josie

Abel Cordovez - Spanish reggae. I was lucky enough to see him do a solo acoustic gig in a tiny club in the north of Tenerife a couple of years ago. ps I've only just now discovered, in looking for a link to post, that there's a whole sub-genre of Canarian reggae, politically aligned with Canarias Libre. Which does make sense - they see themselves as a native island culture oppressed by a remote foreign power. They have a point.

In my dreams! I'd love to be good enough... Check Andy's website. Lots of excellent live music pics. This is very much his style, lots of black and white and odd angles.

Welcome!

Welcome!

This a kind off the wall suggestion, and a bit extreme, but you might consider a u-bass. A friend of mine has gradually developed shoulder problems and arthritis in his fingers, and has gone from a P to a viola-bass to a u-bass. He gets a better sound from the u-bass than he did from the viola, and finds it easier to play. I don't know the make but can find out if you like.

If I could afford a custom build for pure self-indulgence it would be a GMR Bassforce fretless 5 - I love my fretted 5 and fretless 4. It would probably cost a lot less than £3k. They deserve to cost much more than they do. The most I've ever spent on a bass was US$2000 for my 1966 Gibson EB-2. Worth every cent. But I'd agree as said above, if it was me I'd go into someplace with a good second-hand range and try everything until I picked one up and it said "I love you". That's how I chose my first bass, the GMR 5 - I went into Promenade Music in Morecambe, knowing only that I wanted a 5, with a budget of £500. Two hours and two cups of coffee later I came out with the love of my life 🙂

Can't resist sharing this pic by the excellent Andy Hibbs from the Aynsley Lister guitar weekend.

So when do the "civilians" in the audience ever comprehend anything the bass player does? I did have a lovely moment last summer after a festival gig when a very elderly lady came up to me, put her hand on my arm, smiled and said "Thank you - the bass drives the band, you know!" 🙂

My two fretless basses, acoustic and electric, both have D'Addario chrome flats and they're equally good on both. I'm planning to put tapes on the acoustic fretless and move the flats to the fretted acoustic (when I can afford to! 😞 ) The acoustics are sister Michael Kellys, so I'm assuming that since the flats are fine on the fretless they'll be fine on the fretted as well.

Aynsley Lister's guitar tuition weekend. I put my Ibby 6 through a good rig at good volume for the first time ( @Steve Amadeo 's Aguilar rig) and it sounded even better than I expected. Played a few blues standards with a great drummer and an assortment of excellent guitarists, great energy and synergy. Audience of maybe 30, mostly other guitarists, wonderful vibe 🙂

If you bond with it, it's the right bass.

@12stringbassist does this well. I only do it on the rare occasions when I'm solo, and I then play minimal root notes while I'm singing and elaborate the bassline between verses. As said, put in as much practice time as it takes to nail one so you can do it while thinking about the other. Best wishes!

Welcome! It's so important to start with a bass you're in love with. If you're anything like me, there will be times when you'd give up if you had a boring "beginner's bass", but she won't let you. Very best wishes, and please let us know how it goes.

Welcome!

Sympathy! I've come through a rock-bottom couple of years (clinical diagnosis of trauma due to domestic %^&*) and one of my most important lifelines was my regular om duo partner, a brusque sort of chap who would just say "These are the two songs you're going to play with me next week" and I would do it, often resentfully, often badly, but it kept me alive. (Probably literally.) He's now in a dark place and I'm doing the same for him. I've also all my adult life managed severe Seasonal Affective Disorder, which does have the advantage that one knows exactly what is causing it and when the black dog will take his teeth out of one's throat and start to slink back into his corner. I've posted quite a bit about this on the "Depression" thread on OT. But I've discovered something else just in the last few days which is a bit of a light bulb moment. I decided that first thing every morning (well, after making a cup of good coffee - which I set up the night before to make it easy), while sitting with my light box, I would pick up my favourite bass and just play a few simple scales and riffs, stuff I could do with my eyes closed years ago. Startling. It somehow seems to wake up some good brain circuits which had shut down, and - the really surprising thing - the physical feel of the vibrations of the bass body feels strongly comforting and healing. I should have started doing this long ago. Even on a bad day when I never pick up the bass again, it reminds me, keeps me in touch. The thing is, if you have your favourite bass on a floor stand literally in arm's reach of your favourite chair, so you can reach out for it without thinking, then maybe you will. Please don't sell everything. It would mean that coming back to it would mean the effort and expense of going out and finding new gear - which you might not like as much anyway... and that might well be enough to stop you doing it. But if that one bass you love most is still there... I've been an expert hand knitter almost all my life, I've designed and knitted museum quality Shetland lace shawls, among other things. Back in that bad time, I decided to give all my knitting stuff to my sister-in-law, but couldn't figure out how to get it to her, so it sat in the loft. Assumed I would never even think about doing it again. And then last year when my bass teacher was expecting his first baby I just suddenly wanted to knit a baby blanket, dragged some stuff down from the loft, found myself designing an original riff on some traditional patterns, and felt like I'd had an amputated body part re-attached. Sorry, I didn't mean to go on so long. Hope this helps. Josie x

Nice! I'm an Aynsley fan. I've been to a few of his guitar weekends and worked with his usual bass player, @Steve Amadeo, who is a lovely guy and a very good teacher as well as a fine bass player. In fact I'm off tomorrow for another one 🙂

Yes, not surprising with 50+ year old instruments, but they vary so much with how they've been treated. I went shopping for an EB2 with my son in Nashville a couple of years ago. The first one I found was just dead wood. The second leapt to life in my arms and wouldn't let me put her down. Same model, same year (1966), same condition to look at. Chalk and cheese. Sorry, can't resist;

Welcome!

Welcome! Nice basses - especially the db 🙂

Johnny Roadhouse in Mcr have a 2nd hand Ibby SR506 at £320. Mahogany body, bolt-on neck, Bartolini pups. Slightly worn finish but a very fine bass at a silly price. Not for me (love my BTB1406 🙂 ), but might be of interest to someone here. (Almost tempted to buy it just to sell on, but don't want to get into that game.) (ps no affiliation!)

If I could only have one, it would be my Ibby 6, which can do anything from growling on the low B in a 7-piece blues band to duo / solo using the high C. Of the six I hope I'll have forever, the second would be the Gibson EB2 (or, if I never get her back from my son in Nashville, the Epiphone Jack Casady). A (semi-)hollow-body bass just feels and sounds *different*. And the bass boost on the EB2 is a complete joy - press a button and you switch from a clear light musical bass sound to a monster. The tone switch on the JC is less dramatic but still effective. Imho the difference in sound between a solid-body and a hollow-body electric is greater than the differences among solid-bodies. But there are others here with more experience and better ears than I have ... I still usually gig my GMR 5, just because she was my first and I'm totally confident playing her. The fretless (GMR 4) has been gigged a couple of times but for now is mostly a valuable challenge to practice with.

Welcome! That's an impressive career, glad to have you with us!

see my .sig 🙂

The basslines that set my teeth on edge are not the repetitive ones - which as said often do exactly what they should do in the mix - but the fussy ones which get in the way. I suspect it's bass players who really want to play guitar but drew the short straw on "we need a bass player" without understanding what that means. No recordings that I can think of, but I've heard a few at fringe venues at blues festivals. Come to think of it, the two worst I can remember both had very flashy, obviously expensive gear. That might not be a coincidence.

This afternoon I picked up a 1989 Yamaha PSS-100 keyboard from my local Red Cross shop for £10 🙂 Not bass gear, but gear. I knew better than to sign up for this anyway!