XB26354

From the excellent Jazz Theory Book: "scales are a[i]n available pool of notes[/i]". Also: "When playing minor harmony, think [i]key[/i], not chord."

That's an opinion, not a fact. I'm much happier playing a 5-string and active basses work better for certain styles/songs. Touring with a Modulus was a total pleasure as the neck never moved and every note was really even. Restringing a Sadowsky in a hurry is a real pleasure as I don't have to feed strings in/out through the bridge. I would say the P-bass is the best plain-sounding bass. Now there are many who think that this is all a bass should be, often the same people that think bass is "easy", should only ever plonk along on the root, and that every man should have a short back and sides (I've played with plenty of these "timewarp" musicians!). If we're not meant to play above the first 5 frets why bother putting more frets in? A Fender just wouldn't be my only bass. My opinion

I don't agree with that at all. P-basses are passive with one pickup (the wrong way round) and four strings, 20 frets and 34" scale. Whether or not you believe they are the original and therefore the best, active basses, humbuckers, 5- and 6-string basses, laminated necks and bodies, carbon fibre (necks and reinforcement), onboard eq, quick release bridges, lightweight tuners, all the other bass manufacturers' body and headstock shapes... It is certainly true that many companies have copied Fender designs, but in the case of the "improvements" listed above, Fender has been playing catch-up, and in many cases never has caught up. I don't think they were so right straight off the drawing board - they copied their own guitar design tuned it as a double bass. The fact that they "improved" upon the early Telecaster bass shows that they didn't even get the Fender right first time Fender also trades on it's historical/nostalgia appeal without really making any effort either to improve or introduce new models (anyone tried a Zone recently?). Of course the Fender bass is classic but to say that nothing good or new has come out in the last 40+ years is not accurate.

Those session guys used a P-bass because that was all there was! What else could they have played in the 60's? Rickenbacker, Hofner, Gibson, etc? The P-bass is popular because it is the original bass design (I'm ignoring the Telecaster bass here as it never proved particularly popular). Leo Fender deserves massive credit for getting 90% of it right first time. I would say an old (60's-mid 70's) good-quality P-bass is fantastic, but the quality over the years has been very variable. They work for standard [b]bass[/b] tones. Jamerson had a wonderful sound but 90% of that was in his hands - the strings were so dead and the action so high he could almost have been playing a piece of plywood. Anthony Jackson played various flavours of P-bass and hybrids and got a great sound with a pick and phaser. JJ Burnel got a huge grinding punk sound, but a lot of that was the HiWatt guitar cab with the blown speaker(s). P-basses have that "bark" and cut needed for playing most contemporary music. I would say that the only changes I would make would be to reverse the two parts of the P pickup (it has always been the wrong way round), add a J pickup at the bridge position and get a beefed up bridge. I would then be happy to take it to any gig in any style. Looks are also important - the P-bass is very familiar and regular looking (read: compatible in almost any band) because of its simplicity and heritage. Then again I've not owned one for 15 years, but that's another story!

You'll need very flexible knuckle joints to play quick alternating 4ths with one finger (for example Heard it Thru the Grapevine), plus there is a damping issue. I've never played sevenths with one finger and wouldn't advise it - you'll be fretting the seventh halfway up your finger instead of the pad, and it seriously restricts your mobility. It wouldn't work at all with major sevenths either. One finger per fret is a very general guide rule. Depends on the size of your hands and how many strings your bass has, of course.

It depends on the amount of twist, and in which direction. The usual cure is (as Bassassin mentioned) to remove the frets and plane the fingerboard but with any decent luthier that's going to be £200 upwards. If the neck has a big twist you'd be better off asking Ernie Ball for a replacement Sterling neck (Stingray neck is to wide to fit the Sterling's neck pocket), or get a luthier to make one. Adjusting the truss rod in the other direction a few turns or wrenching the neck are best left to someone that will pay out if the neck gets knackered

Played a couple of them - same old same except for the nice hard case. So what about the bridge? They finally woke up after 25 years of people putting Baddass replacements in? Other manufacturers have been using lightweight sturdy tuners for years - the fact that a 4-string Fender has neckdive is a joke. Buy it only if your bass [i]has[/i] to have Fender on the headstock.

