My Dear Friends,
While I am admittedly new to this forum, as of next month I'll have just a year shy of a quarter-century of electric bass addiction under my belt.
I started playing in February 1985 at age 15 on an original Hofner violin bass strung with factory flatwound strings. I played that bass until December 1986 when I acquired my beloved Yamaha BB300. I had an EMG J-Bass pickup installed and it has been refretted twice - once due to fret wear, and once due to neck warpage near the body.
The first song I learned on electric bass was "Save a Prayer" by Duran Duran.
Since then, I have played around with double bass (first song learned on this one was "Moon Over Bourbon Street" by Sting), as well as 5 and 6-string basses. All of these basses are fun, but the double bass irritates my CTS (I am a computer tech by trade) and the weight of most more-than-four-string basses causes intense neck pain (compressed disc between C5 and C6 - my chiropractor LOVES to see me coming).
Consequently I hadn't played much in the past few years until very recently - I got back into the Martial Arts and found a way to keep my spine better adjusted, enabling me to play bass for longer periods of time. So the old Yamaha comes out of the case, new strings added, and I find that I can still work the instrument over with my thumb. After brushing up on the more conventional thumbing techniques I did a little research and am now working on getting down the Victor Wooten/Marcus Miller up-and-down double-thumbing technique.
And having a lot of fun doing it, I must admit.
I am glad to be here among you, even if I probably qualify as a dinosaur.
Warmest wishes,
Kurt
While I am admittedly new to this forum, as of next month I'll have just a year shy of a quarter-century of electric bass addiction under my belt.
I started playing in February 1985 at age 15 on an original Hofner violin bass strung with factory flatwound strings. I played that bass until December 1986 when I acquired my beloved Yamaha BB300. I had an EMG J-Bass pickup installed and it has been refretted twice - once due to fret wear, and once due to neck warpage near the body.
The first song I learned on electric bass was "Save a Prayer" by Duran Duran.
Since then, I have played around with double bass (first song learned on this one was "Moon Over Bourbon Street" by Sting), as well as 5 and 6-string basses. All of these basses are fun, but the double bass irritates my CTS (I am a computer tech by trade) and the weight of most more-than-four-string basses causes intense neck pain (compressed disc between C5 and C6 - my chiropractor LOVES to see me coming).
Consequently I hadn't played much in the past few years until very recently - I got back into the Martial Arts and found a way to keep my spine better adjusted, enabling me to play bass for longer periods of time. So the old Yamaha comes out of the case, new strings added, and I find that I can still work the instrument over with my thumb. After brushing up on the more conventional thumbing techniques I did a little research and am now working on getting down the Victor Wooten/Marcus Miller up-and-down double-thumbing technique.
And having a lot of fun doing it, I must admit.
I am glad to be here among you, even if I probably qualify as a dinosaur.
Warmest wishes,
Kurt
