Playing a totally unnecessary bass in a totally unnecessary way.

[nilorius]

On 22/03/2024 at 00:41, BassApprentice said:

A few months ago, I watched a video of a guy designing and building a guitar/bass with a spinning round neck. He surprisingly got it to work!

 

Now Charles Berthoud has got his hands on it. Not everyone's cup of tea, but you have to admire his ability to play his style on almost any stringed instrument.

 

 

 

 

That's a damned minigun !

[funkgod]

i thought it was ace 🙂

what a machine, don't think of it as a bass, its not a bass even though it can do bass as well, its just new idea.

you could call it a Batar 🙂

and if it opens doors for people then great, go for it.

 

Edited March 25 by funkgod

[SteveXFR]

4 hours ago, tauzero said:

 

That's OK, there's no shortage of bassists who stick to four (or eight) root notes to the bar.

 

There's plenty inbetween root notes on the beat and a million notes a minute that doesn't really go anywhere. 

[Wolverinebass]

I think the main point of contention is that Charles is a YouTuber. Now, he's obviously a very talented chap and fair play, he appears to be doing rather well for himself at the whole video content thing. I very much doubt that it's easy and no doubt comes with as many (if not more problems) than being what some might consider to be a "conventional" working bass player.

 

I think what most people take against YouTubers is the clickbait titles, the constantly spamming groups on Facebook, the "personality" that inevitably goes hand in hand with constant content creation in an effort to be seen as edgey or exciting. It's just the nature of the beast.

 

It's quite easy to not watch any of this stuff if you don't want to. Or, if they're one of the aforementioned people spamming a group you're on on Facebook with their inane clickbait, just block them. Easy enough. Why get annoyed?

[nilorius]

But why would any human being want to learn this kind of a universal bass if there is a perfect AI coming soon ?

[Baloney Balderdash]

7 minutes ago, nilorius said:

But why would any human being want to learn this kind of a universal bass if there is a perfect AI coming soon ?

Yes, why even bother living when it will only be a matter of time before they invent a robot that does it better than you?

[shoulderpet]

I actually really like this composition of his

 

https://youtu.be/Ks2yqt3eJmY?si=GtVTpWMEmNmdpPu_

[uncle psychosis]

On 24/03/2024 at 07:54, Gasman said:

Just my own opinion, but isn’t Mr Berthould, genius technician as he may be, a self-promoting PITA and the antithesis of what bands actually need in a bass player?

 

On 25/03/2024 at 17:47, SteveXFR said:

 

He's a typical social media musician. Completely over plays and would sound better if he left out 90% of the notes he plays. No groove and always flashy playing over creating something good to listen to

 

You two are really edgy. 

[mike257]

On 24/03/2024 at 11:43, Gasman said:

Please tell me - apart from playing on Youtube - what is his musical career?

 

Creating successful content on YouTube is a musical career path these days. It's just not one that existed when most of us first set out on our musical journey. The landscape has changed. 

 

If he made a successful TV show on a mainstream broadcast channel about bass that had over a million viewers, would that be different? 

[SteveXFR]

10 minutes ago, uncle psychosis said:

 

 

You two are really edgy. 

 

It's an opinion, I wouldn't exactly describe it as remotely "edgy"

[nilorius]

8 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

 

It's an opinion, I wouldn't exactly describe it as remotely "edgy"

Dahhh.....it's Unicorn.

[Angel]

On 24/03/2024 at 11:43, Gasman said:

Please tell me - apart from playing on Youtube - what is his musical career?

 

Well he may not be playing every other month at the Dog & Duck like some of us, but there is serious money to be made with a successful YouTube channel. Would you rather be playing some pub occasionally or be wealthy through music?

 

Case in point - Steve Terraberry. If you don't know him, don't look him up, you won't like him at all! However, he is a home guitarist who does mad guitar related videos and now has 3.5 million subscribers. He bought this house:

 

 

He bought a McLaren 720s

 

 

OK, so lets go back to the question "what is his musical career ..."

 

 

[dclaassen]

On 24/03/2024 at 13:24, Gasman said:

Just my own opinion, but isn’t Mr Berthould, genius technician as he may be, a self-promoting PITA and the antithesis of what bands actually need in a bass player?

