Bass Nation

It’s been a real long time since I’ve done a metal monday post. In fact, ever since I’ve gotten my electric upright bass, I have been severely neglecting this blog. But today is Monday and I’ve got something new and exciting for you. It’s Ozzy Osbourne’s classic Crazy Train, done a little bit differently this time by the Bottom Line Duo.

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So last night was our dads and kids acoustic jam. It’s typically from 5:30 - 7:30 but my bus was ridiculously late and wound up not even picking me up until 5:30. I walked in the door of my house at 5:45 to my screaming daughter being carried to her room for a time out by mu flustered wife. Fifteen minutes of screaming ensued before I could get her out the door.

Now did I also mention that the temperature has been in the 90’s all week so far? Well it has, and I’ve been working mostly outside the last couple of days in preparation for our office move. So when I get home from that, I’m even more burnt than usual (and I’m usually pretty burnt after work as it is).

So we wind up getting to the jam at around 6:15 and I get set up while my daughter starts playing with her friend. Did I also mention that we’re potty training? She’s been mostly out of diapers for a week, and while she’s been really good about getting to the potty on time, this is the first time she’d need to possibly interrupt me mid-song to get there. So every chance I could, I’d ask her if she had to go. We got to play 2 songs which both sounded really good. I’m making progress on the upright and I think that it just needed some breaking in for the buzzing to stop.

So after 2 songs we got pizza from the place down the block. The girls at the pizza place either know my voice or my order because they always know it’s me when I call. I brought my daughter and her friend over to pick them up because I wasn’t going to leave a potty training kid with my buddies, even though they’ve already gone through that with their older girls. We get back with the pizza and I give my daughter her slice and then go to get some for myself. The pizza comes with these little plastic cups of Parmesan cheese, and before I could do anything, my kid has the lid off of one and is proceeding to down it like a shot. Needless to say, that doesn’t work out so well and she starts choking. A couple whacks on the back gets it dislodged, along with the entire contents of her stomach, which magically holds more contents than her size somehow. So there’s puke all over the floor. She’s crying and puking. I am completely overwhelmed at this point.

There’s even more annoyances involved which I won’t get into. Let’s just say that despite the fact that what little music I did play I played rather well, this was the worst practice ever.

BTW, below is a closer up picture of me playing the new bass.

Despite my misgivings in my previous post, last night’s jam was a hell of a lot of fun. It was the most comfortable I’ve been playing the upright yet. I got there a little late because I had family stuff I had to take care of, so I got myself all set up and the guy next to me suggests we do Heroes by David Bowie which I had brought in 2 weeks ago. He then sticks a mic in my face so I can sing it. I’m still not 100% up to speed on electric upright and I wasn’t even warmed up yet, so it was really awkward and I gave up singing halfway through the first chorus. turning it into a slow instrumental jam. I had printed out a couple of chord charts for stuff I knew I could play and sing at the same time, but I left them at work, so I just focused on playing. But at one point I went to the bathroom and this other guy was playing my bass when I came back (he was a classically trained cellist, so he did some amazing shit on it and at one point asked if I had a bow which I really wish I did just to hear what this guy could do with it) so I got behind a mic and started doing some background vocals and then sang lead on a verse and chorus. When I’m not trying to play an instrument, I can really belt it out, and this was a really fun song sing (Turn on Your Love Light - I was a deadhead for years so this one brought me right back). We did a lot of blues and early bluesy rock which led itself to great walking lines which I’m really starting to get the hang of. I really need to get disciplined about doing my scales on this thing so I really know where to go. Seeing what that cellist could do was like a kick in the ass to me.

I missed last Thursday’s jam session because I had family in town, so I was a little bit surprised this weekend when one of the local, for lack of a better word, eccentrics, came up to me and said that she was there and didn’t see me. I was taken aback. What was this lady doing at my jam session? Well apparently one of the guys has gone and started inviting anyone and everyone. I hate to sound like an elitist snob, but I kind of liked when it was by invitation. Now it’s splashed across the front page of our local community website telling anyone and everyone to come on over and hang out. While it will be good to meet other local musicians, the more people playing at once can become chaotic. And I’m not crazy about a room full of hangers on either, despite my love and desire for attention. I’m still trying to get up to speed on my electric upright and it’s one thing doing it in a room with other musicians and another thing with a frakkin’ audience. I’ll see how it goes this week and report back. I hope it doesn’t suck.

