Table of contents for Holiday 2019 in Bass Player

Hello low-enders! This month, we’ll be looking at the art of showmanship and how to maximize our visual contributions on stage. I think it’s safe to say that the goal of ‘looking cool’ is very much a common pursuit for many people—whether that’s in terms of fashion, cultural tastes, interests, affiliations, or in the actions we undertake. As performers, we hope that what we do on stage comes across as appealing to our audience or provides worthwhile connection, in both the visual and the auditory arenas. By no means am I the judge of cool, though; I definitely don’t have a definitive answer or formula for achieving this—it’s all very much subjective, contextual, and dependant on the individual in question. However, what I can offer is a general perspective on…

Welcome! A frequent question that I hear is “How can I practise scales more creatively?” One answer is to create wider intervals between the notes we play. Many of us play scales up and down the fingerboard for years on end without changing the way we practise them—and then we try to apply that exercise to the music we want to play. The result is often that we play scales up and down the fingerboard... as the saying goes, you will always play the way you practise! The musical versatility that comes with an understanding of intervals is a well-kept secret in music theory. Most music students will learn the concept of intervals mainly to be able to pass a music theory test, but very rarely are they told that…

• It’s about attention to detail and a focus on small things. • Customer support and customer satisfaction is key, but be aware you can’t be ‘all things to all people’. • We’re not reinventing the wheel—it’s all about small step developments. • We listen to customer needs—most worthwhile developments come from problem solving and from customer input. However, sometimes it’s about explaining what a player actually needs instead of what they think they want. • It’s important to not be too hung up on tradition—but still learn from the past. • Fundamentally, it’s all about set-up, sound and signal quality. • Exotic wood and fancy finishes are great—but it’s important to remember we make musical instruments. • All stringed instruments are acoustic instruments first, including and especially solid electric…

Yamaha Attitude 3 Price | $4,600 Made In | Japan Color | Sonic Blue Body | Three-piece alder with spline joint Body Finish | Gloss polyurethane Neck | Joint Mitre bolt-on Fretboard | Maple, 21 frets (17-21 scalloped) Pickups | Yamaha Designed DiMarzio Woofer and DiMarzio Will Power Controls | Woofer pickup volume, middle pickup volume with mono/stereo switch, woofer tone with high-cut switch Hardware | Gotoh GB2 tuners with Hipshot D-tuner, solid brass bridge Weight | 8.5lbs Case/gig bag included Hardshell case Left-hand option available | Yes WHAT WE THINK Plus | Sounds great, plays like a dream Minus | Control set can be confusing to begin with Overall | A very impressive and innovative instrument BP RATING…

The Ovation brand has been synonymous with its round-back, fibreglass steel-string guitar designs since the company released its first acoustic guitar in 1966. Founder Charles Kaman and his team found that a carefully designed bowl-shaped back, which they constructed from a material dubbed ‘Lyrachord’, would produce a desirable tone with greater volume than a conventional dreadnought. Lyrachord is described by the company as ‘a resin-impregnated silicone fibre’ that can be tuned, chemically and with heat, to have precisely specified resonance properties. It worked brilliantly for their flagship guitars, and so it was only natural that the company would produce an acoustic bass guitar in the same way. Accordingly, Ovation would soon release their first such instrument, featuring the same design and materials as the now-iconic round-back guitar models. Although Ovation…

NO TREBLE KEVIN JOHNSON What would you do if Jaco offered you a bass lesson? This month, bassist Mike Frost shared an incredible experience he had 35 years ago. He landed lessons with Jerry Jemmott, whose playing enriched Atlantic records by the likes of Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack, and Ray Charles. The seasoned session player easily clocked the student’s influences, and after two weeks Jemmott asked Frost if he’d like to take lessons with the legendary Jaco Pastorius. ‘You can’t imagine my reaction to that phone call,’ Frost wrote. ‘Here was the bassist that all bassists were blown away by, and I was going to get a lesson with the one and only Jaco Pastorius. The greatest bassist of that era, in my opinion, and possibly the best player ever.’…

