Creative Bass eMag 17
Compiled and written by Bass Player and Music Educator George Urbaszek http://www.creativebasslessons.com
One of my face-to-face students recently asked my about converting his 5-string bass to a 4-string. This “backward” conversion brought back memories of my first 5-string bass.
It was around 1988 that I became interested in playing 5-string. Although the concept had been adopted well over a hundred years ago for double bass, it was quite new for bass guitar. Being a formally trained classical double bass player, I was already familiar with the 5-string concept in its various guises, and had played several 5-string upright basses on occasion.
Because no music stores in my area had 5-string bass guitars at that time, I decided to convert my one-and-only bass guitar myself. I bought a bridge, a tuning peg, a B-string and a blank nut, drilled a hole in the headstock, filed the nut grooves, and did the conversion in one afternoon. Brave? I don’t know. I just had to find out.
That very night I had a gig. Yikes! Brave? I didn’t even think about the implications at that time … I was so excited about my “new” bass. The worst thing that happened was that I occasionally played fifths instead of chord roots. Of course I was used to using the E-string as my visual reference. Which 4-string player is not!
The lesson I learnt from that very first night on my 5-string was to learn the notes equally well on ALL strings and to not use any specific string as a reference. The main thing I practiced – and made myself conscious of on all gigs – was to know which string I was on at any given time.
This new consciousness has helped me enormously in my confidence of playing any stringed instrument (except when I am playing completely by ear) and definitely helped my learning of the 6-string bass (which is another story where further learning elements were introduced).
The student I mentioned above has not done his “backward” conversion yet.
If you have any bass stories to tell, please submit them for inclusion in this eMag.
Today’s Lesson
This is a video lesson on one way of applying bass fills using a repetitive riff and the minor pentatonic scale – the most useful scale in contemporary music. It is a one-take video, warts and all, that I trust you will find useful.
Video - Improvising Bass Fills
Pino Palladino is one of the greatest all-round bass players on the planet. I had the pleasure of seeing (and hearing) him live in Frankfurt, Germany, ca. 1983. You, too, will have probably seen and definitely heard him with at least one of the hundreds of famous artists he has backed.
Find out much more at http://www.pinopalladino.com
Although the official Pino Palladino website is not particularly funky – it’s a bit “academic”, in fact – you will get lots of info and inspiration. Be sure to check out his bio.
“The World’s Greatest Bass Player” If you have not heard of Jaco Pastorius yet, now is the time.
The official Jaco website http://www.jacopastorius.com contains truly excellent content. See what heaps of our colleagues (including Flea and Marcus Miller) have to say about Jaco, his playing, his life, and how he has influenced ours.
Enjoy your bass playing too!
George Urbaszek
Bass Player and Music Educator
Serving Bass Players Worldwide since 1996