Playing the bass upside down?

[krfoss]

I've seen videos of Sony T. and Mono Neon playing their bass "upside down," meaning the low E (or B) is closest to the ground and the high G is the top string.

I'm not going to suddenly flip my bass and change how I've played bass for 25 years, but I'm wondering if there is an advantage to this? Seems like a weird "style" choice, so it seems like a more pragmatic decision.

Anyone have any thoughts or insight on this?

 

[Bob_Ross]

Most of the folks I've seen playing that way (e.g., Jimmy Haslip) do it because they are left handed but learned to play on a right-handed instrument.
I only just learned (ostensibly) that MonoNeon is right handed (!) but decided to flip his bass so that his dominant hand would be the fretting hand (!!). Never heard of anyone else doing that before.

 

[Killing Floor]

If someone wants to play an instrument the wrong way and they can make it sound good then I suppose it’s not wrong for them.

When you listen to Mono I wonder if he’d be even better if he wasn’t trying to play wrongly. Possibly the next Jaco.

I’ve seen Belew and a few others drastically alter tuning just to force themselves to work differently. Maybe Mono is doing that?

 

[Lee Moses]

I only just learned (ostensibly) that MonoNeon is right handed (!) but decided to flip his bass so that his dominant hand would be the fretting hand (!!). Never heard of anyone else doing that before.

I had a guitar when I was seven or eight and taught myself to play very basic stuff. It always seemed to make perfect sense to fret with my dominant hand. I was shocked at the age of 12 when I tried to point out that a guitarist was playing upside down to learn that I had been mistaken all that time.

 

[buldog5151bass]

Worked for Albert King and Dick Dale I believe.

 

[Les Fret]

It only works if you learned it that way right from the start I think. I bet all these player began that way and didn’t learn it in the normal way first?

Advantages? I can’t think of any, but it works for these few players.

 

[TOOL460002]

I always thought it was so you could bend the higher strings easier (pulling down as opposed to pushing up), but I'm admittedly not really into either bassist mentioned.

 

[JC BASS 91]

I used to go to church with a guy that was left-handed that played a right-handed bass upside down. He had been doing that for 3 years and that's how he had learned to play.

 

[factory presets]

I only just learned (ostensibly) that MonoNeon is right handed (!) but decided to flip his bass so that his dominant hand would be the fretting hand (!!). Never heard of anyone else doing that before.

Had it done for me. People used to insist that if I played with their guitar I should do it properly. By the time I took up the bass, I was well used to holding stringed instruments right handed. Bet I'm not the only one.

 

[albertus]

Most of the folks I've seen playing that way (e.g., Jimmy Haslip) do it because they are left handed but learned to play on a right-handed instrument.
I only just learned (ostensibly) that MonoNeon is right handed (!) but decided to flip his bass so that his dominant hand would be the fretting hand (!!). Never heard of anyone else doing that before.

I am lef-handed and when I picked the instrument for the first time it made sense to me that my left hand was the fretting hand. it has a lot of intricacies. the right hand is just alternating the index and middle fingers. so I play regular basses.

 

[factory presets]

I used to go to church with a guy that was left-handed that played a right-handed bass upside down. He had been doing that for 3 years and that's how he had learned to play.

Got a sinister friend plays a RH bass. Doesn't slap much. But when he does it's a slap with the fingers and pop with the thumb technique. Plus he had a 1000 basses and lived round the corner from a cafe gig I had . Every Saturday I'd jam out with the wife's people then borrow a Thunderbird or a Jazz with 25 knobs and switches or some such, and off to my little jazz gig. Man, they used to laugh.​

 

[pklima]

I do it on DB also. It's fine, though I guess the high notes on the high strings are farther away because you have to reach across the whole fingerboard, not like I ever play up there anyway. And I don't slap on electric, not sure how that would work, and on DB really only do pretty basic swing-style slap, not rockabilly.

Advantages... if you like to rest your thumb on the string above the one you're playing, this seems to work out pretty well. Not sure if that really matters much, though, you'd need to ask somebody who's crazy enough to learn to play both ways to tell you what's easier in each orientation.

 

[Papageno]

Why not if it's your thing...