Innehållsförteckning för April 2019 från Bass Player

As the editor of not one but two magazines devoted to the mighty bass guitar, I’m often asked if I think that the bass movement is progressing or stagnating. It’s a relevant question, because we bass players have high regard for the pioneers of our sound. The answer is clear to me, though—we bassists are moving purposefully into the future, with eyes and minds wide open. Look at this issue’s cover star Tal Wilkenfeld as the perfect example of this progression. She’s talented and driven, of course, but then so are hundreds of bass players. What defines Wilkenfeld is her understanding of what bass means. Do bass frequencies need to come from a bass guitar? Similarly, do bass guitars need to emit low frequencies? It’s crucial to be aware that…

Every month, keen bass-spotter Ray Walker brings us an online bargain Marvit Apofi PJ-4C $2,050 https://tinyurl.com/y9qb7rnq Hey, basswatchers! Check out this wonderful Marvit Apofi PJ-4C bass. This hand-made beauty boasts an alder body and neck with an eye-catching Canadian spalt maple top and a beautiful ebony fretboard. It sports lightweight Schaller bridge and tuners, said to be 40 percent lighter than their standard versions, which give this bass great balance. The addition of Aguilar P/J hum-cancelling pickups and circuitry provide outstanding tonal options. Luxurious!…

“I‘ve played a Fender Precision for years—I’m a big fan of Fender basses, because they’re so good at what they do—but when you look at instruments like these, they’re so unimaginative. I used to get frustrated by the lack of availability of designs that were more than essentially a plank and a neck.” That’s what motivated British former Royal Navy aircraft engineer Michael Gillett to move from working with helicopters to creating some of the market’s most intelligently-constructed bass guitars. His initial goal was to make an ergonomically-friendly bass, which gradually evolved into the Gillett instruments we see today, as he explains: “What I really wanted to do was to look at people of all shapes, sizes, and ages, who are all ergonomically different, and say: ‘How can I make…

In the last few months we’ve been in a geeky mood on the Basschat forum. One intriguing thread, a slow burner rather than a hot one, invited us to list our bass gear in order of its importance. Knowing our community, I expected each poster’s list to be different—but in the event, there’s been a surprising amount of agreement, with only occasional clashes. We all put our bass at the top of the list. Slightly less predictably, most of us consider the neck to be of utmost importance. The look of a bass is the biggest deal in practice; we usually won’t pick one up if we don’t find it beautiful. But after that if its neck is not to our liking the bass goes immediately back on its stand…

Icehouse, Bryan Ferry, Pink Floyd, David Gilmour, Madonna, Michael Jackson; a 2007 autobiography, My Bass And Other Animals; a renowned touring standup show; uncountable other feats of low-frequency mastery. All of these and many more add up to the career of the unique Guy Pratt, a veritable demigod in our world. He’s currently in the limelight with Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets, led by the titular Pink Floyd drummer and also featuring Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet, guitarist Lee Harris, and keyboard player Dom Beken. Accompanied by a brain-frying light show, the supergroup is embarking on a mammoth tour of Canada, the USA, Australia, and the UK as you read this. The perfect moment, then, to grab Guy before he jumps on the plane and induce him to look back…

Behold our world-beating bass gear review section, where we bring you the crop of each month’s new, interesting, or otherwise relevant bass guitars, bass amplifiers, bass cabs, and bass effects. Occasionally we’ll review a guitar effect if it’s useful for bassists, but generally speaking, this zone is reserved for bass-specific gear. We take our reviews seriously. BP has readers all over the world, so we’re responsible about our conclusions. If a product is worth your time, we’ll say so; if it’s flawed, we’ll make that clear. We’re not beholden to advertisers in any way, and our tests are independent of the views of manufacturers and distributors. When you read about a product here, you’re getting a balanced review from an experienced bass tester. Value for money is at the top…

Welcome to our lesson section, in which Bass Player collates the wit and wisdom of the crème de la crème of the electric and upright bass world. We’re fortunate enough to have some serious talent on the team, from world-class music educators, to experienced touring musicians, who between them have laid down the low notes in every studio, club, and arena in the civilized world. Note that we’ve divided the columns according to Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced level for easy reference. Whether you’re looking to improve your playing technique, expand your awareness of theory, set up your rig to sound like your particular bass hero, or simply get on a bus and tour, we provide the answers you need here. What are you waiting for? Dive in... Kickstart your journey…

