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Worship Bassist’s Toolkit – Transposition by Steven Gregory
Welcome to the latest installment of the Worship Bassist’s Toolkit series! We have been investigating the tools that worship bassists must have available, maintained, and ready to use in order to create passionate, musical worship. Thus far, we have looked at Fretboard knowledge, Technique Awareness, and Transcription. There are many other tools to explore in the Worship Bassist’s Toolkit; however, I am going to close this series for a bit to explore other topics in this column. Before doing that, one more tool should be included in the initial set: transposition
Simply put, transposition is taking music in one key and moving it to another key. There can be a number of reasons to need a song in another key. Quite often this will happen in the worship setting to accommodate vocal ranges, instrumentation, or set programming. In order to provide a seamless worship experience, it is important to become skilled at transposition.
Let’s look at transposition through an example: “Run” by Hillsong. For these illustrations, I will use the version from the live album “This Is Our God”. Figure 1 shows the bass line for the song’s intro in the original key, F#
Figure 1. Original “Run” Intro – F#
Now, let’s transpose the line down a whole step, to E. This is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. “Run” Intro – E
As you can see, the line was moved, in its entirety, to the new key. In this example, the shift of a whole step is easy to figure out and convenient to see on the fretboard: D# becomes C#, B becomes A, F# becomes E, and G# becomes F#.
Now let’s change again, this time transposing the original line up a major 3rd. We could stay in sharp keys, making this the key of A#; however, to aid in writing and reading I’m going to use the enharmonic key of Bb. (Note: “enharmonic” indicates keys that are equivalent, but “spelled” differently. In this example, A# and Bb are the same keys, but spelled differently.) Figure 3 shows the intro line transposed into Bb.
Figure 3. “Run” intro – Bb
If we stopped here, the basics of transposition would have been covered; however, as bass musicians, we should explore this further.
Figure 4 shows the intro again and then shows the beginning of the 1st verse, in the original key (F#).
Figure 4. “Run” intro and 1st verse figure – F#
Note that the beginning of the first verse moves to the next octave D# to begin, moving the entire line up. On the recording, this is an effective device for separating the 1st verse into two halves – the first half is shown here, the second half moves down an octave.
If we maintain a strict “transpose up” rule, we get Figure 5 when we move to Bb:
Figure 5. “Run” intro and 1st verse figure – Bb
In this transposition, we go much higher in the bass sonic space. This may be fine, depending on your worship team and where other players move on their instruments. However, it is possible for guitars and keyboards to rearrange in such a way that your line will be lost in the mix and the entire experience will sound “thin”. The beginning of the 1st verse, now starting on the high G, is particularly susceptible to instrument clash.
What options do we have? Figure 6 shows 3 options for both the intro and 1st verse figure. Option A for each is the “transposed up” line, Option B is the entire line transposed down, and Option C is a hybrid of A and B.
Figure 6. Options
Here is the fun part (and a major point!) of this column: I can’t tell you which options and combinations might work best for you! In fact, there are other options that may fit your situation. The only way to determine what to play is to keep your ears wide open when playing with your worship team. In addition, the remainder of the song may have movement or changes that will influence your choices. It is important that you don’t destroy the feel and general movement of the line, but rearranging may be necessary when key changes are made. Your real concern is to play the lines that best allow passionate worship to happen. Each of these options might do that, in the right situation! By understanding transposition, practicing it regularly, and then using your ears to make wise choices in rehearsal and performance, you will find the right line for your worship.
Transposition is a tool that all worship bassists should have available, maintained, and ready for use. I would love to hear about your experiences transposing – leave a comment below!
Until next time, I hope that your bass playing is blessed and that you can bless others through your bass playing!
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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.
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