Hi all!
Back to music after a tumultuous couple years of life, including a big move halfway across the country!
About a year ago, the daughter of a friend expressed interest in learning bass. So, I retooled my basses and my brain to standard tuning because I didn't want a brand new player to have to deal with the little frictions that come with learning music and the instrument (as well as being in one's first band) in an alternate tuning.
Fast forward to a month ago. Lessons commence. Over the summer, my student and her brother and her dad when to a Ghost concert. She is now 100% loving that band. This is fun for me on multiple fronts: their catalog includes and nice progression of song complexities to learn and for me to hang learning musical concepts on as we go.
Ghost also plays almost exclusively in D-standard! So this left the paths forward at five string, four string in drop-D or four string in D-standard. I nixed the middle option because I don't want to disrupt the tuning symmetry of the instrument for a new learner. So the question put to my student was... four string or five? After some time spent with a five string, and a four string of mine, my student has definitively stated that she wants to settle on a four string in D-standard!
The 34" scale on my MTD Kingston CRB was a bit of a stretch for her, so after a trip to the local GC and some talking with me and her dad (a guitar player) she's now the proud owner of a used Squier Affinity Jaguar H, which is a 32" scale bass. And dang, for the price, I've got to say, it's nice. As someone who started playing last century (hah), budget instruments are AMAZING these days.
Long story short: I'm back to D-standard, and will be teaching in D-standard.
And this leaves me with a sadness and a conundrum:
Back to music after a tumultuous couple years of life, including a big move halfway across the country!
About a year ago, the daughter of a friend expressed interest in learning bass. So, I retooled my basses and my brain to standard tuning because I didn't want a brand new player to have to deal with the little frictions that come with learning music and the instrument (as well as being in one's first band) in an alternate tuning.
Fast forward to a month ago. Lessons commence. Over the summer, my student and her brother and her dad when to a Ghost concert. She is now 100% loving that band. This is fun for me on multiple fronts: their catalog includes and nice progression of song complexities to learn and for me to hang learning musical concepts on as we go.
Ghost also plays almost exclusively in D-standard! So this left the paths forward at five string, four string in drop-D or four string in D-standard. I nixed the middle option because I don't want to disrupt the tuning symmetry of the instrument for a new learner. So the question put to my student was... four string or five? After some time spent with a five string, and a four string of mine, my student has definitively stated that she wants to settle on a four string in D-standard!
The 34" scale on my MTD Kingston CRB was a bit of a stretch for her, so after a trip to the local GC and some talking with me and her dad (a guitar player) she's now the proud owner of a used Squier Affinity Jaguar H, which is a 32" scale bass. And dang, for the price, I've got to say, it's nice. As someone who started playing last century (hah), budget instruments are AMAZING these days.
Long story short: I'm back to D-standard, and will be teaching in D-standard.
And this leaves me with a sadness and a conundrum:
- Apparantly in my absence Stringjoy stopped selling bass singles and custom sets? I was so so happy making a D to A#/Bb set for my fiver.
- Most importantly, (and yes, I am going to mine this thread for people's thoughts) the search is on for strings appropriate for D-standard on a 32" scale bass for my student. Her used Squier came with a set of neon green DRs on it, so we're going to start out sussing out how they act in D-standard.
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