Bass rental in Tokyo/need teacher

[basskidsmom]

My son is in 6th grade and plays double bass in the school orchestra. We are going to Tokyo, Japan in January for 3 1/2 months. I am looking for advice on several topics: we are looking for a bass teacher for him while we are there (English speaking), and we need to either rent him a bass (quarter size) or ship his bass. Any advice on any of these issues would be most welcome. Thanks!

[Brent Nussey]

Hi Basskidsmom,

Don't ship his bass, not just yet anyway. Yamamoto String Instrument shop has smaller basses, maybe you can rent one. They are good friends of mine, I'll give them a call later today. How tall is your son?

Do you know what area you'll live in? Will he attend one of the International Schools while you're in Tokyo? Since a 6th grader probably shouldn't be carrying his bass all over town, maybe we can find someone close by to teach him.

Brent

[Brent Nussey]

OK, I just got off the phone with them. They don't rent instruments generally, but they could rent an inexpensive bass to you. That said, he suggested that buying a bass and then reselling it when you leave would be much more cost effective. They would either buy it back from you or resell it on your behalf, I'll have to clarify that with him. He said, however, they only have one 1/4 size in the shop, though there are also 1/2 size basses. So I think if you want to do this, you should probably decide soon. I can't do it today, but tomorrow or Saturday I could stop in to the shop on my way to my gig and check the bass out. The figure he mentioned to buy the bass was 180000 yen. I don't know how much you could expect to get back reselling it at the end, but I'll try to get an idea when I see them in person.

oh- http://www.yamamoto-bass.com/index.html

[basskidsmom]

Brent, thank you so much for your help. I'm sorry I didn't get back to you, we've had a few crises. I also just learned that my son has moved up to a 1/2 size bass, so I'm hoping that might make it easier to find an instrument. I'm afraid that buying one and reselling might not be feasible at the moment, so am continuing to hope we might find one to rent or borrow, or maybe find a teacher who has one? I am also looking into electric upright basses, as they seem easier to travel with, but am having no luck finding one that is 1/2 size. Any other advice you can offer would be great. My husband speaks Japanese, so I may have him contact the shop you mentioned. Thanks again.

[Brent Nussey]

No problem, preparing for a move like you are must be quite something.

There are a few other places you can look to rent instruments, but I don't know of any that have 1/2 size basses. If your husband speaks Japanese, then it might be a good idea to give Yamamoto a call and see what they say.

About electric uprights, I think you'll have a hard time finding a 1/2 size. It may be better to find out what the string length of your son's bass is (or will be if you haven't switched to 1/2 size yet) and look for something close. But I don't know much about those instruments, you may do better to ask in the Electric Upright Basses section of the forum.

If your husband decides to do a search for bass rentals, good search terms might be "コントラバス　レンタル" or "弦楽器　レンタル" (contrabass rental and string instrument rental, respectively).

[basskidsmom]

So we're here in Tokyo and starting to look in earnest for a half-size bass. Thanks for the search terms. How to do I reach Yamamoto? Is that an instrument shop? Do you know if anyone there speaks English? My husband's Japanese is pretty good -- but he's a bit overwhelmed by trying to figure out how to make requests like this! I think I saw somewhere (maybe on this forum?) that there is a street in Tokyo where many used instrument shops can be found -- do you know where that is? thanks so msuch

[Brent Nussey]

Yamamoto is a bass shop in Tokyo, located in Takadanobaba (I put the link in a previous post). The phone number is 03-3209-2134. They can manage in English pretty well. I'd recommend going over in person if you can, phone conversations can be much harder to be sure you're understood.

The street you're talking about is in Ochanomizu, just off from the station. But mostly we're talking about electric guitars and that kind of stuff. You'd be hard pressed to find a double bass. It's a more specialized thing.

You can also try some other bass shops in town, Takasaki, or Atelier Hashimoto, but I would never take my bass to these guys to be worked on, for what it's worth. There's also the string shop of Kurosawa Gakki, in Shin-Okubo. Here too, the quality of the set up of the instruments will leave a lot to be desired.

Good luck,
Brent