Getting to Know Your Bass
Getting to Know Your Bass: How Many Strings Does It Take to Screw In A Lightbulb?
Ok, this column’s title is a bad joke (feel free to come up with you own punch line). In the past few columns of this “Getting To Know” series, we’ve examined a number of topics that relate to what your instrument can do, why you prefer it, and how that impacts your playing ability on the instrument. After discussing tone...
Getting to Know Your Bass: How Your Bass’s Action Influences What You Can Do
Keeping up with Getting to Know Your Bass series, today we’ll take a look at the action of your bass and how that influences what you can play. While your action doesn’t necessarily impact your note choice, it certainly factors into the amount of force necessary to play the instrument and the techniques that you use while playing. Ultimately, you...
Getting to Know Your Bass: All About the Neck
In part one of Getting to Know Your Bass, we discussed the importance of knowing what the tone knobs do on your instrument. Now, we’ll continue our discussion by learning about how your instrument’s neck influences where, what and how you play. We’ll begin with scale length and how it may impact your tone or musical choices. Then, we’ll get...
Getting to Know Your Bass: Part 1 – Tone Controls
Last night, I got to experience a true musical treat: the Tedeschi Trucks Band at the historic Ryman auditorium in Nashville. The band is somewhat of a super-group of talent and each player has a distinctive voice that contributes to the overall awesomeness of the music. Listening to players like Oteil Burbridge and Derek Trucks, I witnessed first-hand how much...