Blessed with an incredibly versatile singing voice in addition to his superlative bass guitar skills, Gary Lee Weinrib – nicknamed Geddy Lee after the way his grandmother used to pronounce his name – was among the first electric players to combine funk with progressive-rock elements (quirky time signatures and key changes, a flurry of different musical styles, intoxicating dexterity... you know the drill) and make it big while doing so.
Complemented by his virtuoso band-mates in Rush – guitarist Alex Lifeson and the late drummer Neil Peart – Lee's bass playing veered from the subtle, to the atmospheric, to an all-out riff storm.
Since Rush’s 1974 debut, the metallic clang of Geddy's bass has pierced the minds of millions. His signature sounds still abound on the trio’s 2007 album, Snakes and Arrows, but there were also a few new twists and turns in his bass playing – namely, a fascinating "flamenco" strumming technique he first developed for the Vapor Trails album in 2002.
“I think the bizarre nature of our music allows for more notes,” Geddy told Bass Player. “When you think of Rush you don’t think of a sedate rhythm section. We try to hold the ‘chops’ side of our music in reserve, but we always allow for that moment to exorcise those demons, and when the moment comes up, we let rip.”
First, the move: with your middle finger bent and out of the way, flick your index finger back and forth, hitting the string with both downstrokes and upstrokes. You can start a pattern with either stroke, but playing downstrokes on the downbeats tends to sound more consistent and feel more comfortable.
Geddy's 16th-note flamenco flutter floats the verses in the single Far Cry. Built around an F# minor tonal center, the song's opening riff leans on a C natural, the wicked-sounding tritone or the scale's flatted 5th.
Like so many Rush riffs, this one has an unusual meter: The trio drops beat four in bars 4 and 12, making a bar of 3/4 time. For the verse, Geddy jumps to the middle of the neck to dig into a slab of solid 16ths culled from the E minor pentatonic scale. The trick here is to maintain a consistent strumming pattern.
The flamenco technique makes another appearance on The Main Monkey Business, a mid-tempo instrumental strut.
“That was a pet project of mine. We did this big monster jam, and I spent four days trying to create the most self-indulgent piece I could think of. I changed parts when I felt like it, and I put it together in a really selfish way, not considering whether someone else would be able to understand it or not. I had a lot fun chopping up Alex's guitar parts.”
Geddy plays a fugue-like cascade of 16ths in the intro that foreshadows the tune’s chorus hook. Here, Lee utilises an open string drone on D, flicking his finger across two strings in the same motion.
“It was absolutely inspiring to watch Geddy play,” said producer Nick Raskulinecz, whose talent and energy galvanized sessions for Snakes & Arrows. “Geddy carefully plans all his parts, but the record captures a lot of his off-the-cuff playing. He'd pull off these riffs that were just amazing. Plus, Geddy actually plays basslines – he doesn't just follow the roots.”
As with Far Cry, the flamenco-strummed line will sound right only if you strum down and up a with equal velocity. No, your ears don’t deceive you – the chorus hook changes meter every bar (this is Rush, after all).
