Double bass and accordion midi bass

[Euan Mackie]

Should acoustic double bass players play their bass lines acousticslly along with an accordion with an amplified midi bass? 

What's your thoughts ? 

[JoeEvans]

I play both those instruments and I'd say if you've got a double bass, the accordionist is freed up from having to carry the bass with their left hand and they can do looser, freer chords, maybe with a less bassy reed setting. Or come to that, since it's a midi accordion, use a piano sound on the left hand. Either way, let the bassist play the basslines and don't clutter up the bottom end.

[pete.young]

As an accordion player (Roland not Midi but the principle is the same)  I'd be wondering why I was paying a double bass player that I don't need. Time to find another gig, or take up Midi accordion.

[tauzero]

There's a Roland accordionist who goes to an open mic that I go to. The sounds he uses on his left hand are never conventional bass - I think there would be plenty of room for an actual bass there too.

[Downunderwonder]

What the p player should play and what they actually play are sometimes very much not the same thing.

 

It takes a fair bit of skill to do the comping chord thing up in behind the treble bit. A lot of them never learn to do it. They have previously always played bass with no bassist. Big trouble ensues.

[JoeEvans]

This is probably more a discussion about accordion playing than double bass playing - as a bassist, I don't think you need to do anything different or special in accompanying an accordionist. But as an accordionist, especially one with an electronically-augmented left hand capable of big bass sounds, you definitely need to leave more space down there for the bass.

Depending on the musical genre, one easy change if playing a conventional left hand pattern (root-chord-root-chord, with the roots generally alternating I - V) is to only play every other riot note while still putting a chord on every off-beat (root-chord, chord-root-chord, chord).