A pretty discovery, via Steve Lawson‘s shared feed. Train hits boy (don’t ask me!), aka Wayne, has produced a brilliant coded map of the fretboard, covering standard tuning on a 4 string bass:
Very handy! Print, memorize and then program into your brain and fingers!
Tags: fretboard
The length of the neck on a bass guitar is one of those curious variables that make the bass such a varied instrument. You don’t hear of long scale or short scale violins do you? Ok, now I’m worried incase someone comes out of the woodwork to prove me wrong! I’m no expert on violins, so let’s stick to bass!
Scale length refers to the length of the vibrating bit of the string (from the nut down to the bridge). Despite the general metrification of the world, it is usually measured in good-old inches, with 34 inches being the most common scale length for a bass. It hasn’t always been that way. Back when I first started playing bass, it wasn’t uncommon to find short scale 30 inch basses in music shops, as well as the occasional medium scale 32 inch bass. [More…]
Watts Tower Festival Bass Choir in tribute to Charles Mingus:
Bassists get to play in all sorts of places. One that seems to surprise people is church! There is a vibrant and active community of church bass players, many of them can be found chatting on the church bass list. The UK contingent will be meeting up this weekend, as they regularly do, under the Deep to Deep banner.
The meet up with be at Hither Green Baptist and hosted by the ever-thumping Wulf. If you are a church bassist, or might become one, head on over. If will be a great opportunity to meet fellow players, check out some gear and learn some things. Wulf will be bringing along his electric upright bass, so you’ll be able to check out life on the vertical side!
I got gently nudged a while ago to use my bass skills to try out ivideosongs.com. In essence it is an on-line, video-based song-learning site, now with support for us lovely bass players. Getting to grips with the service is very straight forward: head to ivideosongs, then click sign up (top right). Bash in your email address, choose a user id and password and you are off.
Music categories are listed on the left of the screen after you login. The service covers acoustic and electric guitar, drums and piano as well as bass. In theory the whole band could learn a song from the site, they even have stuff for drummers (insert inappropriate internet drummer joke here). Actually, the format use lends itself well to guitar. [More…]
If you are on the UK bass scene, you will undoubtedly have heard of (or encountered!) Steve Lawson (aka solobasssteve in the social media world). If you haven’t, then check out his blog and his music. Steve is an extra-ordinary solo bass player, as anyone who has heard him with his modulus 6 string and his looperlative looper with testify.
If you like to hear your bass in a band, then check out Steve’s latest album “numbers”, which features him as part of the Lawson Dodds Wood collective. Three amazing musicians producing music in a very different way. Nothing is pre-arranged, it is all improv. [More…]