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Basses fitting for players with small hands?
- Thread starter Bassgrowl95
- Start date
Truthfully, if you can find one, try the Gibson TBird SS. Might be the best feeling neck of all the basses I own. Thin, fast, has a good radius. At least for me it's very comfortable. Plus being a SS it balances perfectly while still sounding like a TBird since it uses the same pickups.
I've got long legs, and the longer your legs, the bigger the Penny can be on your Penny Farthing and the faster you can go. Pity about the whole endo scenario with legs locked under the bar. No wonder the Safety Bike became the norm...
For Safety Bikes, off-road, I prefer the traditional 26" wheel size for maneouvrability in tight technical descents, though after trying the 29" wheel size, I can say it is great for high-speed smoother trails. A good compromise is the mid-sized 27.5" wheel, which is gaining popularity for good reason and I recently rode such-like extensively – Very good all-round, but for my style of riding and preferred terrain, it's still the ol' school 26".
Trials: a 20" rear and a 24" front. MTB Trials: 26" fr & rr... no need for a 24" rear, for me.
Road-wise, 700c will do, I'm not picky, but it's the norm and not many other sizes vying for King of the Asphalt.
So long as it rolls, I'm game.
Bass-wise, it runs the gamut: borrowed U-Bass, different mensurs on my uprights and 34" on slab, haven't had time/opportunity to add a 30" or 32" to the stable. So long as it goes BoOm-bOoM, I'm game.
For Safety Bikes, off-road, I prefer the traditional 26" wheel size for maneouvrability in tight technical descents, though after trying the 29" wheel size, I can say it is great for high-speed smoother trails. A good compromise is the mid-sized 27.5" wheel, which is gaining popularity for good reason and I recently rode such-like extensively – Very good all-round, but for my style of riding and preferred terrain, it's still the ol' school 26".
Trials: a 20" rear and a 24" front. MTB Trials: 26" fr & rr... no need for a 24" rear, for me.
Road-wise, 700c will do, I'm not picky, but it's the norm and not many other sizes vying for King of the Asphalt.
So long as it rolls, I'm game.
Bass-wise, it runs the gamut: borrowed U-Bass, different mensurs on my uprights and 34" on slab, haven't had time/opportunity to add a 30" or 32" to the stable. So long as it goes BoOm-bOoM, I'm game.
Using the bike analogy, Lance Armstrong (or insert your favorite PED-using pro cyclist here) could ride a bike of any size and beat the snot out of any of us. But, to get the most out of his talent, he uses a bike specifically fit to his dimensions. So, sure anyone can play any sized bass using proper technique, but matching that good technique with an ergonomically optimal bass in terms of scale, width and thickness will yield the best results.
Cycling is a more than a little different than playing bass. Put 'ol Lance on a bike built for a 6'5" guy and he's going to lose a lot of efficiency and probably suffer some joint pain. No, put him on a crappy component, wrong size, and poorly assembled Wal-Mart bike and your average local racer can beat him.
If small hands were truly limiting, only tall guys would be playing bass and short guys would be limited to guitar.
Dear me, don't do that! CGDA works fine on all my bass guitars, why screw up a cello with that silly tuning?!
There really is no correlation between the size of the person or their hands and the size of the bass they prefer. It is totally unlike a bicycle actually where a big bike frame truly does allow a big person to perform better and vice versa. Actually it is more like the wheel size of a bike where within limits the size of the wheels does not have to correlate with the size of the rider. There are people with huge hands who prefer short scale basses and people with small hands who play a double bass just fine, thank you. So, if the OP wants a short scale bass, a short scale bass he should have. I'm playing a Squier VI right now and it is a nice bass that fits the budget, at least in this country. It is a narrow necked six string however so it and all the other Bass VI variants may not be the OP's cup of tea. One sharp looking short scale bass that is unfortunately outside the budget (is the OP willing to save up a little longer?) is the Invalid Link Removed (that link points to Fender's "other" category page rather than directly to the Rascal page because currently they are all short scale basses!). It's essentially a hard tail VI with four strings. There are also a couple of medium scale Invalid Link Removed (the two black basses on that page) that might be of interest to the OP.
Exactly!
A U-bass "fits" me just fine, and so does my double-bass!
(An aside: Ergonomic or not, Lance Armstrong 'd kick my butt if he was riding a tricycle.)
Why not? Not silly at all.
Just jammed with a guy the other day playing a 1/4 sized Cello that was tuned EADG, very good soloist and he was able to express himself with EADG and break some rules. Mega-Fun jam with him, hang-drummers and a didjeridoo player and a man on melodica, some miscellaneous hand percussion...