SPLIT VOTE Gionata Quercetani is the inventor of the TravelBass, an electric upright bass project currently seeking funding on Kickstarter. As he tells us, “TravelBass is the first electric upright bass that can be disassembled and carried with you, even on a plane as carry-on baggage, thanks to its patented splittable fingerboard. It sounds exactly like a regular acoustic double bass, thanks to its powerful acoustic chamber, refined by hand by Italian luthiers.” In the wake of our flightcase roundup last month, itself inspired by “robust” treatment of our bass gear by airline baggage handlers, this sounds highly interesting... www.travelbass.it BROOKSY ON BASS After months of playing, you may notice that your fingerboard loses its lustre. Although it can be lubricated and cleaned at any time, it’s obviously easiest to…

Welcome back to the Low Life! This month, we’re tackling the complex issue of live bass tone. Now, this is an incredibly subjective thing for many bass players, and one person’s idea of a great bass tone is different to another’s. But let me pose a question – have you ever been to a show to watch a band and struggled to pick out the detail in the bass part? If this sounds familiar, then you’ll want to make sure that you don’t fall foul of this. You may be concerned that all of the hard work you’ve put into your lines could be lost on an audience if your tone doesn’t cut it. This is something I overcame in the early days of Tax The Heat, thanks to the…

Only a month into 2019, and there are already big changes in the world of bass. The top story on No Treble was that funk icon Bootsy Collins announced he would be retiring from playing the bass in live settings. ‘Time has come for me to tell all our Funkateers that I will not be playing bass in concerts anymore,’ he wrote on his Facebook page. ‘I have decided to become a coach for up and coming musicians. I know you’re disappointed—just think for a moment how I feel. Doc said [it’s] too much pressure on my inner ear and right hand.’ Collins, known for his bubbly bass-lines and over-the-top persona, has had a playing career stretching back 50 years. With the J.B.s (originally The Pacemakers), he and his brother…

The topic of modes is one that causes a considerable amount of unnecessary confusion. This can be due to the way students are first introduced to them, as well as the degrees on which they occur in relation to their parent scale. In order to simplify the concept, this month we’re looking at all seven modes of the melodic minor scale, each beginning on the same root. This enables us to look at each mode in isolation, without being too concerned about its relationship to the parent scale—and as a result we can immediately focus on the modes’ sound and the intervallic construction. Each mode is written out over one octave, ascending, with a guide fingering, but as always we need to make sure that we explore all possible fingerings…

Tal Wilkenfeld’s 2007 debut album was titled Transformation, and although it was an instrumental record made with a handful of New York City’s top jazz musicians, the connotation seemed clear. After all, here was a bassist who moved from her native Bondi Beach, Australia, to Los Angeles at 16 to pursue a career playing music, and within a handful of years she had become a YouTube-aided global sensation. The flashpoint? A viral clip of her expressive solo on ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers’, as a member of Jeff Beck’s quartet at Eric Clapton’s Crossroad Festival in 2007. Fast forward a dozen years, and the album title seems to have revealed its true meaning at last. For while Wilkenfeld has been nothing short of a marvel as a bassist for hire…

Toné Compito Wellington, producer of the annual Bass Bash, was delighted with how the two-night event went. As she told us: “The excitement of the Bass Bash, for me, is seeing the show come together after months of planning. The fact that we have so many world-class musicians, sponsoring gear companies and a growing audience from around the globe speaks volumes about the bass community. If I had to pick a highlight for each night, for Thursday I’d say that Darryl Anders and AgapéSoul’s already powerful performance was supercharged by special guests Marcus Miller, and Eric Gales. On Friday, the Brandon Brown Collective brought a 12-piece band; it was serious old-school funk! The entire crowd was dancing.” The Bass Bash isn’t just a celebration of all things low-end: Wellington and…

I was born and grew up in Los Angeles, and I’ve basically been a professional bass player since I got out of school. After graduating from USC, I attended what is now the Los Angeles College of Music. I played piano all throughout childhood, and I picked up bass when I was around 11, and started to get into rock’n’roll. For some reason I was drawn to the bass, but it was also because my best friend at the time had a guitar. I figured if I got a bass, we’d be two-thirds of a band. When I think of how piano has been beneficial to me as a bass player, it’s having learned to read music that first comes to mind. Also, when I began to explore harmony and…