WINNERLeo De Santi How does it feel to be our Bassist Of The Year, Leo? It’s fantastic, of course, but I will say something controversial—I always tell my students that to me, talent does not exist! The word talent comes from Greek and can be roughly translated as ‘force of will’. Of course, you have to be lucky to born and live in an environment that allows you to harvest your passion, but in the end it all comes down to doing what you do with passion, and having something to say. I strongly believe that I have no talent whatsoever—I just studied and played a lot, and I enjoyed every single second of it. The cool thing is, I still have a lot to learn! What are your current…

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…

Making you a better bass player elcome 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…

Welcome back! For our third and final (for now...) look at improvisation for beginners, we’re going to consider its application in a songwriting setting. This is a situation I’ve found myself in a lot—it’s one where the bass and drums can be most useful even if you aren’t the songwriters in the band. With luck, it will cause the people you’re playing with to appreciate your contribution to the music at a higher level than ‘makes low-pitched noises in time’. One of the characteristics that is common to almost every songwriter I’ve ever worked with, especially those who perform their own music, is a tendency to repeat ideas across multiple songs. At its best, this is about forming a recognizable style. From Tracy Chapman to Frank Zappa, having a thing…

NEW ALBUM Korn, The Nothing (2019) Say what you like about Fieldy’s clicky bass tones, akin to a bag of wrenches being thrown into a steel sink, but he has his own, unique voice. OLD ALBUM Ice-T, O.G. Original Gangster (1991) The bass-line for ‘New Jack Hustler’ is astoundingly good, ‘borrowed’ from Bobbie Humphrey’s ‘Jasper Country Man’. REALLY OLD ALBUM Nancy Sinatra, Boots (1966) This album is all about Carol Kaye’s sublime descending bass part on ‘These Boots Are Made For Walkin’’, from our point of view.…

The closer we look into the lives of the craftspeople who devote themselves to making basses, the blurrier the line between luthier and musician becomes. One artisan bridging the gap is Albey Balgochian, based in New Orleans, whose business, A-Basses, boasts an enviable reputation. When he’s not making custom basses, you can bet your last dollar he’s playing them. “I’ve always been a part-time luthier,” he explains. “Luthier on week days, bass player every night! From 1974 to 2003, I made basses during the day, and played gigs at night. It eventually got to the point where the demand for my basses was heavy enough that I couldn’t do both. It was never a choice for me, though—I am and always will be a bass player.” Although Balgochian specializes in…

“Jumpstart is a slang we’ve got here: Your car’s battery is dead, you use a buddy’s car battery to jumpstart yours. And then Plowhard, a plow’s a thing you use to dig up the earth to get ready for planting, and it’s once you point it in the right direction, you go to work. That was the whole idea of this thing.” These are the words of the punk bass titan Mike Watt, best known for ‘going to work’ with the Minutemen, Firehose, and about a dozen other bands and projects, when asked about his new band, Jumpstarted Plowhards. A bassist whose drive to create exceeds that of almost anyone you or I know, Watt put in a solid decade alongside Iggy Pop when the Stooges reunited from 2003 to…

I got into bass after I turned up at a local rock school about 20 years ago, guitar in hand—and somehow left playing bass with a band. It’s that classic thing of being the least assertive guitarist in the room! My first bass was a Yamaha fretless, which I had on loan for a few years until its owner sold it to me for $70. It served me well for many years, and really made me focus on playing with feeling. I’m still very fond of it and take it out occasionally. Nowadays I play my favorite bass ever, a Music Man. It was an unexpected purchase, as I never really liked them much. I had my heart set on buying an old Burns Baby Bison, because my best friend…

The Attitude 3 is the most recent update to Billy Sheehan’s signature axe, which he’s wielded since 1990. Its features are based on the ‘Frankenstein’ bass that Sheehan developed during his formative years: A Precision body paired with a Telecaster neck, a dual pickup system with separate outputs for each, a Hipshot D-tuner, and scalloped upper frets. The Attitude has had its share of modifications over the years, but these have been under-the-hood improvements. This latest iteration also stays true to the bass’s core concept, and retains the premium price tag too, retailing at over $4,000. It’s is a dream instrument for Sheehan fans, but does it cut it as a regular gigging bass? Build Quality Fresh out of the Yamaha hard case, the bass looks fantastic. The Sonic Blue…

