Calluses

some14existance · #1 07-15-2003, 09:57 PM

When you're watching TV, or whatever, hold the bass on your lap and rub the strings with your fingers. While they're tender, keep it light, but as the skin wears on (and this could take time) do full slides of the neck. It's a cheap and easy way to build callouses when you're not playing.

Cheers,
Christina

Wrong Robot · #2 07-15-2003, 10:38 PM

The only way to get callouses is to play.

There are no shortcuts.

while doing this might make your fingers the tiniest bit tougher, it would be very insubstantial and more or less worthless.

Why not have you bass on your lap and play? un-amplified, just noodle around, that would help some with callouses. the more you play the more your fingers get worked and the more callouses you build.

btw, thread topics are useful so that people will actually have more reason to click on the thread.

and welcome to talkbass

PhatBasstard · #3 07-16-2003, 04:57 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by some14existance
do full slides of the neck. It's a cheap and easy way to build callouses when you're not playing.

Cheers,
Christina

...and a perfectly good way to kill/gunk up a nice bright set of strings.

JMX · #4 07-16-2003, 05:04 AM

When you learn not to play too hard, you won't have any callouses at all, just slightly thicker skin.

But I also like to play(!) or practice(!!) unamplified. It helps with control and sound IME.

When you have the bass in your hand, why wasting your time with gimmicks?

You need dexterity and muscle memory, not callouses.

Richard Lindsey · #5 07-16-2003, 09:31 AM

Those are callUSes, BTW, not callOUSes.

(Bruce and I went around on this recently.)

JMX · #6 07-16-2003, 09:33 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Richard Lindsey
Those are callUSes, BTW, not callOUSes. (Bruce and I went around on this recently.)

Who cares, it's Hornhaut anyway....

Bruce Lindfield · #7 07-16-2003, 09:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Richard Lindsey
Those are callUSes, BTW, not callOUSes. (Bruce and I went around on this recently.)

Common usage - I've seen it as "Callouses" in at least half a dozen places since - other websites, magazines, books etc.

Callous is what every intelligent person says - of course if you want to be classed as anal....!!

wulf · #8 07-16-2003, 10:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield
Common usage - I've seen it as "Callouses" in at least half a dozen places since - other websites, magazines, books etc.

References please... I'd be very happy to have my instinctive use of 'callous' vindicated by the usage of reputable authorities... but I'd rather find that I was wrong and change than insist that I'm right.

Wulf

Bruce Lindfield · #9 07-16-2003, 10:19 AM

I think the confusion is that in a lot of foot-related stuff - podiatrists and chiropodists - they refer to "an area of callous" - spelled like that - so the whole thing has become blurred - and naturally people then refer to them as "my callouses", you mean!!

Richard Lindsey · #10 07-16-2003, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield

Callous is what every intelligent person says - of course if you want to be classed as anal....!!

Then you must not think the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary are intelligent? Personally, I trust what was perhaps the finest single group of lexicographers modern English has seen over whatever a few half-baked websites might say. Add to this the fact that -ous is known to be almost entirely, if not entirely, an ending of *adjectives* in English, not of nouns, and I think the case is least as clear as Jamerson vs. Kaye. [ducks flying vegetables and dead cats] How many English nouns can you think of that end in -ous, and how many adjectives?

An error can be quite common and still be an error by accepted standards. Believe me, I'm an editor and I see this kind of thing *all the time*.

BTW, the situation is much the same with mucus and mucous, which are perhaps equally commonly misused. Mucus = noun ("his nose was full of mucus"); mucous = adjective ("his mucous membranes were irritated").

JMX · #11 07-16-2003, 10:24 AM

heyheyhey, it's only my second language...

Richard Lindsey · #12 07-16-2003, 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield
I think the confusion is that in a lot of foot-related stuff - podiatrists and chiropodists - they refer to "an area of callous" - spelled like that - so the whole thing has become blurred - and naturally people then refer to them as "my callouses", you mean!!

Here's one for you, Bruce:

www.feetforlife.org

This is a public site put up by a UK organization--or should I say, organisation--called the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists.

Do a search for "callus." Then do one for "callous." Satisfied?

eljuapo · #13 07-16-2003, 06:50 PM

Per Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary

cal·lous ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kls)
adj.
1. Having calluses; toughened: callous skin on the elbow.
2. Emotionally hardened; unfeeling: a callous indifference to the suffering of others.

cal·lus ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kls)
n. pl. cal·lus·es

1. A localized thickening and enlargement of the horny layer of the skin. Also called callosity.

2. The hard bony tissue that develops around the ends of a fractured bone during healing.

There ya go.

**Pacman** · #14 07-16-2003, 07:31 PM

The thread is about how to develop them, not how to spell them. We've wasted far too much space on this little discussion.

By the way, the spelling error is mine, I fixed the thread title.

ChildoftheKorn · #15 07-17-2003, 04:13 AM

why dont you do manual labor? thats how i got all mine

IAMERICCOCHRANE · #16 07-17-2003, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Pacman
The thread is about how to develop them, not how to spell them. We've wasted far too much space on this little discussion.

By the way, the spelling error is mine, I fixed the thread title.

what I was about to say...

Anywho Why screw around rubbing your fingers on the strings when you can play it instead and get some practice time in. Im sure what you said can build your calluses, but why bother when playing will do the same thing quicker?