If there was ever a bass version of Marmite, the Rickenbacker is surely it. Although the brand has thousands of fans, there are equally many bassaholics who simply can’t warm to these basses’ features or tones. What is unarguable, however, is the number of bass legends that have used one to great effect: Chris Squire, Cliff Burton, Lemmy, Paul McCartney, Geddy Lee, and Roger Glover among them. The list really does go on and on! This particular bass isn’t a new model, but as an example of the current quality coming out of the Rickenbacker factory, we couldn’t wait to get our hands on it. Build Quality The 4003 is an iconic bass in visual terms—and this example in Midnight Blue is no exception. The deep, rich coloring sits very…

Although this isn’t a new bass model as such, what we have here is the latest iteration of Nathan East’s signature Yamaha—and with Mr East still trailblazing around the globe with his basses in tow, he’s obviously very happy with them. Nathan’s association with Yamaha goes back around 40 years, and this model is the summation of all the Yamaha instruments that have passed through his hands. So what does one of the busiest sidemen on the planet require from a bass? Let’s put his signature model under the microscope and take a look. Build Quality A gloss white finish and matching headstock, paired with gold hardware? The sleek image of this bass will rub a few players up the wrong way—but it’s a classic look. The body shape doesn’t…

The Stave: most music written for the bass guitar uses the bass clef. The example to the right shows the placement of the notes on the stave. Tablature: this is a graphical representation of the music. Each horizontal line corresponds with a string on the bass guitar, with the lowest line representing the lowest pitched string (E). The numbers represent the frets to be played. Numbers stacked vertically indicate notes that are played together. Where basses with five or six strings are required, the tablature stave will have five or six lines as necessary. Notes shown in brackets indicate that a note has been tied over from a previous bar. PLAYING TECHNIQUES SLAP AND POP TECHNIQUE Notes slapped with the thumb are marked with a ‘t’, notes popped with the…

“IT’S IMPORTANT NOT TO CONFUSE THE SIMPLIFICATION OF A LEARNING JOURNEY WITH A SET OF FALSE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE NATURE OF PLAYING MUSIC” This month we’re going to talk about a number of different ways of applying muting to our bass playing. First, though, I want to delve into a possible way of thinking about technique that might help the more cerebrally focused amongst you. When we’re talking about technique, we tend to divide each of the familiar bass techniques up into distinct separate areas, with their own exercises and application. Slap is for one particular kind of line, while picking with our first two fingers is for a particular kind of sound and effect; we’re aware of each technique having an application for a particular kind of playing, and…

Welcome! This month’s lesson continues our investigation of 3/4 time signatures. Last month we familiarized ourselves with this dance floor titan’s fundamental attributes, focusing our attention on the pleasant swaying sensation that seems to be generated by the meter. But what if you’re not interested in the hip gyrations of Fred Astaire and would rather spend your time entertaining some cool melodic phrasing in the lower octave? Well, in that case today is your lucky day. It’s important to acknowledge that all time signatures exist purely as a method of structuring the underlying pulse of a composition. Although often shoeboxed into the same concept, ‘rhythm’ is in fact an entirely different discipline. Acknowledging this difference is a key component to any lesson on time, as diverse rhythms can exist within…

Welcome back to my column on the tapping technique. Over the last few issues we’ve focused on ‘linear tapping’, which typically involves long sequences of notes played on a single string, achieved by tapping, pulling-off, and hammering-on. This style of tapping was popularized on the guitar by Steve Hackett, Ace Frehley, and Eddie Van Halen, before the likes of Billy Sheehan and Stuart Hamm brought it to bass playing. Last month our lesson was built around tapping phrases across multiple strings using pentatonic box shapes in the key of A minor. In this instalment we’re going to be taking the linear tapping technique a step further by looking at some variations that will allow us to outline some simple chord types. Our first example will provide a grounding in the…

NEW-ISH ALBUM AgapéSoul, Conversations (2018) Our friend Darryl Anders pulls off the expert trick of balancing bandleader and bassist roles OLD ALBUM Duran Duran, Seven And The Ragged Tiger (1983) Rio was the bigger album, but on the follow-up, John Taylor delivered the funk-pop like a master REALLY OLD ALBUM Miles Davis, In A Silent Way (1969) The maestro, Dave Holland, demonstrating his phenomenal grasp of a groove…

