TOTP 2....70's bands....pick players dominant

[iconic]

My era, this and 80's....love bass spotting on TOTP 2 but have also noted that it seems most bass (no, not all before the pedant trolls pounce.*..) players appear to use pick rather than fingers back in the 70's....still regarding myself as bass virgin what happened to make the step change to mainly seeing finger players from 80's on? was it a recording thing....every bass player was an ex guitarist...ran out of picks?

* and by dominant i'm not refering to pick players only playing flat 7ths...or over dominant chords of other flavours!

Edited July 31, 2013 by iconic

[BigRedX]

I think it initially was all about being heard. Read almost any interview with a bass player in the 70s and the first thing they did on buying a new bass was to take off the ashtrays, thumb rest/tug bar and any other superfluous metal work, then swap the flat wound strings for Rotosound round wounds and play with a pick. Suddenly it was possible to hear what notes they were playing.

By the 80s it wasn't so important. Bass amplification had improved massively and besides if you spent half your time either slapping or playing fretless using a pick wasn't really appropriate.

OtOH there were still plenty of pick layers in the 80s depending on the genres you were listening to. Post punk and goth were full of them.

Edited July 31, 2013 by BigRedX

[iconic]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1375253065' post='2158760']
I think it initially was all about being heard. Read almost any interview with a bass player in the 70s and the first thing they did on buying a new bass was to take off the ashtrays, thumb rest/tug bar and any other superfluous metal work, then swap the flat wound strings for Rotosound round wounds and play with a pick. Suddenly it was possible to hear what notes they were playing.

By the 80s it wasn't so important. Bass amplification had improved massively and besides if you spent half your time either slapping or playing fretless using a pick wasn't really appropriate.

OtOH there were still plenty of pick layers in the 80s depending on the genres you were listening to. Post punk and goth were full of them.
[/quote]


nice one thanks

[miles'tone]

From the TOTP2 footage I've seen of the 80's it's because everyone was mostly playing Wals the lucky buggers!

[BobVbass]

and the music styles were generally different - early 70's rock/root notes slowly turning into late 70's disco with more prevalent finger work into 80s slap funky styles - horses for courses I suppose

[mentalextra]

[quote name='iconic' timestamp='1375252463' post='2158756']
My era, this and 80's....love bass spotting on TOTP 2 but have also noted that it seems most bass (no, not all before the pedant trolls pounce.*..) players appear to use pick rather than fingers back in the 70's....still regarding myself as bass virgin what happened to make the step change to mainly seeing finger players from 80's on? was it a recording thing....every bass player was an ex guitarist...ran out of picks?

* and by dominant i'm not refering to pick players only playing flat 7ths...or over dominant chords of other flavours!
[/quote]

Not meaning to hijack this thread but I'd be interested to know what basses Michael Dempsey played when with 'the associates'?

[Spike Vincent]

[quote name='mentalextra' timestamp='1375258306' post='2158827']
Not meaning to hijack this thread but I'd be interested to know what basses Michael Dempsey played when with 'the associates'?
[/quote]

A Guild, from what I recall.

[iconic]

[quote name='Spike Vincent' timestamp='1375259594' post='2158840']
A Guild, from what I recall.
[/quote]

ohh, I'm gona have a noodle on party fears two! [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZSMDaewz2A"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZSMDaewz2A[/url]

[iconic]

[quote name='Spike Vincent' timestamp='1375259594' post='2158840']
A Guild, from what I recall.
[/quote]

was he ex-Cure?

[PaulWarning]

ah the old pick versus fingers debate again eh, I play with a pick because,
1. My favourite bass players use a pick, JJ Burnell, Paul Simonon even Macca
2. It gives you more attack and definition.
3. It looks a lot cooler, always think bass players who use their fingers and have the bass up round their necks look like geeks.
just my opinion of course, and I play in a punk band where using a pick is almost compulsory

[iconic]

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1375262841' post='2158898']
3. It looks a lot cooler, always think bass players who use their fingers and have the bass up round their necks look like geeks.
just my opinion of course, and I play in a punk band where using a pick is almost compulsory
[/quote]

must be tough though?

[Spike Vincent]

[quote name='iconic' timestamp='1375261128' post='2158862']
was he ex-Cure?
[/quote]

Yes.

[Spike Vincent]

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1375262841' post='2158898']
ah the old pick versus fingers debate again eh, I play with a pick because,
1. My favourite bass players use a pick, JJ Burnell, Paul Simonon even Macca
2. It gives you more attack and definition.
3. It looks a lot cooler, always think bass players who use their fingers and have the bass up round their necks look like geeks.
just my opinion of course, and I play in a punk band where using a pick is almost compulsory
[/quote]

No argument here....

[PaulWarning]

[quote name='iconic' timestamp='1375266634' post='2158956']


must be tough though?

[/quote] lol, he's not actually playing it though, perhaps it's the floppy wrist that does it

[Cat Burrito]

I think BigRedX makes an excellent argument here (overlooking the need to be heard is less of a problem when miming! ) and I certainly agree that genre affects playing style / technique. But joking aside I hadn't thought about the rubbish live amplification of days gone by. Jamerson was of course mainly a studio player so different breed of cat there.