Yes, fully agreed. U-bass or double-bass, they both "fit" me, but a soprano uke is too cramped for me, I prefer a tenor uke. Trying out basses at the local music shop, some basses just don't "work" with/for me and are not a good "fit". Hopefully the OP finds what fits.
Hey, no problem. Glad I could be of assistance.
I don't think that anyone has mentioned 'real men playing long-scale' apart from the short-scalers.
I think the point is that when the OP mentioned small hands, people started jumping in straight away suggesting short-scale basses, to the point where people who hadn't read the OP assumed that the OP had specifically asked about short-scale instruments. Now, to experienced people like you and me, who have played a few different instruments, we know what we like and what works for us. Other people who are less experienced (not necessarily including the OP in this) might assume that if they ask about suggestions for a player with smaller hands and get a load of people suggesting SS basses, a SS bass is the only option for them. So then you get other people chiming in and pointing out that actually, all scales of instruments can be played by people of all hand sizes.
One of the big problems that I have with TB is that any time anyone asks for suggestions of instruments, everyone just tells the OP to buy what THEY like. You get someone asking about the best bass for metal, and 95% of the people telling the OP get a P-Bass are members of the P-Bass-4-Life club, or have P-Basses listed in the signature. The next poster suggests a Warwick, and they have a bunch of Warwick gear listed in their sig. Next poster is the same but its Ibanez, or Yamaha, or Schecter, or its Ampeg Classics, or Team Awesome Fuzz Machines, or LaBella Deep Talkin' Flats, etc, etc, etc.
In actuality, the best answer is to go to a music store and play as much as possible. If you don't live near one, make a special trip to the nearest city. If people listened to the majority voice on here, I would be playing a P bass through an Ampeg fridge, and I would have to think twice about playing Warwicks (particularly the baseball-bat era instruments made between 2000 and 2009) or an upright bass, because I have small hands. I used to think that I wanted a P-Bass, because that's what everyone plays, and that's what everyone says to buy on TB. Luckily I picked up a Warwick in a shop one day out of curiosity, and that killed any P-Bass GAS for about 10 years. I still don't own one though.
It is silly because a four string tuned in fifths has the range of a five string tuned in fourths. Plus half a step. Why give that up when you are already trained to play in fifths? If you want to down tune a cello to bass guitar range the sensible tuning is FCGD. Playing a "bass" tuned in fifths will encourage you to break all kinds of bass guitar rules. Tuning EADG just encourages you to play like all the other bassists.
Why would it be all or nothing? Anecdotally, it sure seems like big fellas dominate the bass scene in terms of numbers. I think there is some loss of efficiency for smaller people and it is a less common instrument among them because of that. I'm the smallest male bass player I've ever met in person and that's at 5'6" with bigger hands than my height would suggest.
Personally, I don't have any problem with hand span, but I think short scales are great for short people playing a lot in first position; stretching your fretting arm way out for hours straight is not a comfortable experience (yeah, I've played all kinds of basses and tried wearing them all kinds of ways to maximize comfort while maintaining good form).
I don't care what kind of form they're using, if the bass isn't held in some crazy vertical way that makes it look like an upright, and a 5'0" and 6'0" are playing the same bass in first position, the shorter one is going to have to move his elbow relatively farther out from his body, which means holding the whole arm up at the shoulder a bit more than the tall person. Let that little bit of extra work compound over a set, and it adds up to more fatigue for the short person. I could do that all night and tough it out, or I could just pick up my easier to play short scale and do just as good of work with a just as good bass, which can do everything my long scales can.
As a bonus, most streamlined SS bodies don't look ridiculous in my hands like a giant honking jazz bass or my super giant Gibson Midtown. I can hide behind that thing.
edit* People have made some analogies to string basses in this thread. I'd like to say that a short neck bass guitar isn't as analagous to the fingerboard on an upright as it is to how far you extend the end pin. You've all been talking about scale like it only pertains to stretching one's hand to hit the notes. On many bass guitars it's also about the whole way the instrument sits and how the player positions his entire body to play it. No one would say an upright player is skirting proper form or wimping out because he adjusted his end pin to fit his height.
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Still not silly.
What's silly is your presuming that I'm trained to play in fifths. I'm not, nor was the fellow that owned the cello tuned EADG (AFAIK he may have had it tuned to guitar range not bass range, it was not a full-sized cello and I was listening to the group as a whole, not what register or tuning the guy had – it came up briefly in conversation). I held down the low end, and he was soloing melodically and adding to the music in ways that I wouldn't/couldn't as his skill level is far above mine. I've messed around with friends' instruments tuned in fifths (mandolin and violin and long long ago a cello), moving along a string is fine, but moving over string-to-string, the fifths mess me up. When I become more accomplished on fourths tunings and learn the rules, then I'll branch out and try fifths tunings and break some rules. Maybe I'll tune re-entrant, when I do.
