
Pro bassists weigh in on the differences between how guitarists and bassists approach the instrument.
That got me to thinking:
What is it about a guitar-playing bass player that's different from a "pure" bass player. Surely, our musical DNA is ninety-nine percent identical. So what exactly is that other one percent? And how can a guitar player play bass like a "real" bass player? I don't presume to know the answers, so I asked some accomplished "real" bass players from a variety of genres to weigh in.
Maybe it has to do with the way we relate to our respective instruments. David Ellefson, former Megadeth bassist and now Artist Relations Manager for Peavey thinks so: "Thinking of the bass as just a longer, deeper version of the guitar is the wrong approach for technique as well as composition." Six-string fretless virtuoso Steve Bailey expands on this notion, saying, "Guitarists think of music from the top down. Most of the licks happen in the mid-to-upper register, rarely going down. Bass players generally think below the fifth fret, occasionally working their way up. Traditionally, guitar is taught with high E as the first string. On bass, we teach that the first string is the low E [or low B]." Phil Chen, bassist for Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart and countless others says, "Bass is a foundation instrument, like the foundation of a house." Chen advises players to "replicate the low frequency of the bass drum." Ellefson sums it up this way, "It's called a bass, not a treble, so please play it like one."
Maybe it's the mindset.
Doug Pinnick from King's X sees it this way: "If the bass player can't find the groove, it's because he's thinking 'guitar.' Guitarist-bass players tend to overplay and have no concept of the true reason we play bass. The bass dictates the groove and the feel." Former Suicidal Tendencies and Infectious Grooves bassist, Josh Paul, now with Daughtry, notices, "A lot of guitarists play a bit in front of the beat, in contrast to pure bass players who play a bit behind the beat. I like to think of the bass guitar as a drum kit that you can play melody on." Peavey's Ellefson continues, "A bass line that just follows a guitar pattern an octave lower is really a waste of a perfectly good track."
Maybe it's technique.
Says Ellefson, "It's a guitarist's right of passage to do anything they can to be nimble and quick on the fretboard. But a truly skilled bassist is solid, forceful and commanding, not necessarily swiftly dancing across the fingerboard."
Expanding on this is Walter Milsap, bassist and musical director for Lady Gaga, who has also worked with Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Timbaland, and Mariah Carey. Milsap notices that guitar-playing bass players are easy to spot because, "They're usually quicker with their fingering then most bass players." 311's P-Nut admonishes, "A guitar player playing bass shouldn't try to play slap; it's a dead giveaway." Amen, brutha.
While most of the players I interviewed jumped at the chance to finally tell their guitar playing brethren what they really think, a few didn't see the big deal. Jonas Hellborg, who has played with John McLaughlin, Shawn Lane, Buckethead and many others, told me, "I actually like when there's an extra element to people's playing. So for me, wrong is right." Similarly, legendary producer Don Was said, "I don't think that playing bass like a guitar player is, by definition, a bad thing: Bill Wyman and John Entwhistle come to mind as great influential players who did it the 'wrong' way."
Okay, but what if you don't want to strap on a bass and sound guitar-challenged? Don Was suggests, "Lose the pick and don't let the notes ring indefinitely. Take your fingers off the fretboard and let the notes breathe. You're part of the rhythm section now. Space is very important to the groove. Lock in with the bass drum and the hi-hat, and play in the pocket." Phil Chen agrees: "Play with the bass drum." In that vein, Steve Bailey advises, "Take three steps back and stand with the drummer and explore how few notes can actually make it happen." Similarly, Josh Paul offers, "It's important that the bass and drums work together as one unit." Walter Milsap gives this simple but sage advice to guitarists: "Change your delivery from complicated to simple." Don Was echoes this when he says, "Less is more."
Several of the bassists I talked with suggested that guitarists listen to legendary '60s Motown bassist James Jamerson, who Don Was describes as "such a lyrical, melodic musician that he was like a bassist and a guitarist put together." Others suggested listening to Larry Graham, Jaco Pastorius and Chris Squire.
Finally, Don Was offers this gem to make sure us guitarists can easily pass as "real" bass players: "Always dress as sharp as possible."
[Updated 11/8/21]
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The country virtuoso closes out this season of Wong Notes with a fascinating, career-spanning interview.
Weāve saved one of the best for last: Brad Paisley.The celebrated shredder and seasoned fisherman joins host Cory Wong for one of this seasonās most interesting episodes. Paisley talks his earliest guitar-playing influences, which came from his grandfatherās love of country music, and his first days in Nashvilleāas a student at Belmont University, studying the music industry.
The behind-the-curtain knowledge he picked up at Belmont made him a good match for industry suits trying to force bad contracts on him.
Wong and Paisley swap notes on fishing and a mutual love of PhishāPaisley envies the jam-band scene, which he thinks has more leeway in live contexts than country. And with a new signature FenderĀ Telecaster hitting the market in a rare blue paisley finish, Paisley discusses his iconic namesake patternāwhich some might describe as āhippie pukeāāand its surprising origin with Elvisā guitarist James Burton.
Plus, hear how Paisley assembled his rig over the years, the state of shredding on mainstream radio, when it might be good to hallucinogenic drugs in a set, and the only negative thing about country-music audiences.
Tom Bedell in the Relic Music acoustic room, holding a custom Seed to Song Parlor with a stunning ocean sinker redwood top and milagro Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
As head of Breedlove and Bedell Guitars, heās championed sustainability and environmental causesāand he wants to tell you about it.
