Author Topic: About Face  (Read 5338 times)

patman

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About Face
« on: May 10, 2017, 05:54:00 AM »
Anybody ever abruptly change how they play the instrument? Was a fingers player for 30+ years.

I started running scales and playing Charlie Parker bebop heads with a thumb pick and a finger pick sort of like a steel player...just sitting in front of the TV before going to work...

Liked the sound and feel so much, I started playing that way live...pretty much converted to being a pick player. The Gibson bass sounds good with a pick and round wounds.

Must be mid-life crisis...

4stringer77

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Re: About Face
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2017, 07:45:14 AM »
I almost never slap anymore. Glad you're enjoying the new approach.
Contrary to what James Bond says, a good Gibson should be stirred, not shaken.

luve2fli

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Re: About Face
« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2017, 08:10:20 AM »
Quote
I almost never slap anymore

Ditto.

I also use Ed Friedland's "upright on an electric" technique quite a bit ..... pinky side of the palm muting across the strings in front of the bridge and pluck with the meaty side of the thumb. I guess the thumb plucking really becomes much like using a pick ..... if the pick was made out of a cross-section of kielbasa sausage .....  :). Lots of thump and a pretty convincing upright sound in a pinch.


"I think it's only proper that I play until the last note of a set, then fall over and die. The band won't have to play an encore and they'll still get paid for the gig" (Dr. John)

Highlander

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Re: About Face
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2017, 02:02:22 PM »
Went the other way, Pat... tin full of picks to rattle...

Slap...?
The random mind of a Silver Surfer...
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patman

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Re: About Face
« Reply #4 on: May 11, 2017, 05:34:26 AM »
Tried to slap out a tune last night, and it's been so long that I really didn't have any facility with it...course the strings are really dead right now...need to re-string before the weekend...slapping has gone by the wayside with me also...

just looking for a nice clean studio type of sound.

Chris P.

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Re: About Face
« Reply #5 on: May 11, 2017, 09:30:43 AM »
I can't slap, even if you'd held me at gun point, but I do use my thumb quite a lot nowadays. I started doing it because I saw John Stirratt of Wilco doing that a lot. He puts his little finger under the bridge pickup and I often use the finger rest of my Mustang, like it was made for originally.

One day Timber Tones sent me a lot of big picks, made of wood, stone, bone, leather, the lot. The thick leather ones are strange and nice. They sound like your fingers, but you play different rhythmically.
 


uwe

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Re: About Face
« Reply #6 on: May 11, 2017, 09:51:47 AM »
Welcome to the dark side!!!

We've taken too much for granted ... and all the time it had grown ...
From techno seeds we first planted ... evolved a mind of its own ...

Highlander

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Re: About Face
« Reply #7 on: May 11, 2017, 02:43:58 PM »
Best not go out of your depth... :vader:


The random mind of a Silver Surfer...
If research was easy, it wouldn't need doing...
Staring at that event horizon is a dirty job, but someone has to do it; something's going to come back out of it one day...

Granny Gremlin

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Re: About Face
« Reply #8 on: May 11, 2017, 04:35:20 PM »
I started out fingerstyle.  Loved the control and the slower attack.  Now I play with a pick since being in a punker band and it's hard going back.  It don't take 30 years to get rusty, only like 10.  Every now and then I try to play a no chord song fingerstyle just to see.  Usually a sloppy mess, but my Jamerson hook is still OK.
Robert Plant and Jimmy Page (drummer and bassist of Deep Purple, Jake!)

patman

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Re: About Face
« Reply #9 on: May 12, 2017, 05:14:05 AM »
I have not figured out how to get staccato notes on an open string yet. This is a piece of control I really miss.

ilan

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Re: About Face
« Reply #10 on: May 12, 2017, 07:50:24 AM »
It has happened to me with guitar. I realized that I started playing it Jeff Beck-style - thumb and finger. Still got a pick stuck behind the nut but I hardy ever use it now.

On bass I'm still about 50-50. Was 90% pick but for the last 3 years I'm in a big band, and swing walking lines are much more natural fingerstyle.

The guy who bought the same bass twice — first in 1977 and again in 2023

uwe

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Re: About Face
« Reply #11 on: May 12, 2017, 08:58:57 AM »
"Still got a pick stuck behind the nut but I hardly ever use it now."


(Inquisitively) The nut or the pick? Confusing news like that always disconcerts me!

Sounds uncomfortable at the very least, but you hopefully alternate between left and right.  8)
We've taken too much for granted ... and all the time it had grown ...
From techno seeds we first planted ... evolved a mind of its own ...

ilan

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Re: About Face
« Reply #12 on: May 12, 2017, 09:25:26 AM »
 :mrgreen:
The guy who bought the same bass twice — first in 1977 and again in 2023

Highlander

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Re: About Face
« Reply #13 on: May 12, 2017, 04:32:31 PM »
Never thought of that... a white Buck Dharma pick I got from an early 80's BOC gig is wedged into the neck pup as a finger rest... been there for a few decades now...
The random mind of a Silver Surfer...
If research was easy, it wouldn't need doing...
Staring at that event horizon is a dirty job, but someone has to do it; something's going to come back out of it one day...

uwe

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Re: About Face
« Reply #14 on: May 12, 2017, 05:14:55 PM »
Ah, harvester of picks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs-yzJeZoRg

Always loved that riff, it was industrial before industrial was invented.

Did someone mention slapping?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvsthsbbLfM
« Last Edit: May 12, 2017, 05:20:37 PM by uwe »
We've taken too much for granted ... and all the time it had grown ...
From techno seeds we first planted ... evolved a mind of its own ...