in your opinion, what do you consider worse?

[JacobE]

guitar wankery or bass wankery?

personally, i find guitar wankery to be much worst and more boring.

but maybe that is just my bias


(for those who dont know wankery is basically showing of various techniques, scales, or what have you just for the heck of it or to make ones self look good).

 

[Matt Till]

Bass wankery, I think it sounds worse solo, AND if a bassist is wanking, odds are that means nobody is holding down the groove.

 

[Phalex]

I went with bass wankery. A little guitar wankery is usually to be expected.

 

[mjolnir]

Bass wankery, definitely. Bass wankers leave everybody else without a foundation. Guitards doing a little wanking can be glossed over with a talented rhythm section.

 

[scottice]

Nothing tops the wankery at the GC, whether it's guitard or bass it matters not.

 

[Taylor Livingston]

I think guitar wankery is slightly worse only because it is accepted. If I hear a bass player twiddling around doing a tapping solo, I can pretty much expect the rest of the band and the audience to be rolling their eyes.

Guitar twiddling seems to go by pretty much unnoticed, or people might even congratulate it, which I think is unacceptable.

 

[ROON]

Bass wankery.

Guitars are made for that stuff, look at rock and metal, nearly every song has a guitar solo. That's what they're there for. Basses are to hold the groove and provide low end, I can't stand it when people decide they are going to go all out and solo like crazy. Vic Wooten and Doug Wimbish are cool because they can hold a nice groove as well as do a crazy solo. But to me players like Jonas Hellborg who just solo non-stop annoy me.

 

[jomahu]

guitar wheedly-wheedly is atrocious. bass boodly-boodly is clownish.

 

[sarcastro83]

wankery in general is a touch unbearable.

 

[Mystic Michael]

I'm not so concerned about which particular player is the source of the wanking. Wanking is wanking. Conspicuous overplaying, showing off for the sake of showing off, ignoring the groove, turning music into a self-serving display of shallow technicality in order to impress the musically unsophisticated, etc. is deeply annoying, no matter the source...

I will agree that it's more deeply embedded in guitar culture than it is in bass guitar culture - so it's to be expected, to an extent. The unfortunate side effect is that those with an ultra-orthodox view of what constitutes an appropriate bass part (and lo, they are many) have become hyper-sensitized to any bass part that's out of the mainstream "box", which they then feel free to characterize as "wanking". And that is neither open-minded, nor musically sophisticated, nor fair...

MM

 

[René_Julien]

Hey, I live for bass wankering.

You guys are mean.

 

[rob2966]

I play bass and guitar. I must admit I enjoy "wanking" on the guitar from time to time. As soon as I grab my bass, that desire disappears.

Later
Rob

 

[bobba66]

The bassist plays the song whilst the guitarist wanks away.

 

[baba]

Bass by far.

 

[JacobE]

yay! some posts!

good point ive never really thought of it,

i think there both intolerable but in differant ways,

i mean if your a bassist and you go out of your way to solo during a song or whatever thats not on, but the odd extended fill is ok, but than again if you have a quick "wank" just sitting there on your own trying out a bass in a shop its ok because you dont really have a job to do

i also agree witht the guy who made the point abut guitar solos, yea sometimes its needed in a song but showing of (as a lot of guitarists do, admit it) i mean really going out of the way to show how good you are doesnt really sit well with me, i mean come on look at dragon force we all know ther good cant they just tone it down