Guitars, tips and great music discussions
Only at the Nashville Earth Day Festival, held in the city’s Centennial Park (complete with its own Parthenon) would we find a bass guitar made from melted and molded plastic bags. This is the best usage I have seen of plastic bags yet.
It’s actually an art project by a Metro Nashville student for the Trash Art Contest. Considering I have forgotten your birthday for many years now Aldo D., I just saw it and it screamed your name!
Keep on Jammin’
Most music has always had a bass line, be it written or implied, today the bass part is fundamental to most of the music we listen to. Whether it’s the big bowed orchestral bass, the huge bass pipes of a cathedral organ or the ultra low warm sound of a vintage synth bass, the bass line serves as a root and foundation for most music.
We tend to notice the emptiness of when music lacks a bass line or implicit bass line. With rapidly evolving styles of music in blues, jazz, r&b and rock plus an ever increasing need for portability and stronger, louder bass lines prominently featured in musical hooks, there was clearly a need for a new kind of bass instrument. This is how the electric bass guitar era came into being.
Technically, the electric bass guitar was invented in the 1930’s although it never enjoyed a mass popularity at that time. It’s predecessor has existed for many prior years in the form of the double bass or acoustic bass.
The electric bass guitar offered a distinct change from the sounds that people had grown accustomed to hearing from previous upright basses. With it’s guitar like playing position the electric bass guitar differed from the hard to carry acoustic bass, electric bass strings also were not bowed like those of an acoustic and offered musicians a relatively easier to play and use highly portable instrument.
From a distance, the electric bass guitar could easily be mistaken for an electric guitar as the both look very similar with the same solid body shape, however the bass usually has a longer neck. Also, unlike an acoustic guitar which is hollow, with a sound hole to allow for amplification, the sound of a Fender bass guitar is amplified by plugging it in to an amplifier and speaker.
A bass guitar typically has four strings which are tuned an octave lower than the lowest strings of a regular guitar. It is often played by plucking or thumping the strings, unlike other guitars which are strummed. The Fender bass guitar is definitely a rhythm section instrument. When playing and interacting with a good drummer, a good bassist can help shape the flavor and pocket of the music in a way that non rhythm section instruments cannot. The electric bass is a special instrument and much more than a 4 string guitar.
Has anyone out there heard of this guitar maker? I found out about these guys through a patient that I was taking back to their room after a procedure. The patient was a bass player and said that it was the pride of the collection. So curious about it I went and googled it.
To my amazement the makers were none other them Leo Fender – Maker of all pre-CBS Fender as well as Music Man instruments – and George Fullerton.
Leo Fender, we all know who he is but, the other guy, not so much. George Fullerton is the co-creater of the Fender Stratocaster. Not a bad thing to have as a lasting legacy of a man now is it!
G & L was the result of Leo having to sell his company in 1965 due to health problems that he was having in the early 60’s. It was started up in 1980 at the same location that had housed his Clarence Leo Fender Research (CLF) facility.
Some of the musicians who use these beauty’s are personal favorites of mine. For example:
Carl Perkins, Canada’s own Gord Sinclair (The Tragically Hip), Peter Frampton and Bob Mayo (Peter Frampton Band), Neal Schon (Journey), Davey Johnstone (Elton John band), Gary Hewitt (Gary Allan Band) and all the guitarists from Aerosmith and INXS. Just to name a few.
If you happen to come across this post and own one of these beauty’s PLEASE write a comment here about your experiences about your axe. We’d really like to hear from you, please?
Keep on Jammin’
I love playing bass once in a while even though I’m ok at it. I wish that I had the technique to do some “bass slapping” but my longer finger nails prevent me from doing so. I can pull it off in playing songs on my guitar like Neon (John Mayer) or Peggie’s Kitchen walls (Bruce Cockburn) but the doing them on bass is another matter left to the masters of the 4 string.
My wife came across this site called weirdomatic and bookmarked it without telling me, but I do have selective hearing (like most men) and I had to check it out when I stumbled upon it early one morning while she was asleep.
This site has the best and original looking basses that I have seen anywhere.
Even if your not a bassist check out this link anyway. These artisans are unreal in their abilities to create functioning works of art. I would never have considered some of these styles to actually work.
The bass’ do not look to be ergonomic, but they would be a blast for anyone’s collections. Even just to look at them and admire the artistic merits is worth looking at.
Keep on Jammin’