don't need everyone to be a prodigy. When a band breaks up (creative differences/member dies/etc), the remaining members may have some initial success but it doesn't last (obviously not all but in many/most cases) as that magic can't be replicated. It's not that the members weren't great musicians or singers. Just look at The Doors, The Police, The Clash, Queen, Derrick & The Dominoes, Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, Jefferson Airplane, Led Zeppelin, The Band, Yes, The Butterfield Blues Band and many more. Each one of those bands had massively talented personnel but when they went their separate ways, there was limited to no success for most (hence "Reunion" shows). Kind of got off topic here.

My overall point being Roger's playing was good enough. His main strength being a tremendous writer and visionary of songs and ideas that could be brought to life by the other members of the band so he didn't need to be on par with Dave's ability on guitar. It wasn't that type of band.

[Alanko]

I'm a bassist, so feel I can comment.

Piper-era Roger was pretty inventive. I hear a lot of Paul McCartney's playing in all those octave jumps and upper register stuff. It sometimes sounds a bit brash and lacking confidence. Almost fiddly just for the sake of it, as beginner players tend to do.

That style of playing continues through to Meddle. Roger then simplified his approach. Arguably of all the big stadium-tier bassists of the '70s he was the weakest as a musician or as part of a rhythm section. That dull, truck-spring 'thunk' bass tone he had, coupled with a lack of inner metronome, can get a bit taxing on long live cuts. He has never been an 'in the pocket' player and on tracks like Astronomy Domine on Ummagumma he isn't locked into the drums at all. Groove is not in his musical vocabulary.

In saying that, he managed to find an entire secondary language of squeaks and clicks on his Rickenbacker bass, and nobody else was doing that. His use of a slow phaser on Sheep is also pretty inspired. His studio playing on Darkside in particular is sparse and economic and serves the tunes well.

I think it is clear that circa Meddle he became a songwriter who played bass because somebody had to. His playing level atrophied at that point but, out of sheer gigging and rehearsal, he became a good 'serve the song' bassist, albeit one who performed better in the studio than live.

[gotta_be_crazy]

If it fits, it's good.

(that's what she said).

[Alanko]

If it fits, it's good.

(that's what she said).

That is a privilege that only bassists of the '60s get to enjoy. Bass playing was such a blank slate that anything fitted. Jack Bruce played with a totally different technique to Chris Squire, Geezer Butler, etc. Lee Jackson used banjo picks in The Nice! These guys were making it up as amps got bigger and basses were allowed more sonic space on records.

Go to any bar on a Saturday night and I wager that the cover band bassist will have a stronger sense of rhythm and harmonic theory than Roger did in the 1970s. The standard of being a bog-standard competent bassist is a lot higher now.

[DaveTheRave]

I once heard someone compare Roger's bass playing to be being close to that of rhythm guitar, and I think that's often an apt description.

You can kind of hear this on live recordings when they would play songs like Cymbaline. He kind of played in front of the others, a bit like a lead instrument.

[marksturdy]

He had a distinctive style, that's for sure. I like that angular octave stuff - where it works, it really works, and it's simple enough for me to have kind of imitated it on my few excursions into playing bass. I can only think of one occasion where he was guilty of anything objectionable, and that's the Copenhagen version of Matilda Mother where he just hammers the same three out-of-tune notes till you want to slap him. One shitty moment in a gig 56 years ago is forgivable though!

[vince666]

Roger isn't surely in the short list of my own favourite bass players and I don't even make my choices on technique... but Roger is still, IMO, a special player because it fits into the good old floyds just properly and that's what really counts to me.

An example... from the technique and pure ability on the instrument, Guy Pratt is way above Roger but it did never fit in the Floyds the same good way as Roger did himself.
I remember, back in 2005, when I wasn't listening at all to PF for about 10 years and I didn't even know they were going to play at Live8, and even less that Roger was with them again...
So, that night, by pure coincidence, i tuned my TV to the Live8 just while the Floyds were starting to play... then, since I was cooking, I wasn't even looking at the screen and heard the heartbeat at the start of Breathe... then the song starts and just from the very first notes I heard the song sounded just like the good old magic way... turned my eyes to the TV screen and spotted Roger playing the bass... that was the reason why the song sounded the good old magic way (and it never sounded like that with Guy Pratt on the bass)...
That's a good example why Roger is a special player... he is simply unreplaceable in the Pink Floyd, no matter if you try to replace him with someone who can play better than him... but, hey, what does it really mean "playing better" if you are playing in a band and not alone while simply trying to impress the people with technique and tricks?
So, IMO, Roger is simply the best player in the world regarding Pink Floyd music... which makes of him a special one.

In the exact same way, Nick is the best drummer in the world regarding Pink Floyd music and Ringo is the best drummer in the world regarding Beatles music.
Also, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward are the best singer and players in the world regarding Black Sabbath music... you replace even only one of them and the band doesn't sound right anymore.

I know the above bit would sound just obvious... in fact, it's obvious.
Great bands are a just matter of magic which works between all the members with no explainable reasons... it simply works, period.

[daemonspudguy]

I remember at one point reading that David once said that bassists are a dime a dozen. A part of me wonders if some of the animosity between Rog and Dave is because of that. Probably not, but that's still a little absurd, especislly for a man who worked with Tony fucking Levin.

[keleven]

Not a musician here, but, what are the ways in which "better" bass playing would have made any of those songs better?

[YASHA]

Not a musician here, but, what are the ways in which "better" bass playing would have made any of those songs better?

"That's a very good question." (C) Roger Waters