guitars

[YouMa]

I am thinking of playing guitar a bit more,I have noticed lately if i leave the bass for a month or so then switch over my bass playing improves! And vice versa,anyone else done this? or am i being spirited to the darkside?

[mcgraham]

I have phases. But I spend significantly more time on bass than guitar. Guitar is just different, it's a wonderful way to broaden your musical horizons. A good second instrument.

Mark

[YouMa]

Sometimes it does feel like i can be a bit more dramatic on guitar.I tend to play guitar when im in a janes addiction type of mood,but if im into funky bass dominated stuff ill head straight for my bass.

[Wil]

I haven't touched a bass in months, to be honest. All the time I spend making music these days is on my acoustic, a bloody lovely Norman B18. Only set me back £200, but it's as fine a guitar as I've played.

One day, I shall have a handmade classical guitar, when I have enough superfluous income. Oh, and some old Fender electrics. And a Paul Gilbert Ibanez an' all.

[Mr. Foxen]

A few times I've thought of a way of putting together a nice guitar out of something a bit crap I've acquired, get all enthused about guitars, make it then never play it. It's inevitable black pointy metal guitars too, got a collection now, never play them, no-one else even wants to look at them. Got a full valve stack sat about too, completely pointless, not even like I'm minted to have such toys laying about, just opportunistic. Even when I'm writing a guitar part, usually use an acoustic laying about.

Get a mando or something, can do chords and learn to think in 5ths.

[Mr Fudge]

p and p and p an o is my weapon of choice within my own 4 walls.

[YouMa]

I play acoustic to nick drake and john martyn are nice to play bizarre tunings.

[noelk27]

[quote name='YouMa' post='292307' date='Sep 25 2008, 10:31 PM']or am i being spirited to the darkside?[/quote]

Interesting ...

I suppose it depends on your ambitions as a musician. Personally I think that it's essential to play more than one instrument - and I consider myself fortunate that I can play all the three essentials for a rock musician: guitar, bass and drums. Sure, I'm a jack-of-all-trades, but a master of none - but I'd rather be that than limited by tunnel vision or prejudice. But even more so, as a songwriter, I can't imagine how I would cope without time spent regularly playing guitar. Oddly, I find that I write better melody lines when I use a bass - something that I've never been able to understand.

Your observation makes sense to me. I've always found that my abilities on any one instrument plateau, and that no matter how much time I spend practising, continuously, this doesn't change. But taking time away, and then going back, it's as though that time has allowed all the practice to cross some brain barrier, and enter my subconscious - and I find my hands can then do what it was my brain was asking them to do, but they couldn't.

Darkside, no. More like enlightenment.

[backwater]

I would say that bass is my second instrument as my main interest is acoustic guitar (having been lucky enough to get a hand-made 6 and 12 string!). But I do find that when I switch back to bass my accuracy for fretting has improved as you can get away with a bit of sloppy fingering on a bass but not on a guitar (particularly the 12 string)

Now when I switch to mandolin or cittern that's another matter! My best advice is don't swap straight from bass to mandolin - the fingers get very confused.

Andy

[Bilbo]

I actually have more guitars than basses (4:2 ratio) and also have a piano I am messing about with (as much as a midi controller as an instrument in its own right).

The study of music is what matters here not the study of technique. The greatest composer/instrumentalists in jazz are nearly all multi-instrumentalists. Mingus played piano (inc recording LPs) as does drummer Jack DeJohnette, who has recorded on the instrument many times. Pat Metheny writes on piano. Guitarist Birelli Lagrene plays great Jaco influenced bass whilst bassists Dave Holland and Jack Bruce both play cello. Trumpter Wynton Marsalis plays piano whilst drummer Omar Hakim has played guitar on Weather Report cds. The list goes on and on.

I would recommend all bass players play either guitar or piano as an undersatnding of chords is central to your ability to play great bass lines. No need to achieve virtuoso level, just enough to be able to hear stuff!

[john_the_bass]

I have more guitars than basses too - actually i've ot 4 times as many guitars as basses I certainy think playing the guitar makes me better at playing bass and vice versa and what really develops my musicality (if there is such a word) is playing covers and having to play stuff other people have written, rather that getting to a stage in what I've made up myself and not really progressing past what I know.

[Buzz]

I've picked up a guitar here and there, currently got a Squier Affinity Tele and what was a Swift Les Paul copy (now sanded down and in the process of being refinished and tidied up).

It's nice to be able to play multiple instruments with different techniques, I still remember fingering combinations for the valves on Trumpets after playing them for a few years.

That, and it's fun to hammer out a load of chords quickly

[Earbrass]

I was/am a piano player first and a bass player second- guitar comes a very poor third (though I have a decent acoustic and a frankenfender strat I put together from bits). I think keyboards and bass are a good combination: the piano is a great instrument for learning harmony and theory generally, and I think that helps a lot with bass lines. There seems to be a bit of a tradition of bass players doubling on keys (though now I come to think of it, only JP Jones and Macca come to mind - surely there are others). I also very nearly took up the English concertina a few months back - but then found a band that would have me as a bassist, so decided I'd better concentrate on that for now.

[lemmywinks]

The main instrument i play around the house is my classical. I have a nice Art et Lutherie acoustic too but always prefer the classical. My main instrument is by far the bass but i love self-accompaniment on a nylon string guitar.
Plus it's funny when a guitarist gives you a guitar and finds out you actually have a lot more understanding of it than they do!

[The Funk]

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='292655' date='Sep 26 2008, 12:26 PM']I actually have more guitars than basses (4:2 ratio)[/quote]

That's almost 2:1!

[noelk27]

[quote name='lemmywinks' post='292835' date='Sep 26 2008, 03:21 PM']Plus it's funny when a guitarist gives you a guitar and finds out you actually have a lot more understanding of it than they do! [/quote]

So true.

[Alastair]

I know the feeling.

Thinking about getting a Banjo lately.

No, really.