The snobbery of us all

[thisnameistaken]

TBH usually the other bass players have gear that is just as good (at least in their eyes and the eyes of the audience) as mine. I may well prefer my gear but that's probably why I bought my gear and not theirs.

The bigger issue of course is whose band is best, and there are too many factors involved in that to easily move yourself within the hierarchy! I'm usually the best bass player on any bill I play, but that has all the prestige of being the fastest chicken-plucker in the chicken factory. It just means sometimes people ask you bass anorak questions after you've come off stage, while the front men are talking to the birds with the nice knockers.

[Gust0o]

Some of the more complex arrangements seem absolutely astounding, in their range of options. Though I do wonder if we're not missing the ultimate acid test, in a way perhaps akin to what thisnameistaken was suggesting, in that sometimes simplicity is best - after all, just how much beer can some of the more up-market rigs drink?

[Big_Stu]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='1016452' date='Nov 8 2010, 03:12 PM']Edit: What I do find strange, though, is when someone asks for gear recommendations in a forum and a whole crop of dudes turn up to evangelise the thing they own over everything else, often without really considering the specifics of the request. I think those are the players who are truly emotionally invested in the stuff they buy. It's silly.[/quote]

VERY sharp observation!!!! - and you can extend that to comments about personal likes or dislikes of an artist on here too.

[icastle]

[quote name='DanOwens' post='1016364' date='Nov 8 2010, 02:08 PM']Hey guys,

My recent blogpost deals with perceptions of hierarchy and how we use our equipment to establish it.

[url="http://mrdfowens.tumblr.com/post/1515874283/effects-as-a-catalyst-for-consumerist-one-upmanship"]The blog is here[/url]. Please have a read and tell me if you agree / disagree.

It certainly made me feel a bit dirty to be writing it.

Dan[/quote]


Dan,
A well considered and analysed set of thoughts there.
Couple of things jumped out as I was reading it... (very slowly as I'm not very clever )

[i]"These players want to make big strides towards new and interesting sounds in the same way I do, but the distance we put between ourselves and the perceived norm seems like a caricature of teenage rebellion". [/i]

Isn't teenage rebellion an extended caricature of what makes humans human though?
That stubborn streak that makes us want to prove to ourselves that we are all different (despite the fact we really don't need to)?
History is made up of people who "did things differently" - Newton, Einstein, Ford, Thatcher - all went against the grain of accepted normality but you couldn't really class them as rebellious teens.

[i]"We might buy instruments that look different, play through amplifier setups more akin to small PA systems rather than Ampeg 8x10s and build small forts for ourselves out of pedal boards and synthesizers, but is all of this necessary to create our sounds or is it indicative of the elitist attitude amongst us as a community?" [/i]

As soon as more than one person has anything there will be differences - a Fender P looks fundementally like a Musicman at first glance to an untrained eye.
As in all proffessions\hobbies, there will be people that amass enormous amounts of kit that seems pretty unnecessary to someone else.
The last laugh is on the person who doesn't realise they are overkitted - it can easily empty your pockets quicker than you can fill them

[i]"We try hard to make sure that when we get on stage, people know we’re different from the band on before us before we’ve even played a note. Perceived distance between ‘us’ and ‘them’ allows us to engage in the hierarchical nature of live music performance and revel in our own stature."[/i]

But isn't that what makes music what it is?
Western music at it's most fundamentally basic level is just seven notes muddled up to create an almost infinite number of tunes.
The only differences (when you disregard the order that the notes are played in) by their very nature have to be around the skills and personalities involved in playing those notes - and as we are all different some are going to be better than others.
A self perpetuated position within that hierarchy is worthless - it's where [b]others[/b] put us in that hierarchy that matters.

