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Johnny Long on playing a five.

#44
lowdownthump said:
For the most part... yes. He did seem to contradicted when he said don't buy the hype of thinking you must have a 5 string especially you Gospel players. Then right after that he says everyone should have a 5 string.

But I did agree when he stated that gospel players think you have to have a 5 and a 5 of a certain brand. And that those certain brands will
make your mistakes more noticeable.

I wanted him to elaborate on what the tonal difference is he hears in single cutaway 5's vs standard double cutaways.
Click to expand...

IDK, I can relate with the contradiction. Nobody NEEDS a 5 string, but having one isn't a bad idea. I've heard a bass instructor state "Everyone should learn on a 6 string".. and it's not really about whether you'd use it for performance but what the extra strings can teach you. It's hard to describe but it was like looking at a puzzle that felt more complete when it comes to intervals and modes that just kind of clicked the more I played my 5 string.

I personally prefer a 5, and use one in my band situation.. not everybody wants or needs that, plenty could play circles around me on a 4. But based on my own experience, picking up a 5 and practicing on it regularly could help paint some of the picture that goes into making music, even if you prefer a 4 string. If that makes sense, anyway.

Not a necessity, but worth exploring kind of deal.
 
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#46
I almost always play my 5 string with my band.
As I stated earlier, it is out of necessity.
Sometimes I wish I could get by with 4 but the song list determines what I need.
Luckily my 5'r is so easy to play that it's a nonissue.
 
#47
JoshS said:
We play a ton of songs in the key of D or Eb. The 5 made this worlds easier for me. Working from the roots, I got lost fast moving up, but remained grounded going down. If I were more talented, experienced, and practiced, I could pull it off with a 4. I did it early, but really switched fast for church. I can't imagine going back, though. And this isn't really even Gospel, as a genre per se more than just generically P&W.
Click to expand...
Agree. The main reason I like it is the horizontal range.
 
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#48
India_Sierra said:
Muting is one of those things that always come up with 5 and 6 string basses. I've lost count of the amount of players that I've seen here who said that they had given up on even a five string bass because they couldn't get used to the B string or they couldn't get the muting right.
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If my experience is anything to go by, anyone who has problems with muting a 5 or 6 string bass just isn't practising enough.

I had the usual familiarity and muting problems when I started playing 5ers. I decided that a 5 wasn't going to beat me at something a simple as muting an extra string. So I knuckled down and fixed that hole in my technique.
 
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#49
Started off on a Fender PJ I borrowed from Middle School.
No surprise that the 'sound in my head' is still, after much trading, a PJ5, Fenderish tone.

For me ... and boy did I take a lot of time and money and shipping and being disappointed on the gig ... I just can't make a 'fancy' 5 like what's in the video, and the moving van's amount of basses I traded away with boutique wood/electronics/everything is proof of it.

But ...

I ended up pretty much following Johnny Long's advice, after some bad experiences where I fumbled all over the B-string live. I got to the woodshed, and what I picked up about different positions, 'those notes' from Low Eb down to Low B, and all the rest, fundamentally transformed how I play/approach the instrument.

I'll never ever be able to go back to a 4-stringer. Period. 5-strings is THE standard for me.

Interesting to me to think about how I ended up going back to that Fenderish PJ sound after all that trading of the 'boo-teeks'. The tone and more importantly the ergonomics of my Sadowsky PJ5 and Olinto P5 ... 20 frets, 34" scale, rosewood fretboards and P body shapes, and of course the pickup position that makes it a 'P-Bass' ... makes me feel more at home.

I loved some of those fancy basses ... a 'one that got away' Smith 6'er in particular ... but keeping that 'Fender P with a B' thing in mind really helped me feel 'at one' with my 5.

The hard part became, as Johnny Long said, learning how those low notes affect the ensemble and are, for the most part, simply not needed. I went through my 'overuses notes on the b-string' period. He's absolutely dead-on about that. Essentially I'm playing the range of a 4-string bass, for most of my playing.

Funny how everyone mentions a low B on a 5-string. I like that open string sound, but to me, after owning/evaluating a bunch of basses, the Low Eb walking down to my favorite note, that first-fret Low C, is what separates the master builders from the 'that's OK' cheaper variants.

Oh, and even though Johnny was a bit clunky in expressing it, I know exactly what he means in having a bass that sounds so good ... you're 'best bass' ... that you can get away hitting some clams because the dang thing just sounds good in the mix, but all the true musicians know.
 
