The Bassist and Guitarist thread

[Salad Dodger]

Attention of any bass players on this forum.....
Apologies if anyone has already mentioned this, but Leland Sklar has started his own YouTube channel in lock down. There are a couple of videos where he talks about gear, but mostly each video consists of him talking about a record that he played on, then playing live over the recording. Which just makes me want to give up and burn my bass!
But he did mention on one video that he has played on over 2600 albums, so I guess he has the right to be good at his job!
He also seems to be an engaging character. In one episode he was talking about Linda Ronstadt and what a great singer, and a lovely person she is. "I think I will give her a call when I have finished here, just to see how she is doing". How many people can just casually ring Linda?
The videos are slow paced and a bit wordy at times, but the bass playing is sublime...

 

[DCBassman]

I've met the guy. He's great.

Totnes, March 2015, at a Judith Owen gig.

 

[ColinJ]

Yes, I discovered that just now when I went to the contact page! I have asked them to sort it out, and to test more thoroughly in future.

I've had a reply already... Customer support thanked me for telling them about the problem and are letting their web developers know about it.

 

[Dave7]

@Drago .....as someone who can't play a note your chosen thread title always makes me wonder....... Bassist and Guitarist. Is a bassist not a guitarist or are they viewed differently ??

 

[DCBassman]

@Drago .....as someone who can't play a note your chosen thread title always makes me wonder....... Bassist and Guitarist. Is a bassist not a guitarist or are they viewed differently ??

A bass is a bass, no matter its appearance. A guitar is a guitar. A "bass guitar" has 6 strings tuned the same as a guitar but an octave lower. The standard 4-string electric bass is explicitly a reworking of a double bass, not a redesign of a guitar.
The original Fender Jazz bass had "Electric Bass" on the headstock, the Fender VI had "Electric Bass Guitar" to make the point.

 

[DCBassman]

Original Jazz Bass:

Original VI:

 

[DCBassman]

Ampeg, renowned for bass amplification, also used to make electric double basses. When they began to make Fender-like basses (at the time, Fender bass became a generic, like Hoover for vacuum cleaners), they also refused to call it a guitar, terming it a "horizontal bass". Bit of a mouthful, though.
As much as anything, reading through the history of Fender's development of basses, 'bass guitar' tended to be the way the Patent Office wanted to describe it, not the manufacturer.

 

[delb0y]

@Drago .....as someone who can't play a note your chosen thread title always makes me wonder....... Bassist and Guitarist. Is a bassist not a guitarist or are they viewed differently ??

Dave7, not a great deal of difference - as the saying goes, what do you call someone who hangs around with musicians? A bassist.

 

[MontyVeda]

A bass is a bass, no matter its appearance. A guitar is a guitar. A "bass guitar" has 6 strings tuned the same as a guitar but an octave lower. The standard 4-string electric bass is explicitly a reworking of a double bass, not a redesign of a guitar.
The original Fender Jazz bass had "Electric Bass" on the headstock, the Fender VI had "Electric Bass Guitar" to make the point.

Well you learn something new every day.

Intrigued by the Fender Bass VI and looked it up on Wikipedia and chuckled at this entry in the 'notable users' section:

Nigel Tufnel, in the film This Is Spinal Tap, owns a Fender Bass VI which he refuses to play, or even allow others to look at

 

[Drago]

A bass is a bass, no matter its appearance. A guitar is a guitar. A "bass guitar" has 6 strings tuned the same as a guitar but an octave lower. The standard 4-string electric bass is explicitly a reworking of a double bass, not a redesign of a guitar.
The original Fender Jazz bass had "Electric Bass" on the headstock, the Fender VI had "Electric Bass Guitar" to make the point.

Although just to muddy the waters, the bass is also considered the lowest playing member of the guitar family.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bass_guitar

You can also get baritone guitars, but they're few and far between. The problem is, new instruments can straddle more than one category. The electric bass was around long before Leo fender got in on the act, so he didn't get to name the phenomenon, only his own product.

I take no real position on the matter. I tend to say bass but don't get sniffy when someone says bass guitar because it isn't technically incorrect.

 

[DCBassman]

Although just to muddy the waters, the bass is also considered the lowest playing member of the guitar family.

That's exactly the wrong information. It ain't a guitar. And the earlier pre-Fender forerunner wasn't called a guitar either. Baritone guitars and the Fender VI (and several others, Danelectro for example) just muddy the waters - they are the transitional instruments, if you like.

 

[DCBassman]

Even the likes of Anthony Jackson, renowned for his use of a six-string bass (tuned BEADGC), seem to think that Leo was thinking about guitars. He always said the bass should have had 6 strings from the off. But why would it? A bass has four string EADG. It's not a guitar.

 

[Drago]

Ive just looked in a paper book (Colliers encyclopaedia, 1990 - you can tellmim at the cutting edge!) and that also descrives it as a member of the guitar family.

Just to confuse things even more, Paul Tutmarc, the inventor of the electric bass, described them as both electric bass and electric bass guitar in his catalogues.

I call it a bass, but dont get het up if someone says bass guitar because a) I know excatly what they mean, and b) I'm enough of a saddo as it is without getting hung up on that. Just so long as when i ask for my bass I don't get passed a set of drumsticks then I'm not bothered either way.

Oh, and you can also get 4 string guitars in ADGB and DGBE - The number of strings does not signify the class of instrument. I cant really see the point of that myself, but some people do and they are out there.

 

[avecReynolds531]

Even the likes of Anthony Jackson, renowned for his use of a six-string bass (tuned BEADGC), seem to think that Leo was thinking about guitars. He always said the bass should have had 6 strings from the off. But why would it? A bass has four string EADG. It's not a guitar.

'But during 1975 Jackson began persuading luthier Carl Thompson to build him his first contrabass guitar – a 6-string bass with a low B and a high C string. Anthony was a firm believer that the bass guitar was a member of the guitar family and not, as Leo Fender saw it, an electric version of a double bass:
"My feeling is: Why is 4 the standard and not 6? As the lowest-pitched instrument of the guitar family, the bass should have had 6-strings from the beginning. The only reason it had four was because Leo Fender was thinking in application terms of an upright bass."
Anthony Jackson

 

[DCBassman]

'But during 1975 Jackson began persuading luthier Carl Thompson to build him his first contrabass guitar – a 6-string bass with a low B and a high C string. Anthony was a firm believer that the bass guitar was a member of the guitar family and not, as Leo Fender saw it, an electric version of a double bass:
"My feeling is: Why is 4 the standard and not 6? As the lowest-pitched instrument of the guitar family, the bass should have had 6-strings from the beginning. The only reason it had four was because Leo Fender was thinking in application terms of an upright bass."
Anthony Jackson

Exactly so. It was a bass, not a guitar. And never intended to be anything else. Despite his prominence, Jackson's spin on this is nonsense. The instrument Jackson plays has evolved from this, he had a hand in that himself. Hooray! But don't criticise the guy who started it and say he got it wrong. He got it EXACTLY right, just as he'd done with the Telecaster guitar three years earlier...