So it’s been five days since I got my electric upright bass and I’ve been trying to play it at least a little bit each day. The other night I was just messing around with it unplugged and noticed a buzz on the lower notes of the lower strings, so I played around for a really long time adjusting the bridge height and the truss rod. I at least isolated the buzzing to 2 notes on one string which are less noticeable when it’s amplified, and I can get rid of it if I hit the string just the right way. I’m not sure if this is something that a simple professional setup might fix, or if it’s something I can eliminate through proper playing technique.

And speaking of proper technique, I’ve decided to take a few lessons just to make sure I don’t develop bad playing habits so early on. I think I may have found somebody who I can afford on craigslist.

But just messing around and playing simple lines on it at least is starting to sound good. Besides trying to develop some of my own grooves on it, I’ve been covering Hey by the Pixies and Walking on the Moon by the Police (links go to bass tabs). They’re both really basic but also very melodic and involve a little bit of sliding. Hey has a nice little walk to it as well. My sister took some great pix of me playing which I’ll post once I get them, and once I’m a little more confident on it I’ll take some video.

So last night I got about an hour of amplified practice in with my new electric upright bass. I’m not sure why I thought I’d have such a seamless transition. I had played a higher end version of the instrument that I got at a jam session last fall. It was a shorter scale one, so it was really easy to play. Mine is a full scale neck, so especially up top the notes are really far apart. It’s a physical impossibility to play the same way as I would my bass guitar. There’s more sliding involved, which sounds amazing on an upright. My upright is one of the ones with dot on the neck to show you where the notes are. A lot of bassists consider this cheating, but I consider it a necessity, at least at this point. So we played a few songs and I really had to strip it down to the most simplistic lines as possible. There’s one song that involves quite a bit of left hand fingering and that was the one where my intonation really needs work. Otherwise I wasn’t too bad. I’m definitely going to need to put a lot of practice time into this thing, and hopefully take a lesson or two. For now, here’s a beginners’ lesson from YouTube:

I am now the proud owner of an NS Design Wav 4 Electric Upright Bass! I could barely sleep last night knowing this thing was coming. I had it shipped to work and of course the second I bring it in my boss arrives acting all micro-managey, which is already annoying first thing in the morning but even more annoying when I’m finally getting my Christmas bonus 4 months after the fact and I’d like to check it out a little bit. I took it out of the box, put it on the stand, got it somewhat tuned up (it was at least tuned to itself, I don’t have a tuner with me) and played it for about 5 minutes. It feels great! The long scale is definitely going to take some serious getting used to, but the simple lines I’m playing for this festival gig should be a really good place to start. Tonight is our semi-acoustic practice night. It’s also our kids’ playgroup, so there’s going to be a room full of kids from 7 months to 6 years old there, as well as my mom, my sister, and my little nephew. I can’t wait to plug this thing into an amp, even if I only get to play it a little bit tonight. I’ll have pictures and a full review tomorrow.

I’d like to once again send profuse thanks to Bob and Mark Gollihur at Gollihur Music for getting this thing to me, for having awesome customer service, and for even including a couple of cool stickers. Hit these guys up for all your upright bass needs.

So tonight is another one of our Thursday evening jam sessions. Now that I know not to expect to do any serious work on material for the gig in July, I’m ready to kick back and have some fun.

There are certain unspoken rules of etiquette involved in jam sessions. You’ve got to make sure everyone gets a chance to play. No hogging of solos. Less can be more, especially when there are lots of people playing. If you want to introduce a song, it helps if you’ve got some cheat sheets to hand out. Real chord charts are nice if everyone knows how to read bastardized musical notation, but typically a sheet of lyrics with the chords over them is enough.

I hope to have some time today to whip up a few cheat sheets for tonight. These guys like to do bluesy rock, and I’d like to change it up a bit with some Radiohead and David Bowie. I’m thinking Subterranean Homesick Alien and Quicksand respectively.

Being a bassist at a jam session can be really great or a tad frustrating. If you’re the only one there, it’s awesome. You get to play the whole time. If there’s a few bassists, you can’t really have more than one at once, even if there are 4 guitars, a drummer and a bunch of percussion. Having two basses can work in a well rehearsed situation, but in a heavy improv situation it can create a real muddy bottom end. Luckily for me, I’m the only bassist who has shown up to this thing so far.