josie

Well done. Any bass player should be used to tuning into what the drummer is doing, but doing it yourself is a whole different ball game. My drummer son has very recently seriously taken up playing bass (inspired partly by me playing, and partly by me going halves with him on the purchase of a new MIA Fender P - oh my poor bank balance ) and he's already better than I am. As above, proper rhythm section. So how many of you started playing bass because your mother did?

Perhaps slightly OT, but the "Acoustic Stage" at many festivals I've been to is really just the smaller stage, and the bands playing on it are often full-on electric. Perhaps instead of using "Acoustic" in your band name, you could use "Small"?

Welcome Mark! My first guitar was a Faith Venus. Beautiful instrument. Looking forward to hearing more from you!

Welcome (back)! Lots of generous good knowledge here, ask and enjoy!

My GMR BassForce 5 bolt-on has superb sustain - she's a naturally lyrical, melodic instrument. But my newly acquired GMR Flow-In 5 neck-through, which is heavier and feels as if it should be punchier, has even better sustain. I'm thinking of re-stringing it with rounds to see if that gives it a crisper, brighter sound. (If only so I can justify having both )

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1480885091' post='3187864'] I like a gear stalker, I'm always happy to oblige a polite one [/quote] You're the kind of bass player I like, where are you playing next?

I can only play with a pick due to long-term right elbow RSI, but I do use different picks, and where on the strings I pick relative to the pickups, to vary the tone. So voted the third option.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1480883092' post='3187828'] I must say it's mainly been trouble from you girls joining in unannounced Josie [/quote] I will confess to occasionally trying out someone else's bass after a gig - but only if they handed it to me unasked!

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1480882518' post='3187812'] To be fair, Sunshine isn't exactly a tricky tune. You don't have to know it's a pentatonic minor scale to nail it in a few seconds. If the guitarist missed that he was playing it wrong, I suspect he isn't as natural or skilful as you give him credit for... [/quote] It was specifically the little chromatic A - G# - G run that threw him - three notes with two semi-tone intervals. Obviously not a blues man (sadly).

I once saw a guitarist packing up after a gig in a very crowded blues festival fringe venue come back from loading out the first armfuls to see two drunken girls having a go at the rest of the kit - and it took him a scarily long time to push his way back through the crowd to stop them. I suggested he and his mates should invest a few pennies in hi-viz vests - at least they would have got through a lot faster!

This came up in an interesting way at Aynsley Lister's guitar weekend a couple of months ago. He grew up in a family of musicians and can do pretty much anything by ear and instinct. His bass player, Steve Amadeo, who four of us were working with, is very strong on understanding the structure of scales and chords. As is my excellent teacher. Given the root notes for a song, how do you know without a lot of trial and error - which you might not have time for - which notes will sound good as fills and runs between them? A slightly different example: "my band" had a go at "Sunshine of Your Love" on Friday. I had it nailed, because I knew the bassline was a pentatonic minor scale. The lead guitarist, who is a much more natural and skillful musician than I, has no idea what one of them is, and it turns out had been playing it wrongly for years. The first thing I do now when I start to learn a new song is to figure out what key it's in and play that scale, in different places and fingerings on the fretboard, until it's completely familiar. Then playing the basic bassline, and any degree of ornamentation on it, comes easily.

Possibly just me, but for me it's consistent with the role of the bass in the band mix that the bass player doesn't try to make him- or her-self conspicuous by leaping about. People who care about bass will watch you, people who don't, don't want to be distracted from the lead guitar or singer. I do expect, and enjoy, watching how the bass player interacts with the other band members, but any vigorous or flashy moves just annoy me. "I always said I wanted to stand in the shadows Playing bass at the left of the stage half-hidden from view..."

Stockport gets overshadowed by Manchester, but has plenty of good pub venues, and a fine community of local musicians who play together in shifting combinations, as well as stable small bands. (Rowland Jones, a fine blues man, calls his band "The Moveable Feast" because he works with so many different musicians that even he isn't always sure until the last minute who is going to be with him for any given gig - and they are always excellent.) Victor Brox and Kyla Brox both do regular free gigs, which makes it close to blues heaven. And they are all welcoming, you can quickly become part of the mix if you're reasonably good and have a friendly flexible attitude. Manchester is 10 minutes away by train for when you want the bright lights and the bigger venues. And some of the best Manchester musicians come out and join the Stockport mix as well.