There's one word that everyone has missed: [i]melodies[/i]. Scales become musical when they appear to function as a melody instead of an exercise. Get your favourite tunes and work out the chords and melody (or find a book if you just can't do it). Taking jazz as an example, if you're looking for melodies based on chord tones (i.e., arpeggios) then try any jazz before the mid 50's. For more scalar melodies try modal jazz (60's). Of course many artists overlap in both genres but it's a good starting point. If the tune is fairly simple the chords will probably be in one or two keys. In other styles of music the whole song (read: [i]melody[/i]) will often be in one key. This allows you to not only see how a scale works over a given chord, but also how to chain scalar or chordal lines together through changes. The next step is to build ascending and descending lines through chord changes using just half and whole steps and keeping going in the same direction when the chord changes - this is linear playing that goes beyond just one scale or one chord (harder but worth it!). Larger intervals, irregular groups and changes of direction will provide more musical interest - for example, R-4-3-2-7-5-6-9 is much more interesting and melodic over a major scale than R-3-2-4-3-5-4-6-5-7-6-R etc. One final piece of advice to make scales music. Don't start and end exercises on the root!

You read my mind Mark! I'm off next weekend to get a stool so that I can drop my legs down a bit further out of the way and have the bass in a more comfortable position. Problem is I've now realised how neck-heavy the Yamaha is So the next thing is to start hassling bass builders to make instruments that actually balance! Even with light tuners most 5 and 6 strings have got massive neck dive. This is even worse than a heavy bass as all the strain hits your left shoulder, which must be compensated for by holding the body down with right forearm - try playing floating thumb or Willis style like that! I guess the real answer is a headless bass, but most players don't like the look, so I guess a small headstock, light neck wood and slightly heavier and solid body wood, plus a meaty bridge and ultra-light tuners is the way to go...

[quote name='jakesbass' post='205792' date='May 25 2008, 01:12 AM']Jackson is one of my faves too, very individual but classic at the same time. Glamour profession on Steely Dan's Goucho is a killer line, especially as for large parts of it there is a synth on the one and the bass plays the line 'off it'. I am also a v big Jimmy Johnson fan. He has an incredibly light right hand technique, with one of the most consistent tones in the biz IMO. Jake[/quote] Hi Jake, I just transcribed that for a student, a wicked line and I had to listen to it a few times to realise he wasn't playing on the one - that line where it goes G7-F7-Eb7-Db7 and he plays 3rd-root-5th-root-3rd-root-5th-root is as simple as, yet genius! Move Me No Mountain on Naughty is a masterpiece (and bloody hard to play with a pick!). And El Realejo on Rendezvous just makes my jaw drop every time I hear it. Yet when you see him live you can't believe he can play so accurately, evenly and quickly with his technique, and he looks so uncomfortable too!

Great post Mark. I was thinking about classical music instruments. Piano, for example, uses the most efficient and ergonomic playing position and technique of all instruments. one finger makes one note, and all the notes are there in front of you (notice that you don't sit on a chair as it makes you slouch!). All good teachers look for uncomfortable positioning, tension in the student's body and and inefficent technique.The bass is much less efficient as an instrument - you have to fret a string with one hand and pluck it with the other. However the playing position should not be any less comfortable. In his 101 tips for bass and his video, Gary Wills points out that practicing seated with the bass on your right leg distorts your whole body and makes you bend your right wrist. So, having a lightweight bass, sitting on a stool or high chair instead of a low chair (which stops you from slouching), then having the bass hang in the middle with the neck angling upmakes everything slip back into alignment - the right wrist is straight, the right and left shoulders and arms move into a more natural position (the left wrist doesn't lock out sideways like with a very high strap). In this position you can play with 2, 3, or 4 fingers, floating or anchored thumb and still be in alignment. The common argument against this is that there are many fantastic players that use traditional technique, and they didn't need to do this "fancy stuff". However, how good could they have got with effortless technique? Ivor Mairants was a fantastic jazz guitarist with a very light, fluid (floating) right hand technique - he was a classical guitarist first. After a gig back in the 50's, Wes Montgomery (who was on the same bill) came up to him and said "man, your technique looks so easy, I wish I'd learned from you". Even though Wes was a fabulous player, like all great musicians he realised that his technique limited his ability to play what he could hear in his head. I really look forward to all your comments and opinions about all this technique craziness, plus any refinements you have discovered and would care to pass on. Mat