Many threads in our Band Management forum are not about how to manage a band, but rather how to manage relationships within a band. A common joke is ‘Fire the drummer’. Most of the time, however, it’s not that simple. We might be invested in a band; we might love its sound; we might have developed close friendships or professional contacts. Band relationships are tough. Band membership means spending lots of time with a few people, magnifying small annoyances. Bands can include people of differing abilities, priorities, musical taste, dedication, and communication styles. To perform is to ‘put yourself out there’ and it’s easy to react defensively to critique. For bassists, over-loud guitarists and keyboard players with busy left hands can be vexing. There can be more serious problems too,…

Hello fellow bassists, ready for round three? Here’s hoping that 2019 is already bringing you health, happiness, success... and a good drummer to groove with! “THIS TECHNIQUE CREATES A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FEEL” This month we will continue with different ways to use open notes in combination with fretted notes. Previously we worked on using the open note as a drone, and bending fretted notes to create different harmonies, to be used in various keys in which the open note was a chord tone. This month, we will explore how to use fretted notes and open notes to create unique-sounding bass-lines. The whole point of this is to get a different sound out of the same note when it’s played on an open string and then when you fret the same…

Love Remains has plenty of subterranean riches to mine. They run the range from deep-set analog grooves, and expression-heavy melodies, to the album’s vocal and bass showcase, ‘Haunted Love’, with its chordal riches, and minute-long, key-shifting bridge. Example 1 contains the bass-line from the outro section of ‘Counterfeit’ at 2:41. In typical Wilkenfeld fashion, she manages to nail the root notes while also being melodic via the repetitive figure in the back half of the measures. Dig how that figure sounds against each chord, as well as against the notes she’s singing. As the section continues, Wilkenfeld gradually plays the rhythm in measures 3 and 4 for all of the four-bar phrase. The second ending has a fill which she plays during the section. Example 2 shows the intro and…

“I PUT ALL E STRINGS ON MY FIRST BASS... IT WAS WOBBLY AND WEIRD!” Few bands in hardcore punk have made an impact quite like Washington, DC’s Bad Brains. For over 40 years, this pioneering quartet have fused punk, reggae, funk, and heavy metal to create a breathtaking style which belies the received wisdom of hardcore as being a relatively simple, or even atavistic, genre. That’s in no small part thanks to the contributions of the band’s affable bassist, Darryl Jenifer, whose background in funk and soul helped to shape Bad Brains’ singular sound. “I started out on saxophone, would you believe?” Jenifer laughs. “A long time ago, when I was in fifth grade, my cousin had a 70s funk band in DC. I was fascinated by it all, and…

The new Satin Series of instruments coming out of Roger Sadowsky’s New York workshop are turning heads—and with good reason. For those who prefer a satin finish on their instruments they’re an obvious winner. Featuring the finest luthiery and understated but stunning looks, these basses feel positively indulgent. At a snip under $4,000, this one doesn’t come cheap. Does it justify its price? Allow us to investigate… Build Quality The familiar Jazz shape and styling are clearly on display, although the elegantly curved Sadowsky headstock offers some refinement. The ’59 Burst satin finish is a great choice of coloring alongside the 4A flame figuring of the maple top timber. There’s effective contouring front and back, while the white three-ply scratchplate and chrome control plate lend an old-school aura to what…

THE JAZZ BASSIST RUTH GOLLER Jazz guru Ruth finds creativity in collaboration I have played a lot of instrumental music over the years, and it’s still mainly what I do. It’s only been in the last few years that I’ve really started getting into vocal-led bands, and as a result I’ve discovered some amazing singers. I’ve also started writing music with vocals in mind, at one point forming my own band with two singers. I have also started playing a lot of folk music, as well as with some really good singer-songwriters. For example, I play in Sarah Gillespie’s band; as a bass player I’ve really found my feet within her music. I would have never thought that it would suit my playing so well. I come from an improvised…

“NOT AS FAST OR QUICK AS OTHER MORE MODERN BASSES—BUT THE SOUND, THE FEELING, AND THE TONE IS ONE OF A KIND” If you’re looking for a heavy bass, the Gibson Victory has to be your first port of call. It weighs 11 pounds—oof! Still, the instrument has a cult following to this day. Produced by the Gibson company between 1981 and 1986, the four-string-only bass boasted a mahogany body, with a rosewood fretboard, on a bolt-on three-ply maple neck, and a Thunderbird headstock. Initially, the Fender-esque Victory Standard had a single noise-canceling Series VIIIB humbucker, and passive electronics, giving a Precision-like tone, full of mid-range and presence. Indeed, put one of these babies around the neck of a Precision player, and they’ll find their hands naturally reaching the same…