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What Instrument would you like to have that is not a Keyboard?


minimoog

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Quote Originally Posted by Mooginator View Post
I also dig fretless e.bass. I never figured out why more bass players never exploited them.
A lot of fretless players didn't do all the slipping and sliding so few listeners knew:

Bill Wyman with the Stones (he played fretless on almost all of the studio recordings from day one but never live)
Rick Danko with the Band
Jack Bruce (post-Cream when he ditched the Gibson bass, he mainly played fretless)
Boz Burrell with Bad Company

Intonation is more predictable with frets and there is a sharper attack on fretted notes.

I suppose the big reason is that Jaco spawned so many clones it turned people off.
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A tenor sax, a soprano sax, a baritone sax, and a wind controller.

When I was in high school, they got me a Selmer of Paris Mark VI soprano to play. No {censored}. Nobody had any clue what it was worth, it was found in a basement of another school 60 miles away. I miss that thing.

I also miss Kenny G, but my aim is improving.

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Quote Originally Posted by wesg View Post
When I was in high school, they got me a Selmer of Paris Mark VI soprano to play. No {censored}. Nobody had any clue what it was worth, it was found in a basement of another school 60 miles away. I miss that thing.
HEY!! That was my sax! I forgot it there when I was fifteen. Give it Back!

BTW, your kids go to Storrington PS? My wife teaches there.
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Quote Originally Posted by Meatball Fulton View Post
A lot of fretless players didn't do all the slipping and sliding so few listeners knew:

Bill Wyman with the Stones (he played fretless on almost all of the studio recordings from day one but never live)
Rick Danko with the Band
Jack Bruce (post-Cream when he ditched the Gibson bass, he mainly played fretless)
Boz Burrell with Bad Company

I suppose the big reason is that Jaco spawned so many clones it turned people off.
What the point of playing fretless if you dont "slip & slide". I mean that's like owning a synth and not using modulation.

As far as Jaco goes, I think more players who tried to play like him and realized they could never, went back to fretted.
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Quote Originally Posted by wesg View Post
When I was in high school, they got me a Selmer of Paris Mark VI soprano to play. No {censored}. Nobody had any clue what it was worth, it was found in a basement of another school 60 miles away. I miss that thing.
HEY!! That's my sax! I forgot it there when I was fifteen.

BTW, your kids go to Storrington PS? My wife teaches there.
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Quote Originally Posted by Mooginator View Post
Mandolin, and then experiment with sound shaping it. I also dig fretless e.bass. I never figured out why more bass players never exploited them. Pastorius and Palladino made a believer out of me.
Jaco was da man.

Mick Karn was one of the very few fretless bassists who succeeded in creating an original personality on that instrument, in the post-Jaco era.

Michael Manring is another, despite studying directly with Jaco. I guess all the unusual tunings he's used helps. I also hear the influence of Michael Hedges (the innovative acoustic guitarist) in his playing.
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Quote Originally Posted by mnewb1 View Post
have put it aside for awhile...I got this about a year ago...there is a steep learning curve getting use to bowing and intonation when fingering notes.

wedding-school_250.jpg
Brave soul. Is that a viola or a violin?

I've found bowing to be the greater challenge. If I'm playing along with other instruments, I can get my intonation close enough to the others. Good tone production and good control over dynamics and articulation with a bow is so much more difficult.
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Quote Originally Posted by Mooginator View Post
What the point of playing fretless if you dont "slip & slide".
It all goes back to the origin of the electric bass guitar. Is it more of an electric guitar or more of an electric string bass?

The Fender Precision Bass is obviously just an electric guitar built to be tuned like a string bass. The frets were intentional, to simplify playing in tune more easily...thus the "Precision" name.

I'm not sure what the very first fretless bass guitar was, but I'm guessing the Ampeg "scroll" and "devil" bass guitars of the early 1960s was the first production model. Notice the string bass like features: headstock, radiused fingerboard and tailpiece. The cover obscures the combination bridge/pickup. Yes, those holes do go through the entire body. They were also offered in fretted versions with a flatter fingerboard.
aeb1pair2400-horz.jpg
asb1pair400.jpg

Fender's first fretless bass was introduced in 1969.
1979--fretless-precision-bass.jpg

Fretless bass guitars sound different because the string contacts the fingerboard directly, not a metal fret. Some guitars (not just basses or even just electrics) use a "zero fret" to make the open string notes sound like fretted notes...remember an open string is only in contact with the nut, which is seldom metal. The types of vibrato possible on a fretless instrument is different. The playing feel is different and the action can be lower. So there are many reasons to play a fretless bass even if you play without slides.
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Right, I have a fretless bass that I use in fast songs in which case I don't do sliding. But as Meatball expertly explained, the tone is different and unless I want to play chords, my fretless has been my go-to bass in recent years. Now I'm moving to flatwounds to make it even more kick-ass thumb.gif

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I'm surprised no one's mentioned the theremin yet. I picked one up a few months ago and it's been... interesting. Fun to experiment with using effects, but insanely difficult to play properly. I've been using a small peice of paper as a guide to find where the key of C is, but even then the tuning is always a bit different every time I turn it on. I was actually watching this NIN performance the other day and noticed Charlie Clouser had a theremin on stage, but he was playing it by sliding his finger on the casing unit. I suppose if you're a keyboard player, this would be the easiest method.

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Quote Originally Posted by pogo97 View Post
HEY!! That's my sax! I forgot it there when I was fifteen.
It went back to Trenton around 1991.

BTW, your kids go to Storrington PS? My wife teaches there.
Nah, too old for that. But.. please tell me she doesn't teach guitar.

Wes
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