Latest
The Difference Between Playing and Emoting: Thoughts From Mike Pope
As musicians, we’ve all been listening to music we love for a long time. I used to sit and listen to Weather Report, or Pat Metheny, or Chick Corea for hours on end, all the while painting a sort of subjective picture of the music. In my mind I’d formulate images of what the players looked like when they were playing these amazing solos or bass lines, or the ambience of the room or hall they were playing in (often a function of Mr. Lex I Conreverb, of course). I remember being knocked out the first time I heard that Cmaj pentatonic lick in the seventh bar of the 1st chorus of Birdland. I envisioned some grandiose physical rigmarole involved in playing it. The one time I got to see Jaco it became clear that I was deadly wrong. He played so much while not really moving a whole lot. I completely revamped my approach to the instrument at a time when I had tons of time for discipline and practice (I think I was 15). I progressed more in the ensuing 3 or 4 months than I had the previous few years I’d been playing. At least in terms of my command of the instrument.
For many of us, it was the emotions and images this music conjured up that drove us to play an instrument. For me, there was very little video available to see at the time, so these mental images had a lot to do with my approach to the bass. Unfortunately, many of them were less than conducive to good bass playing.
Playing and emoting are not the same thing. Mainly because emoting is feeling and playing is doing. This isn’t to say that they aren’t related and intertwined with one another. I don’t think that anyone would argue that an unemotional performance is generally not a good one. But I think understanding how the emotion of the performance, the emotion felt by the listener, and your original emotional impetus for playing the music differ.
The emotions you feel when you play will not necessarily lead you to do the things you need to do to in order to make your audience feel the emotion you want them to feel. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t be feeling emotion when you play. It’s simply to say that you need to deal with the reality of how you play something in order ensure the desired result. In fact for many, simply focusing on the emotion behind the music gets them doing what they need to do. This is probably most often because those people already know what to do on some level, and are simply wrapped up in the mechanics of doing it. Ironically for others, when the emotion is spurious, it can impede your ability to understand how what you’re playing is being received. When that happens, as it often does, you need to question what’s driving the emotion. The goal being to separate the non-pertinent emotion you’re feeling from the task you’re trying to perform so that you can focus on learning to DO what you’re not DOING in order get the FEELING you want. Time to practice!
If you’ve ever walked away from a gig with memories of brilliant moments and deep emotional catharsis you can understand how powerful the images and sensations of those moments can be. But the reality is that you felt that way because of what you did. You did not do what you did because of how you felt. And so, in order to feel that way again, you need to do what you did again. It’s as simple as that. Let’s break it down to a single musical passage. Upon playing it you, and your audience, said, “that was GORGEOUS!” Your memory of this is reflective emotion. If you reflect on this the next time you go to play the passage, you won’t be paying any attention to doing what you need to do in order to play the passage and get that result again. You almost certainly WON’T get the same result. But if your focus is on what you need to do in the here and now, you have every chance at not only feeling what you felt again, but also having the audience feel it right along with you.
Taking the time to record yourself and listen to it objectively is a great way to establish where you really are. But listening to yourself objectively is difficult when you’re searching for a subjective response from someone else. But a good place to start is where you purge your mind of preconceptions and imagined responses of others. Make sure there’s not an image of a person, or a memory of an experience floating around in the back of your mind, posing as some sort of self-imposed benchmark. Listen to what you played and decide if represents your feelings. You are the maker of your music, and you know what you want to say. There’s no need to stress yourself out over imagined challenges. I think the real ones are enough for most of us.
Check out our top 10 favorite basses on Instagram this week…
Click to follow Bass Musician on Instagram @bassmusicianmag
FEATURED @kilianduartebass @meridian_guitars @adamovicbasses @marleaux_bassguitars @jcrluthier @sandbergguitars @ibanezuk_official @dingwallguitars @torzalguitars @ariaguitars
Check out our top 10 favorite basses on Instagram this week…
Click to follow Bass Musician on Instagram @bassmusicianmag
FEATURED @bacchusguitars @franz.bassguitars @mendesluthieria @ramabass.ok @meridian_guitars @adamovicbasses @shukerbassguitars @fantabass.it @andys_vintage_guitars @valdesbasses
Check out our top 10 favorite basses on Instagram this week…
Click to follow Bass Musician on Instagram @bassmusicianmag
FEATURED @murraykuun_guitars @ja.guitars @combe_luthier @overloadguitars @kevinhidebass @franz.bassguitars @indra_guitars @petercrowdesign @baboomin_bass @jcrluthier
Check out our top 10 favorite basses on Instagram this week…
Click to follow Bass Musician on Instagram @bassmusicianmag
FEATURED @sandbergguitars @benevolent_basses @rayriendeau @olintobass @wonkorbasses @bite.guitars @adamovicbasses @maruszczyk_instruments @skervesenguitars @ramabass.ok
Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
Visit online:
Official Website
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube
Spotify
Gear News: Fender Unveils Highly Anticipated Vintera III Series
New Music: Oteil Burbridge & Lamar Williams Jr. New Single, Hush
Interview With Bassist Virginia Franks
Nathan East, Echoes of a Lineage – April/May 2026 Issue
Gear Review: Italia Leather Straps
Mar 2 Edition – This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram
Mar 9 Edition – This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram
Mar 16 Edition – This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram
Mar 23 Edition – This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram