John Entwistle

[servetakid]

hi

im 15, john Entwistle is one of my favourite bassist. i just wanted to know more about his style?

[KPJ]

In addition to all of The Who recordings, check out a compilation of his solo work called "So Who's the Bassplayer?" John had a very aggressive, up front style and tone and his playing typically served as a counterpoint to what the other instruments were playing. From a technique standpoint, he incorporated pickstyle, fingerstyle, popping, tapping, etc, (sometimes all in the same song) in order to play the part that best suited the song. He was formally trained, primarily on brass instruments so he had a tremendous grasp of music theory and began his music career playing in jazz bands. His initial rock influence was the guitarist Duane Eddy and the majority of his tone and style can be traced back to Eddy's playing.

[Kink Rimson]

Live at Leeds - now go fetch!

[servetakid]

thanks

does any one have any decent tabs for "cut my hair" or any other quadrophenia songs?

[servetakid]

Originally Posted by Kink Rimson

Live at Leeds - now go fetch!

i love the songs Young Man Blues! i can play to it, but i really know John Would do it?

[anthowl]

entwistle also previously was a pianist, these past instruments built up a lot of dexterity in both of his hands and helped him in playing with all five of his right fingers.
he also played with a lot of force and sometimes speed (strong fingers), gaining him the nickname 'Thunderfingers'.
very forward moving and expiramental bassist.

[KPJ]

There's a bunch of Who tabs here: http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/tablature/

No bass tab for "Cut My Hair" though, you'll have to learn it the old-fashioned way, by ear!

[byebyejimmy]

he also had a ridiculous collection of guitars and basses... check out the book "bass culture" tons of photos of said basses and notes by the man himself.

and you can't go wrong with the live at the isle of wight festival dvd

[One Drop]

One of his techniques was to play fingerstyle by hitting the strings with the tips of his fingers, like hitting typewriter keys. by bouncing them off the strings this way he would get tremendous volume and clarity, with lots of harmonic content.

He also had his basses set up with ridiculously low action, unplayable by other mere mortals.

I think some of his style can also be attributed to his knowledge of horn phrasings. he was a very complete musician, and his style filled out a trio like few others. He always referred to himself as a bass guitarist rather than a traditional bassist.

He was also a pioneer in many technical aspects, in pushing the limits of available amplification, creating the Fenderbird, and being instrumental in formulating Rotosound's R66 roundwounds. He was the first to play with as much treble as he did, and said this necessitated him cleaning up his technique to support this sound.

[KPJ]

To get a full appreciation of his style, you should really start with the early Who recordings and then listen chronologically. More than any other player he was constantly evolving his sound and technique.

[jaywa]

Another big thing about The Ox was, he did not "lock in" with the drummer in the conventional style. Keith Moon's (The Who's drummer) style was so unorthodox (and his time so erratic) that he would have completely overrun any "traditional" bassist. Entwistle had a much, much better sense of time than Moon did and in that respect, he really held that band together by bridging the rhythmic gap between Moon and Pete Townsend. At the same time Entwistle was really the lead instrument much of the time since Townsend was a rhythm guitarist first, singer second and a lead guitarist third and not a great one at that.

Entwistle's uniqueness was at least as much about the role he filled in his band, as it was about his great degree of technical ability.

[Elchupacabra]

It's kind of funny because I'm watching "Six Quick Ones: The Who" right now; they were just discussing John's technique. It's very similar to the right hand technique used on brass instruments such as the trumpet and french horn, and definitely the piano. His typewriter technique is also very interesting; you may find some videos of it if you look at the John Entwistle Masterclass videos on YouTube.

[Lowbrow]

Entwistle, asked why he was so sedate onstage while playing with so much presence, said something along the lines of "when everyone else is screaming and leaping and thrashing about, someone’s got to stand still and actually play music!"

[Lester4string]

The Ox can also be credited for many technological advances in Bass Guitar and Bass amplification.

John encouraged Rotosound to make roundwound "piano like" string for Bass guitar, before that everybody played Flatwound strings. These have since become industry standard.

John used Bi-Amping or Tri-amping for bass. This is the practice of using seperate ampilifiers to power different speakers for Lows, Mids and Highs.