As the owner of the Breedlove and Bedell guitar companies, Tom Bedell has been a passionate advocate for sustainable practices in acoustic guitar manufacturing. Listening to him talk, itās clear that the preservation of the Earthās forests are just as important to Bedell as the sound of his guitars. Youāll know just how big of a statement that is if youāve ever had the opportunity to spend time with one of his excellently crafted high-end acoustics, which are among the finest youāll find. Over the course of his career, Bedell has championed the use of alternative tonewoods and traveled the world to get a firsthand look at his wood sources and their harvesting practices. When you buy a Bedell, you can rest assured that no clear-cut woods were used.
A born storyteller, Bedell doesnāt keep his passion to himself. On Friday, May 12, at New Jersey boutique guitar outpost Relic Music, Bedell shared some of the stories heās collected during his life and travels as part of a three-city clinic trip. At Relicāand stops at Crossroads Guitar and Art in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, and Chuck Levinās Washington Music Center in Wheaton, Marylandāhe discussed his guitars and what makes them so special, why sustainability is such an important cause, and how heās putting it into practice.
Before his talk, we sat in Relicās cozy, plush acoustic room, surrounded by a host of high-end instruments. We took a look at a few of the storeās house-specād Bedell parlors while we chatted.
āThe story of this guitar is the story of the world,ā Bedell explained to me, holding a Seed to Song Parlor. He painted a picture of a milagro tree growing on a hillside in northeastern Brazil some 500 years ago, deprived of water and growing in stressful conditions during its early life. That tree was eventually harvested, and in the 1950s, it was shipped to Spain by a company that specialized in church ornaments. They recognized this unique specimen and set it aside until it was imported to the U.S. and reached Oregon. Now, it makes the back and sides of this unique guitar.
A Bedell Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides.
As for the ocean sinker redwood top, āIām gonna make up the story,ā Bedell said, as he approximated the life cycle of the tree, which floated in the ocean, soaking up minerals for years and years, and washed ashore on northern Oregonās Manzanita Beach. The two woods were paired and built into a small run of exquisitely outfitted guitars using the Bedell/Breedlove Sound Optimization processāin which the building team fine-tunes each instrumentās voice by hand-shaping individual braces to target resonant frequencies using acoustic analysisāand Bedell and his team fell in love.
Playing it while we spoke, I was smitten by this guitarās warm, responsive tone and even articulation and attack across the fretboard; it strikes a perfect tonal balance between a tight low-end and bright top, with a wide dynamic range that made it sympathetic to anything I offered. And as I swapped guitars, whether picking up a Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides or one with an Adirondack spruce top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides, the character and the elements of each instrument changed, but that perfect balance remained. Each of these acousticsāand of any Bedell Iāve had the pleasure to playādelivers their own experiential thumbprint.
Rosette and inlay detail on an Adirondack spruce top.
Ultimately, thatās what brought Bedell out to the East Coast on this short tour. āWe have a totally different philosophy about how we approach guitar-building,ā Bedell effused. āThere are a lot of individuals who build maybe 12 guitars a year, who do some of the things that we do, but thereās nobody on a production level.ā And he wants to spread that gospel.
āWe want to reach people who really want something special,ā he continued, pointing out that for the Bedell line, the company specifically wants to work with shops like Relic and the other stores heās visited, āwho have a clientele that says I want the best guitar I can possibly have, and they carry enough variety that we can give them that.ā
A Fireside Parlor with a Western red cedar top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
A beautifully realized mashup of two iconic guitars.
Reader: Ward Powell
Hometown: Ontario, Canada
Guitar: ES-339 Junior
Iāve always liked unusual guitars. I think it started when I got my first guitar way back in 1976. I bought a '73 Telecaster Deluxe for $200 with money I saved from delivering newspapers.
I really got serious about playing in 1978, the same year the first Van Halen album was released. Eddie Van Halen was a huge influence on me, including how he built and modded guitars. Inspired by Eddie, I basically butchered that Tele. But keep in mind, there was once a time when every vintage guitar was just a used guitarāI still have that Tele, by the way.
I never lost that spirit of wanting guitars that were unique, and have built and modded a few dozen guitars since. When I started G.A.S.-ing simultaneously for a Les Paul Junior and a Casino, I came up with this concept. I found an Epiphone ES-339 locally at a great price. It already had upgraded CTS pots, Kluson tuners, and the frets had been PLEKād. It even came with a hardshell case. It was cheap because it was a right-handed guitar that had been converted to left handed and all the controls had been moved to the opposite side, so it had five additional holes in the top.
Fortunately, I found a Duesenberg wraparound bridge that used the same post spacing as a Tune-o-matic. I used plug cutters to cut plugs out of baltic birch plywood to fill the 12 holes in the laminated top. I also reshaped the old-style Epiphone headstock. Then, I sanded off the original finish, taped the fretboard, and sprayed the finish using cans of nitro lacquer from Oxford Guitar Supply. Lots of wet sanding and buffing later, the finish was done.
I installed threaded insert bushings for the bridge, so it will never pull out. The pickup is a Mojotone Quiet Coil P-90 and I fabricated a shim from a DIY mold and tinted epoxy to raise the P-90 up closer to the strings. The shim also covers the original humbucker opening. I cut a pickguard out of a blank and heated it slightly to bend it to follow the curvature of the top.
All in all, I'm pretty happy how it turned out! It plays great and sounds even better. And I have something that is unique: an ES-339 Junior.
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