[quote name='jakesbass' post='205480' date='May 24 2008, 12:01 PM']XB, great and really knowledgable advice all round, I have never looked at the Gary Willis thing but you've sold it to me. Cheers Jake[/quote] Oh cheers! I am not 100% sure that it is suited to everyone, and I could certainly improve with it - but it's worth a try if you can't find something that works for you.... I'll be seeing Matt Garrison's trio next month so I'll take a good look and see how he plays. The YouTube stuff I have seen seems to show that he uses two fingers for legato lines and four fingers for a rapid, flamenco like line on one string. Tony Grey seems to use floating technique all the time and can certainly play ridiculously fast. But my favourite player, Anthony Jackson, seems to have a very flowery and unconventional way of playing, sometimes with the thumb, sometimes with 1, 2 or 3 fingers and of course the pick. He gets the bass sound of doom so he must be doing something right

I agree 100% - I said somewhere above that the technique should serve the sound, not the other way round. I've got about 15 years' recording experience from small commercial facilities to big budget studios. The reason I mention right hand dampening was down to a previous experience a long time ago when I got my first 5-string. I was playing a tune, the take sounded good. The engineer said "what's that rumble?". The producer and engineer scratched their heads for a while until they soloed each track individually. It was the bottom B ringing every time I played the higher strings. That session was over for me because I couldn't play the part, so I had to go home in some disgrace and actually look at my right hand for the first time. The point about taking your playing to the stage where you can record and play live in high pressure situations is that your technique has to be foolproof and [i]not get in the way of making music[/i]. Now this may mean that you have to work at your technique very hard for a long time to get it even. There is no physiological reason why we cannot play with three fingers - they're all the same size (pretty much) and although the ring finger can initially feel weak with the right practice that goes away. Piano players use all five fingers of both hands! I haven't employed the little finger as it is so much smaller than the other fingers and is noticeably weaker in the position we hold the bass. Two fingers comes from the origin of electric bass - double bass. A combination of a more guitaristic approach that still serves the bass function seems to be where electric bass technique should be headed. The payoff with the Willis technique is a very relaxed playing position, great mobility when crossing strings (accuracy means much less likelihood of messing up because of weak technique) and right hand dampening. All these things [i]clean up[/i] your technique, both live and in the studio. Engineers loved Jamerson because there was no fretbuzz or extraneous noises. With more volume, a light touch and proper technique it works just as well. I'd recommend any beginner to take a good long look at the Willis video. I have yet to see anyone else give a more convincing, logical explanation on how to play the [i]electric[/i] bass, rather than how to adapt double bass playing to electric.

Nice vid, but that guy missed the golden rule about tapping your foot - don't use the same leg that the bass is on when you're sitting down! Look at the bass bouncing all over the place... Going back to floating thumb/free strokes, a rest stroke is not just there to stop the fingers, it provides an extra "thump" to the note that gives a bass line more depth. As there is a definite termination point to the movement of your finger you can remain relaxed throughout. When playing any style the plucking hand is under tension (even if you're relaxed). With rest strokes that tension is almost immediately resolved as the finger rests on the adjacent string. With free strokes the finger is in the air somewhere above the string (you can't bring the finger further than where the string is or that would be inefficient). Gary also makes the point that a rest stroke requires less effort to play (as there is the thump to the note) - with a free stroke you have to play pretty hard to get the same volume in a note. I've sat down with both techniques for a while and don't like either the tone or the hand position one gets into with a free stroke. It works fine on guitar (which has thin strings and where chords are much more likely to be played), but bass needs more oomph. I think it is worth bearing in mind that 3 or 4-finger techniques work better on narrow spacing at the bridge - 16-17mm - as wide spacing (like on a P-bass) stretches the gap between index and ring finger at rest, distorting the hand a little (but there is not a lot in it TBH). Notice also that Gary gets a very crisp and defined sound, yet it sounds very clean. That is right hand dampening. Free strokes don't dampen anything so something else has to. However, if you play one note on one string then one note on the next string up and repeat quickly, how can you dampen the strings? I guess you must use the left hand or else your right hand would be moving back and forth - hardly efficient! I think what you mention about the stroke just missing the string is also telling - if you're going to move the finger right next to the string then dampen it, get a thicker tone and rest it on the string with next to zero added effort. Then again, we do have to put all of this in perspective as James Jamerson played absolutely killer lines basically with [i]one[/i] finger!

