Bass! How low can you go?
Let’s talk about the bass guitar.
I’ve always been a huge fan of bass, and most of my earliest rock and roll heroes were bassists. I myself, in my very early teens, bought a bass guitar and drove my entire family loony playing it, and when I say “playing it” I really mean “playing it badly”. I learned the bass parts for Floyd’s “The Wall”; I knew the riff from the Barney Miller TV show (you know, “BUM…DA DA DA DUM…BA DA DA DUMM…BADADA DADADADA DADADA); I even learned Another One Bites The Dust (or, Chic’s Good Times, if you prefer). Even took lessons from an old war veteran, who insisted I learn the “basics”.
What killed my interest in playing it, despite the fact that I was crap, was attempting to learn WHO and RUSH riffs, particularly the latter. Boris The Spider was an easy one, but The Real Me, from Quadrophenia, was freakin’ impossible! Tom Sawyer was pretty easy, but then a friend suggested YYZ and/or La Villa Strangiato from “Hemispheres” and I lost it. Drove straight to the pawnshop, took my money and bought a carton of cigarettes and a case of Molson Canadian beer.
But I never lost my affinity for the instrument and have always admired those musicians who play it well. It’s the instrument I hear most when I’m listening to music, the instrument I play the air with. I rocked the air bass with the best of them!
My favorite bassists? John Entwistle, Paul McCartney (underrated!), Nick Lowe, Geddy Lee, Roger Deacon, Paul Gustave Simonon, Klaus Fluoride, Bootsy Collins and, God help me, that fellow from Weather Report, Jaco Pastorius. Even his fusion noodlings get my blood pumpin’.
How can you even mention the bass guitar without reference to Bernie Edwards from Chic?
sheesh!!!
Hacked off coz now I can’t post;
Anyone Can Play Guitar
Well that’s what Radiohead reckoned.
The truth of the matter is somewhat more complicated however.
I suppose it’s true that anyone blessed with the requisite number of limbs can play guitar.
Whether they should or not is a different matter.
Buying a guitar is fraught with more dangers than asking the dark haired girl at Walmart out on a date, and as likely to end in tears. Buying a guitar carries with it all manner of onerous duties that will be met with indifference, at best, should you succeed, and approbation when you fail..which you ultimately will. Sooner or later in your guitar owning life you’ll realise that you’ll never be as good as the player you want to emulate and worse still, not even as good as the annoying 15 year old next door who can tear off a Jimmy Page lick whilst checking his reflection in the mirror and eating a Whopper simultaneously.
My best advice is to you all is don’t even think about buying a guitar.
But of course you will, after all what do I know?
Just because I was rubbish (and still am last time I checked), doesn’t necessarily mean your efforts are doomed to failure does it?
Oh no?
OK, let’s work on the assumption that you are hell-bent on a lifetime of misery, and that despite my best efforts you have decided to buy yourself said instrument.
Buying A Guitar.
The most fun you’ll ever get out of the wretched thing so don’t rush the experience. Take your time.
Before even heading off to Joe’s Music Emporium you need to ask yourself a couple of questions.
1) Who do I want to emulate?
2) For whose benefit will I be playing?
3) How tolerant are the neighbours?
4) How much can I afford?
Who you want to emulate will have an influence on all following decisions, and please don’t bother with the “I don’t want to emulate anybody maan I just want to express myself stuff.”
There will be at least one band/guitarist whose sound you like sufficiently to want to play the instrument in the first place, so cut the artistic crap!
If for instance you enjoy Baroque chamber music, then going down the Black Sabbath route is probably not the way forward. Equally, if you want to wig out like Neil Young on Rust Never Sleeps, an expensive classical will probably bring nothing but disappointment.
Woah! Just realised I’ve jumped into muso terminology…
“You mean there are different types of guitar?”
Why certainly there are……..
and so it went on.
A Brit’s guide to misery and you spoiled it!!!!
xxx
nick
Plus of course I will have to wait for another opportunity to use what I reckon is the greatest/worst strapline ever;
C’est La Flying V. (class or what?!!)
James Jamerson, Motown’s go-to bassist. Frickin’ awesome.
I’m also a huge fan of Graham Maby. Wonder why the Joe Jackson band never needed a guitar? Graham is the answer.
I play bass because it’s four strings. That’s two less then guitar, if you weren’t keeping count.
And it’s all about Dee Dee Ramone.