Seriously, I think it's very cool that CGDA works for you on all your bass guitars, but nobody is telling you "That's silly, bass is traditionally tuned EADG" and imposing their ideas/restrictions on you or tell you that you're playing like every other bass player who's meddled with fifths.
So I'll just have to agree to disagree, that tuning an instrument in fourths and not fifths is not "silly".
The point is that we are playing music, which is really the point full stop. It's not about operating a vintage instrument vs new, large vs small, one genre over another, working one tuning over another... the point is to play music and express oneself, hopefully in a way that is comfortable and won't cause injury. To be able to express oneself may require a different tuning, roundwounds over flatwounds or a particular pickup or FX pedal...
Explore, find the path that works best for you. Play music.
Actually, guys, ol' Lance was high on drugs all the time.
So the answer to the OP's question, based on this theory, is that the OP needs drugs, not a tailor made bass to fit his small hands.
OP, you know what they say about small hands, right?
They say, "Damn, those are small hands". ^^
Yeah, GLN1955 already hit on that in his post you quoted, "PED-using" (PED=Performance Enhancing Drugs).
Small gloves...
BassHappy
Supporting Member
Here is a little experiment for all of you who are in the "look at the little girl, she can play songs just fine" camp, or similar - fill in the blank - it's always the exact same argument about the wonders of proper technique.
I am a technique guy too, believe me. This can work even for those with immaculate technique.
Pick a passage, an elaborate lick, a fast run, a section of a bass solo you admire but struggle with - find something that is JUST OUTSIDE of your technical grasp. On a good day you can nail this passage maybe one time out of five tries if you are lucky. Make sure it is something you can't quite play perfectly or smoothly on your usual instrument or scale length with any real consistency.
Now, try that exact same passage on a bass with a different scale. If you hands are average to small move down a scale notch or maybe two to either 32" or 30". If you hands are above average size, maybe move up a scale size or two to a 35" or even 36".
Try the exact same lick, run, solo section or passage and see what happens.
SOME of you might be pleasantly surprised - even delighted - to feel the difference the correct scale provides. I know I was. You will know it when you find it with this simple test - and if you are like me you will giggle for a while.
Sorry, but for me - it has never been about "playing songs". When you get to a certain point with your playing career and the creation of your own bass lines - it is about reaching for the stars, being the best player you can be, pushing yourself and your creativity to new heights. Trying to find your comfort zone with an instrument, so that it stays transparent and out of your way - and allows YOU to maximize YOUR potential to shine brightly as a bass player - so you can light that candle contained inside of you and keep it burning bright.
This won't work for everybody, you may not experience any gain in comfort or playability - but boy, do I wish I could see the look on the faces of those who it DOES work for.
Find and play the bass that FITS you perfectly - and this is an excellent way to go about it.
I am a technique guy too, believe me. This can work even for those with immaculate technique.
Pick a passage, an elaborate lick, a fast run, a section of a bass solo you admire but struggle with - find something that is JUST OUTSIDE of your technical grasp. On a good day you can nail this passage maybe one time out of five tries if you are lucky. Make sure it is something you can't quite play perfectly or smoothly on your usual instrument or scale length with any real consistency.
Now, try that exact same passage on a bass with a different scale. If you hands are average to small move down a scale notch or maybe two to either 32" or 30". If you hands are above average size, maybe move up a scale size or two to a 35" or even 36".
Try the exact same lick, run, solo section or passage and see what happens.
SOME of you might be pleasantly surprised - even delighted - to feel the difference the correct scale provides. I know I was. You will know it when you find it with this simple test - and if you are like me you will giggle for a while.
Sorry, but for me - it has never been about "playing songs". When you get to a certain point with your playing career and the creation of your own bass lines - it is about reaching for the stars, being the best player you can be, pushing yourself and your creativity to new heights. Trying to find your comfort zone with an instrument, so that it stays transparent and out of your way - and allows YOU to maximize YOUR potential to shine brightly as a bass player - so you can light that candle contained inside of you and keep it burning bright.
This won't work for everybody, you may not experience any gain in comfort or playability - but boy, do I wish I could see the look on the faces of those who it DOES work for.
Find and play the bass that FITS you perfectly - and this is an excellent way to go about it.
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