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More than 4?

Bilbo

By Bilbo,
in Bass Guitars

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teen t-shirt

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i personally started on a 4 because at the time due to conditions i couldn't effect that was all i could have...

but because of the music i play and the way i play and the band i am in it doesn't limit me to 4 strings (i am infact looking into 5 strings) but because i learnt on 4 strings 4 strings is comfortable for me but i want to expand...

i won't comment on "ERB" players because i have no experience of them...

if however in the future i actually do witness a bass player with more than 6 strings well only time can tell...

:)

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Dood Grand Master

Dood

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[quote name='OldGit' post='89422' date='Nov 16 2007, 02:28 PM']Small World :) I was chatting with Burke Shelly, Budgie bass player, last night and he was struggling to play my Shuker P5 a few weeks ago "I know how to work a Precision" he said then "er, it's got 5 strings ... and can I make the strap shorter?" (He's about 5' 3" :huh: )
He did a fine job on it though ..
Sadly no pixie dust was passed on so I'm still a numpty whilst he is still superb:
"Bass player/vocalist Burke Shelley is one of the truly great but underrated singers to emerge in the 70s. His delivery throughout this album is faultless and his bass playing is magnificent."[/quote]

t'is a small world!!!!

[quote]I've read quite a few comments saying "you can't use an ERB in a band context" "people only use them for tapping/showing off" "you don't see an ERB at your local open mic night" etc.[/quote]

I actually can't think of a reply to people who make such comments as they are so ridiculous.

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metalmaniac Explorer

metalmaniac

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I played in my rock band with my 7 string (may soon have recordings for you) where I play the bass plus tap a melody out, whilst the guitar (also extended range) played ambient notes and overtones.
Me and my guitarist would play counter rhythms to each-other where I would tap a pattern and he would use that as a spring board to allow him to play more diverse idea for the lead guitar.
I also played finger-style, across all strings, no tapping, chording, and sometimes slap.
Not limited to tapping.

I also played an open mic night with my 7 string playing a Jazz/Rock mix which many people commended me on, and I was even offered a spot in a band.

I also played my fretless 4 at the same night.

Ive never heard such small minded-ness as saying ERB's are pointless, you cnat use them in a band.

If you dont like people trying new styles of music, or new methods of making music, why dont you burn all your basses and all your music.

If it was not for people pushing music and instruments further there'd be no point in music itself.



PS, that doesnt mean I dont respect classical forms of music and standard instruments.

Edited by metalmaniac
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Steve Lawson Contributor

Steve Lawson

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[quote name='6stringbassist' post='88124' date='Nov 13 2007, 10:18 PM']When did you last see Matt Garrison (he plays a 5 string I know, but it has the range of a 6 string), or John Patitucci, or Steve Lawson, or Michael Manring, or Yves Carbonne playing the sort of songs that a pub band plays, they don't, they use the ERB for what it was intended for, that is playing BEYOND the role of a normal bass.[/quote]

As the only one of the named players who actually posts here, I will say that I do use my 6 string on 'pub band' gigs, or at least wedding gigs (I avoided pubs for years cos of smoke, and haven't been asked to play one since the ban :) )...

However, the reason for this is that, at least for my hands, 6 string seems to be as big as you can go whilst the ergonomics of the instrument still work for prolonged 'normal' bass playing. They may well exist, but I've not yet played a 7,8,9+ stringed instrument on which I could comfortably play 'normal' bass lines for any length of time. my 6 string Moduluses are more than comfortable to be used in either a 'normal' bass capacity or a a more 'Bass 2.0' setting.

For wedding gigs, I often only take on 6 string bass, either fretted or fretless, and play a mixture of jazz, soul, funk, 70s stuff on it, and VERY rarely solo... I could take a 4, but the 6s have a different tone and don't inhibit any kind of other playing.

From my experience, 7+ strings tend to be approached as two instruments in one, with a very definite divide between what happens at the bottom and top of the neck. No problem with that at all, but it is a difference of approach.

Of course there are always people who buck the trend - Roy Vogt is a fantastic bassist who played 7 string with Englebert Humperdink!!

cheers

Steve
www.stevelawson.net

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MB1 Veteran

MB1

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[quote name='Steve Lawson' post='92954' date='Nov 22 2007, 07:38 PM']By 'named' I just meant 'mentioned in the list of players in the quoted text... :huh:

Steve
www.stevelawson.net[/quote]

MB1. :)
Ive seen,heard and Emailed you before,just pulling ya leg! Steve. :huh:

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synaesthesia Collaborator

synaesthesia

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[quote name='bilbo230763' post='87799' date='Nov 13 2007, 11:45 AM']'bassplayer magazine apaprently didn't believe jaco's portrait of tracy was a bass guitar when they first heard it'

I thought bass player magazine didn't exist when Jaco released Portrait of Tracy?[/quote]

You thought right. Bass Player came into existence some 15 - 16 years after the release of Jaco's first album.