[i]"On www.basschat.co.uk and www.talkbass.com, the new Squier ranges of guitars and basses are very highly thought of. A standardisation of key desirable features combined with a high standard of manufacture and quality control means players all over the world have embraced these instruments with an attitude akin to reverse-snobbery. Players revel in the fact that their guitar only cost £150 and sounds better to them that the £2200 Gibson Darkfire that the accountant in the previous band was playing. This is an interesting phenomenon which I believe to reflect Britain’s constant class-struggle and is an observation I continue to enjoy in our competitive environment. I suppose that this kind of snobbery is probably a bit healthier than other forms simply because the owner of the cheaper guitar elevates their status based on a knowledge of the market and community rather than simply a bank balance, but it still reeks of hierarchy and our need not to be better than anyone, but to be seen to be better."[/i]

Is it a class struggle or pride in the fact that the Squire owner can achieve what they need to achieve without spending 20x the amount?
I went looking for a fretless jazz a year or two back - I tried the MIA and liked it, I tried an MIM and couldn't tell the difference.
I'd budgeted for an MIA and came out with a MIM, a pocketfull of spare cash and the satisfaction of knowing that I'd got an instrument I was happy with.

Edited November 8, 2010 by icastle

[skankdelvar]

[quote name='DanOwens' post='1016571' date='Nov 8 2010, 05:00 PM']I too realise that this is all within single-axis spectra and is at risk of becoming a 'theory-or-groove' type binary argument, but I believe we are better than that as a community and this is a good chance to show it.[/quote]
Colossal kudos to Dan for proposing his contention and articulating his thoughts with such elegance and balance. This is the level of debate towards which we should strive.

That said, I only use a compressor and I don't gear-stalk bass pedals so I'm out

Edited November 8, 2010 by skankdelvar

[flyfisher]

[i]"there are a great number of bass players I know who also want to distance themselves from the ‘quiet-but-reliable guy at the back’ image constructed by the media when writing about bassists"[/i]

Constructed by the media or reflected by the media? Whichever, I'm actually quite content being the 'quiet-but-reliable-guy-at-the-back',
(well, loud-but-reliable ), having never, ever, craved the limelight.

And I don't use effects pedals.

Does all that make me a disgrace to the fraternity?

Edited November 8, 2010 by flyfisher

[icastle]

[quote name='Jerry_B' post='1016539' date='Nov 8 2010, 04:32 PM']And someone would always say 'Well, he's not as good as...' despite what one thinks of oneself [/quote]

Yes.
That's exactly it.
My philosophy on life has been that no matter how good you are at something there will [b]always[/b] be someone better at it than you.
It keeps my feet on the ground and my head the right way up.

[icastle]

[quote name='flyfisher' post='1016662' date='Nov 8 2010, 06:20 PM'][i]"there are a great number of bass players I know who also want to distance themselves from the ‘quiet-but-reliable guy at the back’ image constructed by the media when writing about bassists"[/i]

Constructed by the media or reflected by the media? Whichever, I'm actually quite content being the 'quiet-but-reliable-guy-at-the-back',
(well, loud-but-reliable ), having never, ever, craved the limelight.

And I don't use effects pedals.

Does all that make me a disgrace to the fraternity?[/quote]

Like you, I'm quite content to be reliable.
I became a bass player so I wouldn't have to stand at the front and the first gig I ever played was in a cellar wine bar and all the audience could see of me was my left hand poking out from behind a pillar
There's a Health & Safety issue as well, there's a risk of nasty chaffing if you fall off a pedestal

[DanOwens]

Thanks guys for some witty and insightful discourse. I'm particularly impressed with how many of us admit to not buy into certain aspects of the one-upmanship but to buy into other aspects. I find it illuminating when someone compares my argument to buying a car or buying a bass; neither of those things inspire the kind of fire that I feel when discussing pedals (hence the entirely effect-based premise to my article), but they both represent identical ideas regarding ownership, perception and projection.

Fly-fisher's insight into whether the media constructs or reflects is, I suppose, an extension on the life/art axiom. My money's on BurritoBass' perception of stereotype as something that we ourselves buy into, I suppose in that naïve human way that if something doesn't fit a stereotype then we create a stereotype for it to fit in.

When icastle asks [i]"Is it a class struggle or pride in the fact that the Squire owner can achieve what they need to achieve without spending 20x the amount?"[/i], well no but then the propensity to then gloat about it does seem to exhibit features of that same reverse-snobbery outlook.

Thanks everyone for this! I'm not as intellectual as some of this may seem, but I do like to write and I do like to think!