Price | $1,999 Made In | USA Body | Ash Neck | Hard rock maple, 30” scale Neck Join | Bolt-on, five bolts Fretboard | Maple, 22 frets Pickup | EBMM humbucker with higher output neodymium magnets Controls | Volume (push for 20db boost); three-position rotary switch with parallel, single coil, and series modes; tone Hardware | Lightweight MM tuners, EBMM chrome/steel bridge with nickel plated steel saddles Weight | 7.5lbs Left-hand available | No Case/gigbag included | Hard case WHAT WE THINK Plus | Superb build; body contours; great playability Minus | Relatively costly, lack of huge low end Overall | Everything you already like about the Stingray... but smaller BP RATING…

Price | $849 Made in | Indonesia Power | 500 watts RMS @ 4 ohms, 300 watts RMS @ 8 ohms Features | ¼” jack Input socket, DI Level, Gain, Limiter, Low (centered at 68Hz), Mid-Low (centered at 400Hz), Mid-High (centered at 2.2kHz), High (centered at 10kHz), three-way Preset switch, Master Volume, ¼” jack footswitch output, Speakon combo output socket, ¼” jack output socket, ¼” jack Tuner output socket, ¼” jack Send/Return sockets, Pre/Post EQ switch, Ground/Lift switch, Balanced DI XLR output Dimensions | 83mm / 3.3” (H) x 276mm / 11” (W) x 250mm / 10” (D) Weight | 5.5 lbs WHAT WE THINK Plus | Valve tones; superior components Minus | Does it have enough to stand above the competition? Overall | A fine amp at a fine…

Septuple time is more common than you’d think. Any meter that can be divided up into seven equal notes falls under its umbrella, so you're already a connoisseur of septuplicity if you've followed the studies of 7/8 in these pages. As soon as septuple time is mentioned, Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’ will be name-checked by someone, but the list of composers who have scaled the lopsided cliffs of seven-based time is longer than you’d think. The Beatles (‘All You Need Is Love’), Led Zeppelin (‘The Ocean’), Radiohead (‘Paranoid Android’), Alice in Chains (‘Them Bones’), Rush (‘Tom Sawyer’), and even Blondie (‘Heart Of Glass’) have used septuple meters. The secret to playing in odd meters lies in recognizing the stresses in each bar. A method for 7/4 is to divide the bar…

Welcome back to my long-running column on the two-handed tapping technique. This column has run for a long while now, and we’re finally on the home stretch. If you’ve been with me since the beginning, you’ll have hopefully refined your tapping skills considerably. Assuming that’s the case, in this instalment we’re going to be looking at some rather challenging material. This month, we're going to be confining ourselves to just two examples, each of which is an arrangement of a well-known piano composition by the great ragtime pianist Scott Joplin. Joplin is world-renowned for his ragtime compositions, and we’ll be looking at two of his best-loved works here. These complex—but familiar—pieces are excellent demonstrations of the boundless possibilities offered by the tapping technique. Neither is simple to play, and as…

The Hagström Super Swede bass is as iconic as they come. Designed by the company’s Per-Åke Olsson in collaboration with, and specifically for, the much-missed ABBA bassist Rutger Gunnarsson, it was first wielded on the band’s last ever North America tour in September and October 1979. Only 364 instruments were produced on the Super Swede’s initial run. Made of mahogany, its through-neck—and consequent lack of heel—enabled great neck access to the top register. The passive dual humbuckers allowed a wide, hefty tone, particularly with heavier-gauge strings. The headstock’s classic logo and off-centre cut are instantly recognizable as the work of talented technicians; this is no mass-produced duffer, and you’ll pay handsomely for the privilege of owning an original (think low-to-mid four figures). The instrument is, in many ways, the pinnacle…