Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Finally, finally, finally! After 25 years, I can finally play (correctly) the bass solo from La Villa by Rush.
I've been following various sheet music, tab, all of which are INCORRECT. And boy is it fast! I grabbed a sound clip of the solo and then using Creative Media Source, time stretched it. This keeps it at the correct pitch. It's like fast triplet runs.
Anyway had to share that with the rest of my Rick brethren! I thought I was a quick player.
GEDDY LEE IS GOD! Not just the tone, but the quickness of those slim fingers - WOW!

I have been playing La Villa for a while also. It's a very, very nice song to play!! Those 9 minutes are flying when you are playing the song..

Congrats. That song is amazing.
And yeah Geddy is a god . I need to get some Videos of him. From the ones I saw it hardly looks like he moves his right hand. Looks like hes playing with 1 finger. Altho I know hes not... Just amazed by how little be moves it.

I agree! He seems to expend very little energy when using his hands. Thats down to excellent technique I suppose. I could play the rest of La Villa, but that short segment always seemed to elude me. I think the jazz drumming in that bit was putting me off. Thanks Neil.... Ha ha ha!

Neil is a god aswell. I really enjoy listening to his drumparts. I don't have that with any other drummer. Geddy is my number 1 inspiration.
Anyway let's not forget about Alex, he is really great aswell.
I don't really like the Rush after Signals. But I understand they went doing some different stuff.

All 3 members of Rush are THE best IMO! Without any of them they wouldn't be who they are.
The drumming is fantastic, Geddy wouldn't sound anywhere near as good without 'The Professor' laying down the backbeat. Alex? Well no-one sounds like him, one in a million!

Yeah. Rush is one of those bands were no member could be replaced. Those bands are normally always really good with great players.

Geddy did sound good on his solo album tho. No Neil or Alex there .

That riff pisses me off!

Triplets? Been a LONG time since I've listened to it, but the sheet music I've seem always had it as straight 16th's...of course sheet music transcriptions from that era were usually garbage.

Trying to replay it in my head I *think* it could be some 16th note trips...some might write them as sextuplets. I might have to find a tape (I don't have it on CD, and refuse to buy a 34 minute CD) and give a listen.

But congrats. That one measure is major league playing.

Aside - once upon a time I had a pretty imaginative piano arrangement for La Villa down. I skipped over that bass solo!

Thats one part i've never been able to tackle, even after watching the video on R30,i can get most of the notes but not in the right order. i think i need that program CMS..

The rhythm is the toughest challenge. It's very fast groups of triplets then some 4 note clusters. The tabs and sheet music translations always have the wrong notes to the end of the solo.
Try using time scaling if you can. It really helped me find out which were the correct notes to play. I may even do a tab myself, not that I like tab, I prefer notation.
Again... YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can play the whole song fine, EXCEPT for that solo. Sometimes I nail it, sometimes I completely mangle it. It's one of those things that, no matter how much I practice it, I still can just, out of the blue, screw it up.

Love Rush. Favorite band. Favorite bassist. Favorite drummer. Sorry Alex, but I have quite a few guitarists placed above you, but Rush wouldn't be Rush without you.

I think there is only one album I actually don't like, which would be the debut. There are others that I have problems with ("Hold Your Fire" would be ten trillion times better, I think, without "Tai Shan"), but overall, I find very few flaws in their catalogue. Of course, that's all moot if you don't like Rush at all to begin with. But still . . . now I have to go play "Middletown Dreams" . . .

Congratulations Mark. That bit's tough, in fact that whole little section is hard to play tightly as a band. Even Rush have stuffed it up a few times. Our drummer has that part totally nailed and has recorded it at half speed for me, just so I can see how to totally fit with him, but I probably only nail it about 50% of the time at full pelt. Geddy makes it look so easy too...

I still fluff it, and I must have played it 100 times since getting the notes right. I think the trick is to relax. When I screw it up, I know the solo's coming up and I tighten up. When I nail it, it just seems to flow. Freewill seems easy now!
Another trick is to try and let the drums melt into the background and concentrate on what the bassline is. I'll get it....

So you used Creative Media Source player?
I've used Audacity to change pitch on songs I practice (we tune down a half step), but I've never tried the speed function.
I learned La Villa years ago. I don't always get it perfect, but can usually nail it. Freewill I just ad lib mostly.

Media source player is OK. I used the time scaling function. Keeps the pitch exactly the same, at the expense of a bit of sound quality, sounds a bit tinny, like a badly encoded MP3!
I've known La Villa since 1982, but took me years to nail the bass solo....
Freewill is a good one to try your chromatic and weird sounding scale rundowns. Like Geddy does live.
Try playing 'Turn The Page' and singing the lead vocal. That one really tests your bass playing. Sounds meaner on a Rick!!!