Dan

[icastle]

[quote name='DanOwens' post='1016733' date='Nov 8 2010, 06:59 PM']Thanks everyone for this! I'm not as intellectual as some of this may seem, but I do like to write and I do like to think![/quote]

Can't say I buy into your whole set of views (we are all different after all) but it is an elegant and eloquent argument

[Ian Savage]

I've never experienced it with pedals as I've never really used them, but I've certainly experienced the slightly uncomfortable feeling of being a support band unpacking the Epiphones and Squiers while the main band tuck their Gibsons and Fenders out of the way, even though I know for a fact that 90% of the audience won't be able to tell the difference.

I think it comes down to 'playing for other musicians', in a way; because we dedicate a good chunk of our lives to working out what sounds best through what, we kind of get into the mindset that EVERYONE cares what we're using, when in actuality as long as you're competent and put on a good show (whether that be musically perfect or shooting fireworks and leaping around, depends on your genre ) most people really couldn't care less.

Personally gear-wise I found a happy compromise when gigging with a couple of fairly well-booked rock originals bands by building/buying a few cheap-ish fake Fenders with the 'right' name on the headstock to stop other musos/sound guys/clued-up audience members from thinking I was an amatuer, which at the same time I was happy to throw around and customise in terms of pickups etc to make them sound good.

It's a question of perception, really; Joe Punter won't care if your bass sound comes from a Boss multi as long as it sounds good, but can YOU bear to be seen with it?

[cheddatom]

I've thought of another situation. When I see a band and (IMO) they're sh*t, but they're clearly spent loads of money on gear - I LOVE that. It just makes me feel so smug.

I think the only time I get snobby about gear is when I laugh at people like this with a very high money/talent ratio.

[51m0n]

I like to have really nice kit.

Primaril;y because I hate equiptment failures, and IME usually better quality components are found inside the more expensive kit. This hopefully increases the MTBF, but thats just an average anyway (I have a nasty intermediate 'pop' in my rig every now and then at the moment, it drives me insane cos I cant find the cause, I think its somewhere in the pedal board).

Secondly because I want an amp that only makes noise when I want it to, the rest of the time I want, nothing.

Thirdly because I want a great sound when I eventually get around to playing it.

When it comes to fx I have done the top of the range (at the time) multi, and its internal routing was pretty flawed IMO. If I could find a multi that made the sounds I want to make I'd go back in an instant. I wholeheartedly agree with Silddx, being able to completely swap out all the parameters in one hit is a fantastically powerful thing, as is immaculate recall! Believe you me that there is far less subtlety available if you are doing that than turning on/off a single stomp box.

With basses I am driven by weight as much as any other consideration, they have to be light or my back plays up. Which is crap, I'd rather concentrate on tone, playability and ergonomics, but I have to put weight ahead of those three.

I think I've been guilty of looking down my nose at other people's gear, largely when it doesn't do the job properly as opposed to something to do with the cost of it or the badge on the front. I truly feel sympathy for any player I can see but cant actually hear as a result of them attempting to make real bass noises with some rubbish little combo.

I dont think I bought any of my gear simply to have better gear than someone else though - since its pretty subjective above a certain level anyway - I did buy the gear because it was the best fit for my criteria at the time I bought it though.

[Jerry_B]

[quote name='DanOwens' post='1016571' date='Nov 8 2010, 05:00 PM']To me, snobbery can be taken at face value, but it is the implied social hierarchy that really interests me. What does it take for you to firstly construct a form of hierarchy at a gig, then to insert yourself somewhere within that hierarchy? Also, do you find you want to be higher up even if you assume you're not? [...][/quote]

This seems a really odd outlook to me, which is probably why the whole snobbery thing always seems completely daft. First of all, why should one care about a hierarchy and where one fits into that? Does it mean that one is desperate to be part of some imagined pecking order? If so, count me out

And the end of the day I still think it boils down to how things sound, and what you're after in terms of sound. Being bothered by what one may perceive as a pecking order, musos, etc. seems to be counter-productive to what you're doing - i.e. playing bass, enjoying it and entertaining people.