It's essential to express emotions and ideas through your musicianship, if only for your audience's sake. To that end, you have to understand the goals and agenda of each piece of music, in each section, and in each genre. If you're playing a bandmate's composition or a cover tune, you need to get inside the mind of the songwriter in an attempt to comprehend what he is trying to say with the song. Even if it's your own song, you need to think about what you want to say with the tune. This is not always easy to know!This is why the most thoughtful or contemplative musicians are usually the best musicians.

If a bass part is more or less prewritten, it's still important to breathe fresh life into it by playing with the right articulation, technique, emotion, and intent. Plus, nine times out of ten, there is always some room for improvisation or modification of an existing part, as long as you make appropriate changes. With all this in mind, you'll need to consider how and what to play in order to modify a bass part for a song. Overall, in rock, pop, country, and other commercial music styles, the bass is almost never out front. Instead, it usually plays a supporting role. However, that doesn't mean that the bass lines have to be tedious or dull.