Steady on Harry.... Well I definitely notice a difference with body woods - I had a Warwick Corvette with an ash body and it was much more open an growly than the same bass with a bubinga body. I would say that darker hardwoods compress the sound - it is deeper but has less dynamic variation. Lighter softwoods vibrate over a larger frequency range. For rock or metal where you need a cutting sound hardwoods work well. For a more open sound (eg for fretless or jazz) maybe softwoods are better. Two of the most detailed, alive sounding basses I have played had maple and swamp ash bodies. I also (briefly) owned a Ken Smith Black Tiger that was much richer and alive than an almost identical Elite G I owned with a mahogany core. I find mahogany to be warm but too muddy by itself for most basses (and I had 3 Wals as well!) My current favourite is straight alder (also with a maple top) - balanced, warm but classic (which is why Fenders sound great!). Then again, I played an Ibanez GWB35 today (basswood, made in Korea) and it has to be the best fretless I have played for donkeys years - wonderful neck, nice tone and a killer B for £450? Amazing...

That's a toughie. The Gallery has both in stock - the Highway one is nice, balances well and is pretty quiet. It doesn't have much of an individual sound though. The Jaguar is very noisy on some settings, has poor balance due to the short top horn but looks the business and sounds nice - get it in red and for god's sake fit a Badass If you're looking for a fabulous jazz they have a Jap 75 reissue with rosewood board and blocks in natural for around £500 - very nice indeed... If you're anywhere local to London maybe pop in and do your own shootout!

Agreed - a Warwick would cut through in the metal band and funk it up for you, likewise a Spector (though I didn't like the Euros I have played much), the Lakland would have less cut and a bit more of a Fender-type sound. AFAIK you won't find an available bass in this country with everything you specify unless you get it custom built, and tbh with such a long list of requirements that would be your best bet. Open the wallet though

I think Prince actually played the bass line as well - fantastic!

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='200674' date='May 16 2008, 07:48 PM']Sorry, yes, I realise I didn't make that very clear did I? It sounds to me like making an offer would definitely be worth a crack. The lack of hang tags does concern me a little though. Did someone return it, I wonder?[/quote] Beats me why they got it in anyway, unless the distributor insisted they take in US ones too. How is anyone going to sell a £3K bass when it is hung up with dead strings, massive action and dust and crap all over it? And before you say vintage Fender, you know what I mean

I'd agree with you about the tucked up hand Mark. I think that it would be easy to get into the bad habit of clenching the fist - plus it's not so comfortable if you want to switch techniques. And if you use 3-4 fingers you can't anyway However Dave is definitely right to say that we should look for tension in the right hand and eliminate it, something that took me years to unlearn. The 1-2-3-4 exercise - spot on! I can't believe people teach that to beginners at the 1st fret! As I have said before - you don't need strength to play the bass! Flexibility will improve your fretting technique (and the span between them) whilst being relaxed. You're pushing a metal string (under no more than 30Kg tension) down no more than 5mm so it just touches the fret. A toddler could do it. Beginners usually fret the notes with strength instead of technique. That's why their hands get tired quickly. The 1 finger per fret system - I agree with Dave to an extent. It does depend on a number of factors: Size of fretting hand/finger - bigger hands and especially longer fingers can reach farther with less tension. Scale length of bass - longer scale means frets are a bit farther apart - counter to the above. Shape of bass - basses with a longer top horn bring the 1st fret nearer to the body, making it easier to reach. Number of frets - 24+ fret necks tend to reshape the bass so the 1st fret moves further away from the body, usually countered with the above. Number of strings - a 4 string will be easier to play root-5 on than a 7 string! If you have a Fender Jazz (20 frets, 4 strings, tiny nut width) and big hands then it's easy even in the first position. If you're playing a 36" scale 6-string and you've got small hands (like Anthony Jackson) you may have to play everything using a 3-fret span. I think root octave is more comfortable for most as index-pinky, so it's natural that root-5-octave will feel nice with index-ring-pinky. The big proviso here (which Dave mentions) is that this works [i]if there are no notes immediately above[/i]. I think, Dave, these videos are a good idea - wish I had them 25 years ago (or even at the bass institute 15 years ago because I'm afraid they taught nothing about right hand technique then - except how to play hard). Keep up the good work.