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Dood Grand Master

Dood

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[quote name='Machines' post='92961' date='Nov 22 2007, 07:49 PM']Hey Steve, has anyone ever said you look like Geddy Lee ?!

:)[/quote]


Well, you've never seen the two together have you??? hmmmmmmmmmm

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Dood Grand Master

Dood

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[quote name='Steve Lawson' post='93077' date='Nov 22 2007, 11:46 PM']Haha, the Geddy thing crops up on online forums every few months. I was pretty freaked out when I watched the 'Rush In Rio' DVD, thinking 'I don't remember playing to that many people!!' - however, he's considerably shorter and older than me. :)

Steve
www.stevelawson.net[/quote]


lol.... I unfortunately made the mistake of bleaching my hair just before Nickelback first hit the charts,

I have never got such a ribbing from complete strangers before. OY CHAD!

oh dear......

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Steve Lawson Contributor

Steve Lawson

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Posted (edited)

LOL @ Dood.

Anyway, back on topic, the subject of ERB is an interesting one, in that it seems to get people so worked up! When my first solo album came out in 2000 I got SO MANY emails from Americans utterly disgusted that I dared to call what I was doing 'bass playing', writing insane things like 'yeah, buddy, you try and play like that in my reggae beach-party band and see how far it'll get you'... as though I was planning on looping and playing chords in a reggae beach party band... hmmmm.

Bassists seem to suffer from a confusion of 'tools' and 'outcome' more than almost any other musical group - we argue about what are the 'correct' and 'acceptable' ways to use a particular instrument, instead of measuring the process based on the outcome. After all, with music, all that really matters is what comes out of the speakers. That bass players so often forget this is why the world of solo bass is littered with 'circus bass' - technical wizardry performed only for other bassists to salivate over, with little - or hidden - musical content. We get hung up on adding more strings, playing faster, getting bigger amps, cleverer gear, when for the audience, the more transparent that stuff is, the easier it is to get into what's actually happening music... unless you want to spend your life playing to small groups of other bassists for 15 minutes at a time (that seems to be the upper limit of stamina for pure circus bass.. :) )

That's not to say that some great music hasn't come from the world of technical extravagance and 7+ stringed instruments - Jean Baudin and Trip Wamsley are both making beautiful music on 8/9/10/11 stringed instruments. That none of those instruments seem to work ergonomically for me means nothing in the light of the beautiful music that comes from those two players. Michael Manring has the most outrageous technical skills of any bassist I've ever seen, but I've also never seen it get in the way of 'the music'. It's exciting, impressive, clever, extravagant, but utterly compelling and deep too...

So what are we to do? Well, there are two sets of voices that need disregarding if we're up for pursuing music of substance - firstly, the luddites saying 'that's not a real bass' - yeah, yeah, then call it a f***ing banjo, what you label an instrument has has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of the music it makes... so life's too short to worry about such things. Secondly though, we also need to avoid the trap of believing the people who tell us we're badasses just because we play 9 string bass, or can slap really fast, or tap really complex lines. Those complex lines still have to be musical, still have to be engaging, and the difficultly with doing those kinds of things on bass is that the whole notion of playing more than bass lines on an electric bass is such a young concept that there's precious little music of quality and depth out there that shows us what's going on. So look elsewhere for inspiration. To guitar, keyboards, sax, orchestras, etc. etc. critique the SOUND, the tone, the shape of the notes, the integrity of the phrase, not just the dexterity and the flash-quotient.

As I write this I'm listening to a MIDI file of some music that I need to learn for a gig tomorrow - the music is amazing, complex, deep, beautiful... does that stop the MIDI file sounding like total sh*t? Nope, not one bit. I still wouldn't listen to this out of choice. There's no humanity in the line. Bassists are often guilty of removing the life from phrasing because we spend the rest of our lives trying to be regular, on the beat, consistent etc... all qualities that can stifle a tune...

think deep,

Steve
[url="http://www.stevelawson.net"]http://www.stevelawson.net[/url]

Edited by Steve Lawson
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Dood Grand Master

Dood

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[quote name='Steve Lawson' post='93264' date='Nov 23 2007, 12:15 PM']LOL @ Dood.