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#50
I remember we were doing some music that required a low D so I put a D Tuner on my Yamaha RBX-800A at the time. Then there was so much music with lower notes that I went out and bought a 5, it wasn't that hard to get used to playing it and muting partially because it had narrow string spacing.

I used 5's for many years and now I'm back mainly on 4 strings because the music doesn't required a 5. Occasionally I'll still take one with me if required and I think I agree with Johnny that those notes have a 'correct' place in the song where it kind of picks it up and makes it bigger.

So after more than three decades the Tune 5 is still with me and still in use today.

Tune2.jpg
 
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#51
My thoughts on any new challenge (or bass in this case) is that if you're truly interested in pursuing whatever it happens to be, you have to expect to be a beginner in some sense. You're (for the most part) not going to pick up a 5/6 string bass and suddenly play the exact same way you would on the 4 string you've been used to playing for however long.

I am fortunate to own a 4, 5, and 6 string bass and depending on what I seek to practice or play, I'll pick up a specific bass and shed. That's all there is to it, for me at least :)
 
#53
coyote1 said:
5 string is not necessarily about those extra low notes. It CAN be, but it is not inherently about that. One way to think about it is this: in a jazz combo context, a guitarist rarely uses the low E string. He/she generally plays 'banjo' chords, in order to make room for the bassist and the pianist.

What the low-B string can do for you is enable easier access to low E. Imagine never having to move your hand by the headstock, because virtually everything you need to play is available in 5th position!! Suddenly, your playing can tighten up because your movement is economized.
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Spot on. The one thing I tell others about a five is the economy of motion using the E on the B string. It's much less stress on the fret hand staying at the fifth fret where I can run songs all night long. Gone are the days of open E to get a deeper E tone in a song.
I also think the bottom headstock notes F-B-C-G sound richer and better off the fifth fret E..I have maybe become Lazy player or maybe a smarter player?
FWIW, I like Jonny's videos and he's pretty much right on here.
 
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#54
The real question is what kinda day gig does Jonny have because this brother has owned about 300 basses and not to mention that 67 Olds that looks straight mint off the shop floor he's got. Last but not least the guy has a wardrobe that would put most women to shame, the suits, the funky hats, the funky sportcoats and pants, dude is fly
 
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#56
I was blessed to have developed the floating thumb by chance, in 1989 on my first bass (thanks Sears & Roebuck!). Knowing my perfectionism, I'm sure that on day one (which I remember distinctly) that I realized I would have to float my thumb to shut up the lower strings, while playing the skinnier ones. A few days later, I was playing GnR songs with a group of friends from our tiny 120 student high school. Then around 1990, I bought the Billy Sheehan bass VHS... the one that has him with his mod'd pink Yamaha BB. He moves his thumb, so seeing that enforced what I was already doing. That has been the extent of my musical instruction. Every thing since, I have taught myself or learned by being in bands. I was able to switch from 4 to 6 string basses around 1992 with no muting issues. I've been recorded since 1990, playing jazz fusion to hard rock on 4, 5, and 6 strings and I can assuredly say that the floating thumb has secured every bass gig I ever wanted and made recording a pleasant experience, even when being WAY out of my league many times!! I've been blessed to never be kicked from a band and I always got the gigs I wanted. It's not my playing ability.. it's my ear and my muting!

I say all this not to toot my own horn. I say it because, if I taught students, the floating thumb and muting in general would be goal number 1.
 
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#57
I did not watch the whole vid. This one is kinda 'ragged', if you will. Haphazard. Tough for me to listen for more than a few seconds.

So... by "floating thumb" I presume y'all are talking about the right hand thumb, and resting that thumb on a low string that you're not using in order to mute the string while you play other strings. If that's correct, then it's what I've always done. And it has that advantage.

But it also has disadvantages. One thing I'm trying to learn is to be precise enough in my playing that I can rest the thumb in one place, while accurately playing all the strings (mine is a 6 string) without a need to mute. And I find that motion difficult. I can do it on a four, but not on the six.

So more practice is needed.:bassist:
 
#58
markjazzbassist said:
The real question is what kinda day gig does Jonny have because this brother has owned about 300 basses and not to mention that 67 Olds that looks straight mint off the shop floor he's got. Last but not least the guy has a wardrobe that would put most women to shame, the suits, the funky hats, the funky sportcoats and pants, dude is fly
Click to expand...

He renovates basses full time and he has clients worldwide.
 
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