Just back from seeing Marillion at the Manchester Academy. Awesome. New material, still proper classic prog rock, complete with strange complex visuals - rare to see live these days. Not my most favourite genre of music, but well done, live, in a room packed with hardcore fans it's one heck of an experience.

Great photo, thank you! My Faith acoustic guitar has a fur-lined hard case - the original Josie (my avatar) found it half-open one day and so much loved curling up in it that I left it that way for her. Her most favourite place is my lap, so she gets pretty much anything else she wants.

A very beautiful part of the world. I no longer have any family there, sadly, but I miss it.

At Colne blues festival this year, I was sitting with a serious, long-term, knowledgeable blues fan acquaintance and commented when Wilko Johnson came on that it was unusual to see a Tele with a Jazz - Tele / P and Strat / J is highly predictable. To my surprise he "had never noticed that"!

Interesting how this thread has developed into three different strands. One is about having a back-up in case of problems - which might be hidden behind an amp or even in the boot of the car. Another is about good reasons for using more than one during a gig, for different sound qualities (tuning or strings), keeping them ready to hand in a neat compact stand. The third - which I had in mind in the OP, but all are interesting to read - is - perhaps to put it crudely - about showing off your collection. I seldom see a bass player with two basses both set conspicuously on stands to be admired - and I've never seen a bass displayed on stage which wasn't used during the set - but lead guitarists seem to do it often. Also I guess more of the audience will recognise the difference between types of guitar than types of bass? I recently went to a blues gig with a dear friend who appreciated the sound, but genuinely asked me how I could tell the difference between a guitar and a bass just seeing them stood on stage before the gig. She really did want to know and was glad to learn (length of neck, number of strings, spacing of frets in that order). But I bet more non-musicians can tell a Strat from a Tele, than can tell a J from a P. Thoughts, anyone?

That's what I was hoping - and very helpful, thank you!

Welcome! Whereabouts in Maine? I grew up in South Freeport.

I've been thinking about this for a while. Typical rock or blues/rock gig, the lead guitarist will have four or five guitars on stage, and sometimes will only play two of them. It's like he (almost always male) just wants to show off his collection. How often do you see a bass player with more than one bass on stage? I know one who had a second because some of the songs were in a different tuning and it saved him re-tuning, which makes sense. Are electric guitars really that much more different from each other in sound than basses, or does the lead guitar sound vary more through a set than the underpinning bass sound, or is it just that lead guitarists tend to be show-offs and bass players just enjoy getting on with our back-room, backbone role?

Spare battery and screwdriver installed in the gig-bags of the two I gig. Cable for my local om, which is very well run but does have occasional cable problems. But I check the batteries every three months (as today) and generally "prevention is better than cure". Mind you if I ever get to the level where more depends on it - and if I'm not as usual going by public transport - I might take a "spare" bass. If only to show off

[quote name='PaulGibsonBass' timestamp='1480193959' post='3182477'] I personally don't see the point in owning an expensive instrument but leaving it at home and gigging a cheap one (unless in a particularly rowdy venue) but that's just me. [/quote] I've only had the Flow-In a couple of months. I'll take her out sometime, somewhere safe. I'm certainly not going to gig a conspicuous £3k bass (cost me £950) in a crowded venue in central Manchester and then walk to Piccadilly station with her on my back! The "cheap one" is also a superb instrument to play, but doesn't visually shout "I'm worth stealing". I'm also, just socially, not comfortable turning up to my local audience with a bass which shouts "I have more disposable income than you". That's nothing to do with the OP, just part of my thinking.

Question from a relative newbie: how important is it to use a specifically bass cable with an electric bass? I understand why it's important to have a bass amp, and stuff about the properties of low-frequency sound waves, but the cable? I'm asking because I need another cable, and "bass" as opposed to "guitar or bass" cables seem to be hard to find, and expensive when you can find them. Given that I'm playing through a Marshall 15 watt bass amp at home, and through whatever general-purpose rig is available when I'm out, is it worth holding out for a bass cable, or will a decent quality general-purpose one be good enough? Any advice welcome!

Yes, the whole family is consistent. It did take me a long time to get used to the fact that the string "below" the one you're on is "below" in tone and therefore "above" on the fretboard!