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Double Bass Does anyone ever talk about guitarists?

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Zzeonblue

Aug 29, 2011
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#1
Hi
just wondering if any bass players ever talk about guitarists and why they have influenced them. As a guitar player, I have always found that bass players tend to be deep thinkers and rather quiet.
:cool:
 
#4
John Petrucci is a huge influence on me on a technique basis and in some ways from a musical perspective. Guys like Devin Townsend and Tosin Abasi also influence me in just a very musical way. It's not just about bassists.
 
#6
it doesnt matter what instrument you play, but to me, if you're only influenced by players of the same instrument you probably wont ever be very original and end up just sounding like a clone.
 
#8
Yep, guitarists, pianists-keyboardists, saxophonists, drummers, and others.

Guitarists I enjoy and learn from include Hendrix, Clapton, Page, Garcia, Green, Kaukonen, Fahey, Kottle, Renbourn, Jansch, Smither, Watson, Knopfler, Guy Clark, and many more.

I can learn a lot of right hand technique from the acoustic finger-style guitarists.

So Zzeonblue do you talk about and learn from bassists?
 
#12
I'm a bassist first, but I also play guitar and have been gigging about 50/50 between them.

I would say my guitar playing is more influenced by the bass, than the other way around. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of guitar as a listener; I like plenty of music that uses it, but I don't seek out records by guitarists or because of the guitar playing, as a rule.

Off the top of my head, a short list of guitarists that I have paid special attention to would be James Blood Ulmer, John Fahey, John Lennon (yes, more so than George Harrison, or Paul McCartney who is an excellent guitarist as well), Barry Galbraith, Bern Nix, Jonah Sithole (who played with Thomas Mapfumo), Reggie Lucas, Jimmy Nolen, and my most recent favorite, Philip Tabane (who is absolutely incredible - he did some stuff as a duo with one other guy that sounds kind of like Miles Davis' whole band circa '73).

I also love Django, Charlie Christian, and many acoustic blues, gospel, or ragtime players (especially Charley Patton, Big Bill Broonzy, Skip James, and Rev. Gary Davis).

I am especially drawn to what I call advanced rhythm guitarists, or players that have a seamless transition between their rhythm playing and their melodic lines or solos, where everything is kind of an improvised solo and everything is also logically related ensemble playing at the same time, as you hear in Ornette Coleman's music and also in lots of African traditional or modern music. Jimi Hendrix could be that way too sometimes although he would obviously be a more over the top lead stylist rising well above the fray a lot of the time.

I don't know that I display even an inkling of that in my own bass playing, but if I did that would make me very happy. I do display that sort of influence in my guitar playing although I have a long way to go before I could be reasonably compared to any of the artists I mentioned.
 
#14
Ususaly a guitarist influences me rhythmiclly rather than melodiclly. Even that - if I do it on double bass, everyone thinks I am doing great. Bass guitar - I am stepping on someones toes (wannabe guitarist). To me it's a double standard that I have never understood.
 
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