I'd also argue that it depends on the bass. I use fingers largely on my P-bass but certain basses like Hofner and Rickenbacker seemed to work better (for me at least) with a pick.

The age old argument appears to be starting up again and once again I feel compelled to say the better player is always one who can use a variety of techniques. And I say that as someone who really can't slap!

[iconic]

Ohh, I didn't wish this to turn into another pick v finger thread, just wanted to understand why the step change, the poorer quality amps from these eras simply didn't occur to me....strange thing though, across the pond some of those old amps are making some strong money indeed

[Dingus]

BRX has hit the nail right on the head , but I would just like expand a bit on what he has said . The prevailance of pick playing was partly an attempt to make the bass more audible , but also due to the fact that the bass guitar in the early to mid Seventies was still a relatively young instrument - barely twenty years old - and there was far less of an idea of what was " correct " standard technique on the instrument than there is now . In light of that fact , playing with a pick was a known quantity , familiar from playing the six string guitar , so it was the easiest approach to adopt for fledgling players .It's also important to remember in this age of the Internet that the dissemination of information about how to play was so restricted compared to nowadays that learning correct and more involved bass playing techniques such as fingerstyle and slapping was far more exclusive than nowadays . Fingerstyle playing as we now know it was developed by American musicians who adapted techniques from jazz double bass playing . It's significant that it was American musicians who developed these techniques because of the far more mainstream role that formal study of jazz music plays in musician's development in that country . It is primarily because of that cultural relationship between the skills required to play jazz music and the wider musical community in the U.S.A that , watching old episodes of Top Of The Pops from the 1970's , you often hear and occasionally see black American bass players who are technically and stylistically streets ahead of their pick - wielding British counterparts .

[Jus Lukin]

-

Edited February 19, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[Norm]

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1375262841' post='2158898']
just my opinion of course, and I play in a punk band where using a pick is almost compulsory
[/quote]

Downstrokes only or it aint proper punk! ;-)

[chris_b]

Most of the bands appearing on Top Of The Pops were not representative of the majority of bands anyway, so don't think that there was any great move to or from picks at any time.

Pop music usually used picks and non pop usually didn't.

[Roger2611]

In a moment of boredom I recently went through our entire set list of 50+ songs and looked them up, played live by the original artist on YouTube to see a) if they played finger style and what bass they used live, the results surprised even me, now given that our set is mostly rock pop punk covers ranging from the Beatles through to Coldplay via the likes of Crazyhead and Razorlight you would, quite rightly, expect to see a fair few songs played with Picks and a fair few Precision basses on view.

48 of the 55 songs were played with a pick and 44 were played with a Precision bass...a pretty overwhelming victory for the pick and the p bass, the two that surprised me the most were Golden Touch by Razorlight(pick and P bass) and Bohemian Like You by Dandy Warhol's (keyboard bassline live)I can't play the Razorlight song with a pick it just doesn't seem right!

It did surprise me just how many pro players actually used a pick live

Edit for strange smiley face that suddenly appeared in the text

Edited August 1, 2013 by Roger2611

[PaulWarning]

[quote name='Roger2611' timestamp='1375293401' post='2159427']


It did surprise me just how many pro players actually used a pick live
[/quote]
Once read somewhere that some session bassist use fingers when recording and picks when playing live, don't know if it's true but it does kinda make sense

[risingson]

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1375294717' post='2159458']
Once read somewhere that some session bassist use fingers when recording and picks when playing live, don't know if it's true but it does kinda make sense
[/quote]

As far as I'm aware you couldn't even walk into a recording studio in L.A in the 60's unless you had a Fender instrument and you were a pick bass player. That was the sound of the time thanks to Joe Osborn and Carol Kaye.

[rubis]

Active electronics seemed more common or fashionable in the 80's too, which I think played a part in the evolving sound of the bass. I was lucky enough to have a Wal, but there were JD's, Aria SB's etc
There seemed to have been a particular type of bass sound (along with the hideous heavily gated 80's drum sound) which players aspired to

[BigRedX]

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1375284368' post='2159284']
I find the thing about amplification very interesting. Technically speaking, amps made leaps forward in the late 70's and eighties and keep getting better, however some of my favourite sounds on record come from the late 60's and early 70's. I know, much of the recording may well have been DI'd through old desks and compressors etc, so a record is not an accurate way to judge the amps which were about at the time, but I would much often rather the warm thud of a bass with a pick on a 70's rock record than the bright, deep sound of one plucked with fingers on later records.

Also, it took me a long time to come to associate the plectrum with the warm plunky tones I loved from records of that period- the natural assumption is 'fingers warm, plectrum bright' but it's certainly not that simple! Funny to think that a lot of the wrecking crew players (Carol Kaye, Joe Osbourne, Ray Pohlman, etc) and therefore countless classic pop hits were plec-centric.
[/quote]

The big issue with old amps and valve ones in particular was volume. Unless you are going for a very overdriven sound there was a particular point at which you got the valves working nicely to give that great tone. In the studio where it was able to be isolated and close-mic'd it didn't matter if it somewhat on the quiet side because it would be sorted in the control room. In a live setting however you had two options - either get lots of amps, or simply turn up until you were loud enough. And since most bassists started off playing live with underpowered amps it's hardly surprising that they used all the techniques they could - like playing with a pick - to get the maximum clarity from their gear.