Recent content by Contrabenjista

Audience familiarity is part of it. Playing familiar accessible *danceable* stuff was a factor, especially if you need big crowds of dancers to financially support a huge band. This is about a time when PA technology was still primitive, and a huge band was the only way to create that wall of...

It's a continuum, isn't it? Spontaneous creation could mean abandoning a rehearsed part and scripted solos. (Which is not exactly true in big band jazzes, where total freedom and spontaneity becomes less practical the bigger the band is). It could mean abandoning chord progressions, like in...

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you; Thank you! Agreed. I had been hoping to buy from his shop for those reasons. He's helped me out with bass repairs in the past and is a great guy. Thank you! Oh interesting. I read that the gamba style Juzeks came from the Lang workshop in Mittenwald after...

Thank you!

I've got vicarious regret. Gorgeous!

Thank you! Yours is looking good! Thank you! What happened to yours?

Hey all! I finally joined the fully carved club! I've been playing an Eastman plywood bass for a while now, and as far as plywood basses go it's been pretty great. But as I keep working on arco, thumb position, and sit in with community orchestras, I've been increasingly feeling the need for...

Another piece here when it comes to time: sustain/legato is a huge contributor to time and swing, and arco practice helps with sustain, by letting us hear when we stop stopping the note, and forcing us to develop technique to minimize and hide the time moving between notes. Without that...

Good advice. To add: slowing down is helpful, but we also play differently slow vs fast. Another approach: playing the run in 2 note chunks, where we we hold every other note as slow as we need, and then play the next note and the transition to the next note at full speed. Repeat starting on...

Stradivari's latin name was Antonius Stradivariu, and his makers label was Antonius Stradivarius. (Obviously no relation to the many string instruments made centuries after his death.)

PA technology has improved vastly as has digital modeling, to the point where it really makes the most sense--even for guitarists-- to run everything through the PA. Digital mixers are amazing these days, and can help with custom individual monitor mixes, and you can use IEMs or carefully...

Independent of genre tendencies, though, once you're playing in a room with a lot of echo, an amp does more harm than good. IEMs are pretty much a silver bullet when it comes to feedback prevention, and having the best and most consistent bass tone in your ears. That's the most logical cabinet...

No, he would be tuned to E. (Or any other tuning--it wouldn't be a capo in this scenario) The low profile of the extended/false nut might make it easy to try to play on top of it by accident, and the device covering it is a tactile cue to prevent him from doing that, arched to not touch the...

That makes the most sense to me. The height of the peg box seems to match this guess--that he was shortening the string length on a large instrument

He was just trying to wean himself out of over relying on 1/2 position