New adventures in bass-playing

[intheory]

Hey bass brothers and sisters, it's been awhile!
I embarked on a new adventure this last week with my live bass playing.
I've been playing my Ibanez Soundgear 6 string fretted for many years, gigging out with it as my main bass for a long time.
I've been playing in an R&B band for over a year and a half now (www.nexxlevelband.com), and absolutely love it-we play out 10-12 times per month, good stuff.
So this past week I decided to try out something new-my shoulder has been really bothering me from the heavy Ibby, and I have a beautiful Schecter 5-string fretless bass that I've played occasionally for the past few years that weighs a fraction of the Ibby.

I've always found the fretless to be challenging in this band's context as I use a lot of popping and artifacts in my playing, but also found that playing the fretless really forced me to think harder about melody and phrasing.
So I played my mid-week gig last week half the night with the fretless, then went 100% fretless on both Friday and Saturday nights.
I loved it! It was challenging, but the tone just blew me away. My BL and also my musical director liked the tone as well, so I think I'm going to spend some time playing the fretless as my main bass.
I was surprised to find that I was able to utilize a lot of similar techniques for popping, although the sound has a different characteristic.
I'm happy to say that this has renewed my bass passion, and I'm excited for the days to come!

Thanks for letting me share-Dan

[Raymeous]

Very nice!

Switching things up every once in a while can be just the spark we needed to be happy again once we've grown bored with the same ol' same ol'.

[intheory]

Thanks Ray!

[Raymeous]

Anytime.

This is one of those reasons of why I have 4 basses, 6 electric guitars, a pair of acoustics, plus various amps. If I get too bored with what I've been doing, I walk into my personal "Guitar Center" and go "shopping". If that fails I can rearrange my drumset and really screw myself up. Ha ha.

If you think about it, it doesn't cost you anything to keep what you have already paid for.

[bwardmusic]

Same with me...we grow in different directions at different times and its things like these that really ignite the passion. I think this also shows the health issues associated with gigging a lot. The repetition can kill you.

Mark King, from Level 42 did a lot of slapping and popping and found he needed to rest his hands for a day after he did four nights in a row. I can see why a heavy bass would be a problem when gigging 10-12 times a week.

[bassbully]

10- 12 gigs a month? Whewww.. that makes me tired just thinking about it.

[bluewine]

Originally Posted by bassbully

10- 12 gigs a month? Whewww.. that makes me tired just thinking about it.

I wish I was gigging that much.

Blue

[intheory]

It's a good busy schedule for sure. Thanks for the support on the change . My next hurdle is getting a really good memory of positions to not have to watch my hands as much (never had that problem on fretted, lol)