Tony Franklin's fretless vid.

[Rockin John]

This is the first time I've ever bought any instructional material. I found the whole thing excellent and full of super ideas: why didn't I do something like this years ago....?

Anyway, I've always played with the fingerboard hand - my L/H - in the classical style: that's how I taught myself to do it. Tony Franklin shows this, too, for the demo / lessons. However, when he jams on the video he very often reverts to the thumb hooked around the neck style. And when he's playing right high up he rests the flesh of his thumb (virtually the palm of his hand) on the back of the neck.

Wondered whether there'd be any thoughts on this.

Cheers.

John

[The Mock Turtle Regulator]

I've noticed lots of famous bassists sometimes let their thumb creep over the top of the neck-
John Entwistle (as seen in his Bass Masterclass video)
Billy Sheehan (Bass Secrets, On Bass)
Stanley Clarke
Sting
Mark King (see Bass Guitar magazine interview pics)

not Jaco though, judging from "Modern electric bass".

[Bryan R. Tyler]

Louis Johnston does it as well. It may just be the result of larger hands with small Jazz necks and no real emphasis on the results that may occur. Carpal tunnel probably wasn't well know back in the day.

[Rockin John]

I've a feeling I might have spent too much time and effort sticking strictly to the classical technique in the (perhaps mistaken) belief that that's all important.

I feel that the way the bass is worn makes a dramatic difference to the angles of the arm, the wrist and the bass neck. I wear the bass quite high on my body with the neck sort of in line with my left shoulder. That makes the classical technique easier for me at middle neck positions, almost impossible at high positions and the thumb over the neck easier at the headstock end. Dropping the neck position to roughly my waste makes the classical much easier at the high end.

But swapping quickly is very difficult for me which is the reason why I asked for comment on the Franklin video.

Actually, the whole business of bass position vs ease of playing has bothered me, on and off, for many years.

Cheers.

John

[NV43345]

I agree, I have picked up alot from different videos, I am very hard to buy presents for, so every x-mas my relatives would ask what to get me,
so I gave them the ad's for Bass videos. And now
I have alot of them, and I learned some things from each one. recently I got Victor Wooten Bass
Day on DVD, since I now have a DVD player. Here
are some of the Videos/DVD I have.
Bill Sheehan: 3 different ones
Steve Bailey & Victor Wooten: Bass Extremes
Tony Franklin
Roscoe Beck: Blues Foundation
Randy Coven:
Stu Hamm: first one, slap pop & tap.
Steve Bailey: Fretless Bass
Chris Squire
Slap Bass program
Tap Bass program
John Myung
Best of Lennon & McCartney
Jaco
Flea, just got this one on DVD
Victor Wooten Bass Day 98 DVD
oh, and a video called Bass as a solo Instrument,with various players.
I saw a jack Bruce one advertised I want that one next.

[The Mock Turtle Regulator]

Originally posted by Rockin John
I've a feeling I might have spent too much time and effort sticking strictly to the classical technique in the (perhaps mistaken) belief that that's all important.

one thing to note is that all the players mentioned usually play 4string basses.
(I assume Tony Franklin was playing a fretless Pbass?)

I played a 6 string fretless Sei bass with wide spacing on saturday, and there's pretty much no way of letting your thumb creep higher than the middle of the neck on a bass like that.

the thumb-over style is probably a quirk of 4string and maybe narrow/medium 5string playing only.

[warwickben]

jt does it on his 8 string . just kidding. when i play seven strings at stores my thumb has to be on the bottom on the figer board to reach the b and e string on any note below the 12fret.

[Rockin John]

MTR said:

(I assume Tony Franklin was playing a fretless Pbass?)

No. In this video he played a 4 string fretless Jaydee.

I'm fairly new to 5 and that's the most strings I've played. There's no doubt it's easier to play more strings using the classical technique. Hooking the thumb then becomes positively awkward

John

[the low one]

I presume this is talking about the Tony Franklin fretless bass DVD listed here:
http://www.amazon.com/Fretless-Bass-...8616593&sr=8-1

Has anyone got this, what's it like? Does he play solo or with a band. What level is it aimed at? I can't find a review of it anywhere.