Anyway, back on topic, the subject of ERB is an interesting one, in that it seems to get people so worked up! When my first solo album came out in 2000 I got SO MANY emails from Americans utterly disgusted that I dared to call what I was doing 'bass playing', writing insane things like 'yeah, buddy, you try and play like that in my reggae beach-party band and see how far it'll get you'... as though I was planning on looping and playing chords in a reggae beach party band... hmmmm.

Bassists seem to suffer from a confusion of 'tools' and 'outcome' more than almost any other musical group - we argue about what are the 'correct' and 'acceptable' ways to use a particular instrument, instead of measuring the process based on the outcome. After all, with music, all that really matters is what comes out of the speakers. That bass players so often forget this is why the world of solo bass is littered with 'circus bass' - technical wizardry performed only for other bassists to salivate over, with little - or hidden - musical content. We get hung up on adding more strings, playing faster, getting bigger amps, cleverer gear, when for the audience, the more transparent that stuff is, the easier it is to get into what's actually happening music... unless you want to spend your life playing to small groups of other bassists for 15 minutes at a time (that seems to be the upper limit of stamina for pure circus bass.. :) )

That's not to say that some great music hasn't come from the world of technical extravagance and 7+ stringed instruments - Jean Baudin and Trip Wamsley are both making beautiful music on 8/9/10/11 stringed instruments. That none of those instruments seem to work ergonomically for me means nothing in the light of the beautiful music that comes from those two players. Michael Manring has the most outrageous technical skills of any bassist I've ever seen, but I've also never seen it get in the way of 'the music'. It's exciting, impressive, clever, extravagant, but utterly compelling and deep too...

So what are we to do? Well, there are two sets of voices that need disregarding if we're up for pursuing music of substance - firstly, the luddites saying 'that's not a real bass' - yeah, yeah, then call it's a f***ing banjo, what you label an instrument has has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of the music it makes... so life's to short to worry about such things. Secondly though, we also need to avoid the trap of believing the people who tell us we're badasses just because we play 9 string bass, or can slap really fast, or tap really complex lines. Those complex lines still have to be musical, still have to be engaging, and the difficultly with doing those kinds of things on bass is that the whole notion of playing more than bass lines on an electric bass is such a young concept that there's precious little music of quality and depth out there that shows us what's going on. So look elsewhere for inspiration. To guitar, keyboards, sax, orchestras, etc. etc. critique the SOUND, the tone, the shape of the notes, the integrity of the phrase, not just the dexterity and the flash-quotient.

As I write this I'm listening to a MIDI file of some music that I need to learn for a gig tomorrow - the music is amazing, complex, deep, beautiful... does that stop the MIDI file sounding like total sh*t? Nope, not one bit. I still wouldn't listen to this out of choice. There's no humanity in the line. Bassists are often guilty of removing the life from phrasing because we spend the rest of our lives trying to be regular, on the beat, consistent etc... all qualities that can stifle a tune...

think deep,

Steve
[url="http://www.stevelawson.net"]http://www.stevelawson.net[/url][/quote]


Brilliant post Steve. +1million. There has been one or two bl**dy brilliant posts on basschat recently and this is defintely one of them. I almost wanna put it into the 'famous quotes' thread.

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bass_ferret Newbie

bass_ferret

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[quote name='Steve Lawson' post='93264' date='Nov 23 2007, 12:15 PM']So what are we to do? Well, there are two sets of voices that need disregarding if we're up for pursuing music of substance - firstly, the luddites saying 'that's not a real bass' - yeah, yeah, then call it's a f***ing banjo, what you label an instrument has has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of the music it makes...[/quote]
Have you played a bass banjo?

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Steve Lawson Contributor

Steve Lawson

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[quote name='bass_ferret' post='93277' date='Nov 23 2007, 12:36 PM']Have you played a bass banjo?[/quote]

My bass teacher at college had a thing that was called a bass banjo, made out of a Precision neck and a kick drum! Sounded pretty amazing, I seem to remember... :)

Steve
[url="http://www.stevelawson.net"]http://www.stevelawson.net[/url]

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OldGit Mentor

OldGit

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Posted (edited)

[quote name='Steve Lawson' post='93282' date='Nov 23 2007, 12:51 PM']My bass teacher at college had a thing that was called a bass banjo, made out of a Precision neck and a kick drum! Sounded pretty amazing, I seem to remember... :)

Steve
[url="http://www.stevelawson.net"]<a href="http://www.stevelawson.net" target="_blank">http://www.stevelawson.net[/url]</a>[/quote]

I kinda like that :huh:

[url="http://www.jobass.com/"]http://www.jobass.com/[/url]


Blige! Vic even plays one

Edited by OldGit
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