Bass Speech Ideas

gatorfreak8031 · #1 02-02-2009, 01:46 PM

Hey, guys. I have to give a demonstrative speech for a public speaking class that I am taking.

The plan was to demonstrate how to defret a bass, but after spending some time with a broken fretted neck, some needle nosed pliers, and a lighter, I came to the conclusions that this isn't going to work without some better tools. I have no idea how Jaco supposedly pulled it off with a butter knife.

Anyway, I'd still like to do something bass/ music related and I was hoping you might have some ideas. I'm open to any suggestions, though something that nonmusical folk (our version of muggles?) can understand would be better.

lemur821 · #2 02-02-2009, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gatorfreak8031

The plan was to demonstrate how to defret a bass, but after spending some time with a broken fretted neck, some needle nosed pliers, and a lighter, I came to the conclusions that this isn't going to work without some better tools. I have no idea how Jaco supposedly pulled it off with a butter knife.

Hmm, it looks like you forgot to use a butter knife. Seriously, the trick is to lever the corners of the frets up, and while a sharper knife is easier to get in there, a butter knife would probably do. Heating is only semi-necessary, but a soldering iron would probably work better than a lighter.

Maybe you could introduce them to ear training or something. Teach them to recognize a couple of easy intervals like the fourth and the major seventh.

gatorfreak8031 · #3 02-02-2009, 09:59 PM

Yeah not a bad idea, it's a speech not really teaching a class so I'm not sure that interval training will work super well, but some basic theory, maybe a behind the music kind of thing.

mike1762 · #4 02-04-2009, 04:36 PM

I like the interval idea. You could play some common bass lines that highlight a Root/octave (My Sharona), Root/5th (Under Pressure), and a Root/flat 7th (Whole Lotta Love). See if they can guess the song based on the bass line.

slyjoe · #5 02-04-2009, 04:51 PM

This is for the public, not musician's, right?

Hell, I'd just demonstrate what each part of a bass DOES and why it's important.

gatorfreak8031 · #6 02-05-2009, 09:11 PM

Yeah, it's for regular people. Throwing the common songs part in for intervals would be really cool. I guess in my head I was thinking along the lines you guys were, where to do the intervals you'd have to have the class try to guess what it was, but it's more about the speech than anything and involving the class in that way isn't an option. If it could be somehow worked though....