Nope…not always my cup of tea, but the guy can play!

[fretmeister]

16 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

 

It's an opinion, I wouldn't exactly describe it as remotely "edgy"

 

No. but it is an increasingly obsolete view.

 

He, and others like him, have musical careers. They are getting paid to play. That it is not to your taste is irrelevant. That they are getting paid by advertising revenue rather than getting 2% of physical media sales is also irrelevant.

He is not releasing music on 78 speed vinyl, he's releasing it on youtube and he has built an audience over years of hard work. 

 

And it is hard work. It's coming up with 4 or 5 new vids a week. Planning it, filming it, editing it. Dealing with copyright issues, etc etc. And that ignores the investment of the time needed to be able to play as well as he does. He's probably putting in more than 40 hours a week on it. That's a lot more than most musicians do, or even attempt to do.

 

Complaining about modern ideas is a weird thing. We are on this forum because we play an instrument that has only been around for about 70 years and was laughed at when it was invented. I suspect that when Bottesini asked for a 4 string double bass rather than the traditional 3 string one the response was "Why? What's the point?" as well. Things move on.

 

People like him do not affect the traditionalists ability to get pub gigs, or record what a traditionalist gatekeeper has decided is valid musical expression, or any of what has gone before. It's just something new to go into the pot.

 

And like or not - he's inspiring people to play. 99.9% of them will never reach his ability. But they are playing and increasing sales of kit and making manufacturers invest in more product ideas etc etc.

 

For some reason I had this view that bassists were somehow more rational than guitarists - many guitar forums are filled with people complaining that many new young guitarists say they were inspired to play by Ed Sheeran! Who GAF how they decided to pick up an instrument? The important bit is that they did!

 

As for the amazingly dim sounding "I bet he can't play in a band" type argument.... ye gods that's a poor argument to present. Loads of the flashiest players spend most of their day doing sessions for other people. Just holding down the bottom end, playing roots. Marcus Miller does it. Billy Sheehan does it. There is zero reason to think that someone who can play like CB cannot play what a song needs.

 

I used to play Classical Thump and Colorado Bulldog etc. And I had no problem joining a 25 member jazz big band and just playing what was written. I loved it just as much. 

 

 

[Random Guitarist]

The way I see it, the guy has by any reasonable standard entirely mastered bass playing.

His collection of videos, taken as a whole, look like the product of a high-functioning musically aware individual.

I'd think he's definitely smart enough to know what is needed for a scenario, and to decline to take part if he didn't fancy playing..

I suspect he'd be a delight to play with because he has plenty of mental capacity left over from playing to listen and create little details.

 

[lowdown]

On 27/03/2024 at 17:11, Random Guitarist said:

The way I see it, the guy has by any reasonable standard entirely mastered bass playing.

His collection of videos, taken as a whole, look like the product of a high-functioning musically aware individual.

I'd think he's definitely smart enough to know what is needed for a scenario, and to decline to take part if he didn't fancy playing..

I suspect he'd be a delight to play with because he has plenty of mental capacity left over from playing to listen and create little details.

 

 

I agree and, he has a nice musical feel about him. He certainly knows what he is doing:

 

 

 

 

 

[Angel]

Bloody hell, that Tears in heaven is superb. Charles is so musical, and plays with great sensitivity. He is absolutely a master of bass, if anyone chooses to dislike his stuff then fine, they have the right to that but you can't really deny that he is an incredible musician.

[Leonard Smalls]

23 hours ago, Angel said:

so musical

Shurely shome mishtake?

As everybody knows a bass player is musical if they only play root and fifth (and maybe a third or even a grace note if it's their significant birthday), always stand at the back (preferably mostly hidden behind cymbals, or better, a pillar) and absolutely never do anything that draws attention to either them, or God forbid, to their bass playing!

[Sparky Mark]

 

[nilorius]

1 hour ago, Sparky Mark said:

 

Then, Jaco would live longer.

[Man.about.Tyne]

Johann Sebastian Barbie - never, in a million years, will I understand what his fingers are doing.

[nilorius]

7 minutes ago, Man.about.Tyne said:

Johann Sebastian Barbie - never, in a million years, will I understand what his fingers are doing.

[lowdown]