h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*Bu-dumb bumb bumb dumb plb plub plib*

I actually always clutch a bass as I go online - BTinternet is so slow that I practice while I try to connect and wait for pages to load! Plus I can get tabs, too.

Are you a member of the Musician's Guild (A MuG like me!!)?

So what are you in to?

Well, I think I may have been once... I certainly poked around there for a while. But I would probably be rejected - you see, my first instrument is the drums, and one of my main influences is punk (though I must add that certainly isn't all I play).

I am 'in to' stuff like Minor Threat and Fugazi, Dead Kennedys etc, plus The Presidents of the United States of America (my all-time favourite band), Weezer, Godspeed You Black Emperor!... loads of things, as long as there are instruments involved and it's not manufactured.

So where's the problem?

Drums -

Did you hear about the guitarist that locked the keys in the band's van?


He had to smash a window to get the drummer out.

(You know I don't mean it).



How many Bass players does it take to change a lightbulb?

None - Bass players aren't afraid of the dark!!

*sigh*

When I bring out my own tapes of my special brand of 'drums and bass' - THEN we'll see! THEN WE'LL SEEEEEEE!

We'll see why it never really caught on...

Just added a new photo of me with my "Posh" Bass to my own space - go check it out!! (it's new to my space - but 2 years old)

My hair is longer now and the vast majority of the blonde has grown out.

Wow, now that's a nice bass. The one I'm practicing on is our bass player's old one, and is AWFUL. The frets are huge, and I don't have huge hands. The good thing about this, I think, is that when I finally purchase my own, with smaller frets, my performance will be improved greatly, instead of just being passable.

Strangely, our frontman has grown his hair longer, and the vast majority of the blonde has grown out.

Are you talking about the gaps between the frets being too large for your hands? The sad truth is that the vast majority of Bass guitars all have the same scale length - 34 inches, especially those in the starter end of the market, so getting a Bass of your own might not be as much of a God-send in this department as you hope.

The width of the neck at the Nut and the overall thickness of the neck will effect the "feel" greatly however. It sounds as though you would need somthing on the smaller side, a Fender Jazz, or Rickenbacker 4000 series (or a copy) spring to mind.

On top of that there's good technique practise and stretching excercises that you can do which will help. I found the 5 sring quite a "Handfull" after playing my trusty Precision for 15 years, now it's second nature.

Let me know how you get on.

Well, I've been busy practicing 'Taxman' by The Beatles because I love the bassline so much.

Yes, I'm talking about the gaps between frets being large. I mean, I'm fine until I try doing chords - my fingers cannie do et capten.

I think what I'm playing is a 'P' bass. I know for a fact you can get ones with narrower frets because our bass player has one, and I've played it! It was pretty expensive, though, whereas the one I'm using is only marginally better than tying four shoelaces to a coat hanger, or something.

I really want to learn how to play chords (I think they're chords, anyway, but I'm not sure it's the correct Bass term). There are quite a few songs that require things like, say,

G| ---------------5s7-7-7--|
D| ---------------3s5-5-5--|
A| ------------------------|
E| ------------------------|

Which I am having terrible difficulty doing (playing two strings at once on different frets).

You're a Bass player for Gods sake why are you bothering with chords - leave that up to the rhythem guitarist.

Seriously, if you're only just starting out don't bother. I play one chord for one bar in one song in my band!!

The thing that you need to appreciate that what you don't play is as important as what you do play - the gaps between the notes are as significant as the notes themselves. I think going in and playing chords from the word go is going to muddy and clutter your style.

At the end of the day Bass guitar is an embelishment to the groove, unless you're Mark King or Geddy Lee. Keep it simple, learn to groove, feel the other musicians especially the drummer - you should be joined at the hip!!

Well, I quite literally AM joined at the hip to our drummer - as I am he. Basically, I'm only learning the bass as a hobby, but I want to make a decent go of it. I know this girl who can do all that fast thumbing stuff (she plays in a band we performed with) and it looks really fun. As with the drums, I want to be as diverse as possible. The other reason for me learning to play it is so that I can write the music for our songs more easily - previously it's been quite hard explaining to the other guys what my ideas are, as you can probably imagine. But now we're already using some of my bass lines in songs! Great.

Anyway, thanks for the advice.

Aaaaaah, it all becomes clear. I have never written a decent song in my life. I think I just try too hard to make them all as good as Stairway To Heaven or somthing similar - then give up coz they're not.

You try to make 'em good?! Ye gods, if The Pregnants did that we'd be very short of material. Entirely short of material, you might say...

Actually, my first bassline is for a song in our 'other', funk band. I also wrote the lyrics for the first half - and I'm very proud, because, for once, they're pretty good.

We were supposed to be doing more recording over this holiday (we WERE writing a Christmas EP), but none of us have time. Ah, well - next Christmas will be easier to aim for, I suppose.

You can never be too well prepared to go into the recording studio!! The last time I did we were not at all well prepared, I think it showed in the results. Never mind, I'm sure we'll do better next time.

Bassman

Yes, and good luck.

We decided that, rather than spending on recording time, we'd devote our funds (someone has offered to pay for some time) to buying our own recording equipment. This means we have total freedom over what we do. The only restrictions are the quality of the equipment, and with digital mixing, things should be going swimmingly.

Pity we have to be able to PLAY as well!

I was thinking about getting a digital 8-track, but the guitarist thought it was a crap idea, because you simply don't get the sound quality. If you think about all the techno-wizardry that goes into making a decent recording I suppose I would have to agree. There was racks of gear that we used, too much to list!!

Well, the idea is we get our music heard, then we get GIVEN money and time to record at proper 'studio' standards. Anyway, our music doesn't need to be totally polished in the sound quality department, as long as it's well mixed.

Previously we were recording just using the four-track. However, now we have digitial mixing software (infinite tracks), we can record just a few tracks at a time using the tape deck, and then mix them and master them on the PC.

I've got two albums by a guy called Chris ballew. He recorded the first one in his basement, with an 8 or 16 track analogue recorder, playing all the instruments (including piano, guitars, bass, horns and more). It's not incredible quality in terms of clarity all the time, but the music is so good, you don't notice, and the way it sounds adds to the style, I think.

Just look at Mike Oldfield for the same technique!!