John demanded the need to quickly switch between tunings on strings and therefore Hipshot created the wonderful D-tuners.

He was one of the first Bass Players who wasnt just the guy that stood in the back. Although his body language on stage makes him seem like he couldnt care less to be there, his bass voice could not be ignored. As a young kid, you sure latched onto one of the greats, amen.

Now check out, Jaco, Manring, Stu Hamm, Geezer Butler, Jack Cassidy, Jack Bruce, Flea, Claypool, Marcus Miller, Stan Clarke, Victor Wooten. Having one hero is so boring.

[jaywa]

Originally Posted by Lowbrow

Entwistle, asked why he was so sedate onstage while playing with so much presence, said something along the lines of "when everyone else is screaming and leaping and thrashing about, someone’s got to stand still and actually play music!"

That's pretty much my philosophy as well. I like that quote a lot.

[Knifedge]

Originally Posted by One Drop

One of his techniques was to play fingerstyle by hitting the strings with the tips of his fingers, like hitting typewriter keys. by bouncing them off the strings this way he would get tremendous volume and clarity, with lots of harmonic content.

He also had his basses set up with ridiculously low action, unplayable by other mere mortals.

I think some of his style can also be attributed to his knowledge of horn phrasings. he was a very complete musician, and his style filled out a trio like few others. He always referred to himself as a bass guitarist rather than a traditional bassist.

He was also a pioneer in many technical aspects, in pushing the limits of available amplification, creating the Fenderbird, and being instrumental in formulating Rotosound's R66 roundwounds. He was the first to play with as much treble as he did, and said this necessitated him cleaning up his technique to support this sound.

That is exactly how I hit my strings... and it is true, the attack and clarity is awesome. I had no idea John Entwistle played like that. Thank you very kindly (a sincere thank you and not a sarcastic one because I really didn't know) for this piece of information.

[jaywa]

Originally Posted by Lester4string

Now check out, Jaco, Manring, Stu Hamm, Geezer Butler, Jack Cassidy, Jack Bruce, Flea, Claypool, Marcus Miller, Stan Clarke, Victor Wooten. Having one hero is so boring.

Also John Deacon (Queen), John McVie (Fleetwood Mac), Mike Mills (REM) as well as Joe Osborn and Leland Sklar (studio greats who have played on hundreds of records over the past 30-40 years).

You're at a great age to be absorbing as much as you can (I was 14 the first time I picked up a bass). Keep your ears open, and good luck!

[PBass101]

Originally Posted by byebyejimmy

and you can't go wrong with the live at the isle of wight festival dvd

You can most certainly go wrong with the Wight Festival DVD, because it's a hack-job presentation of the performance. Quite a bit of footage was of unusable quality and so a lot of parts are spliced together from different segments of the show. The worst part is Entwistle's "My Generation" solo, which he played with a pick, but because the camera's didn't capture him, they edited the DVD with different shots of John playing fingerstyle, and what you're hearing vs. what you're seeing - the rhythm of his plucking and even the notes on the neck - are two different things.

There is at least one part I remember where you can clearly hear John singing along with Roger, but the video shows John standing by his amplifiers and away from the mic. I even think they used a few video frames multiple times throughout the entire DVD.

Great audio quality, idiotic video editing.

If you're going to try to cop Entwistle's technique of tapping the strings against the frest, you really have to work hard to get it down as cleanly as possible, because every mistake you make is going to become much louder and much more obvious.

[Jawshco]

Originally Posted by Knifedge

That is exactly how I hit my strings... and it is true, the attack and clarity is awesome. I had no idea John Entwistle played like that. Thank you very kindly (a sincere thank you and not a sarcastic one because I really didn't know) for this piece of information.

Yeah, me too. I never knew it was called the Typewriter technique, but that's a really great description of it. Although, there's no way I'd set my action as low as Entwhistle did. LOL! But his tap style is just about the only tap I do...the chromatic root-5th-4th-3rd chord walkdown is a cool move.

[jaywa]

Pbass101 - I can't believe it when people put out garbage like that. Do they think we're so stupid we can't figure out that what we're hearing and what we're seeing is not the same thing? That's just insulting. Did Townsend and Daltrey approve the release of that DVD cause I always pegged them to have more integrity than that.