Playing bass affects your guitar playing?

[kelly user]

hey horns want to adopt me and teach me some of your stuff....... my jazz teacher is always given me crap because im not a black bass player....... says i don't have a natural beat but i am always dead on........ today he gave me a song with just chord changes, i started thumpin and didn't stop for awhile, everyones jaws where on the floor

[horns666]

hey horns want to adopt me and teach me some of your stuff....... my jazz teacher is always given me crap because im not a black bass player....... says i don't have a natural beat but i am always dead on........ today he gave me a song with just chord changes, i started thumpin and didn't stop for awhile, everyones jaws where on the floor

Sure dude..I need to get my live solo back from John and send it out to Steve or someone who can post it..it's a off a cruddy VHS tape but it clears shows I got game!!!!

..and I'm completely smashed drunk!!

[kelly user]

horns........... how drunk......

[delt]

Bass is more similar to classical guitar, especially for right-hand position.

And you have to keep your left hand in correct playing position (thumb BEHIND the neck, not hanging over the fretboard!!)

Only thing is i have to cut my right-hand nails to get a good bass sound, but i need em for classical guitar -(


Recently i've been fiddling around with a violin, and THAT is hard for a guitarist/bassist to learn.

[Endrik]

Bass is more similar to classical guitar, especially for right-hand position.

And you have to keep your left hand in correct playing position (thumb BEHIND the neck, not hanging over the fretboard!!)

not true, many great funk bass players have the thumb hanging over the fretboard, Louis Johnson actually frets the notes with his thumb.

[VitaminG]

yea, I see a lot of funk guys wrapping their thumbs. Allows the fretting fingers to lay flatter on the strings, handy for muting I guess, given how percusive funk bass can be.

[Endrik]

yep, it helps to mute, muting is very important if you thump on a bass.

most of the jazz/fusion bassist tend to play like classical guitarists though.
jazz fusion fingerstyle playing is actually very similar to classical and flamenco guitar playing, same right hand techniques for tremolos and whatnot.
funk relies a lot on blues pentatonic scale, most blues players have their thumbs on the fretboard.
I guess it's what "scool" are you from.

I never liked classical fretting hand position, I've played classical and flamenco stuff some years ago and I always had my thumb over the fretboard. One of the reasons was that it didn't looked cool, I wanted to look like Hendrix, thumb over the fretboard. It's actuall very helpfull if you use a lot of wide bends and vibratos. Thumb over the fretboard makes the grip stronger. Funk playing needs a lot of strength, also many funk players use bends and whatnot.

Many guitarists who have played violin use the classical guitar technique, their technique is flawless and can play almost anything with ease. But I refused to use that, at first playing all those Holdsworthish legato licks made a lot of pain with the primitive blues player's technique but I got used to it and now it works very well plus I have amazingly strong hands because of that.

I think everyone should use what works the best for them personally.

[delt]

> Many guitarists who have played violin use the classical guitar technique,
> their technique is flawless and can play almost anything with ease.

When i was in high school i was lucky enough to have a very good classical guitar teacher who "straightened out" my technique.... before that i used to play "sloppy" like most guitarists (at least to me it seems sloppy) but learning proper "Segovia" technique really really improved my playing, both for classical and electric guitars. I've been a faithful user of classical technique ever since and now it also helps for bass, but i'm still kinda clumsy at bass =)

[missionguitars1]

I played in my first band as a bass player and I think that helped me a lot. I think it is a good way of improving your timing and you focus more on band dynamics and the drums than you would be with the guitar.

It certainly helps as far as "learning to count to four" For as much as I jump of drummers for being flakey, their main complaint of guitarists having no sense of time is usually well warranted!