Taking the Six String plunge

This is just my opinion, please take what you like and leave the rest. I'm a little more more full of it sometimes than most people here

I think it's important to remember what a bassist <b>does</b>.

I play a six myself - and the temptation to overplay is strong at times. The lure of the Dark Side is powerful. You mentioned Dream Theater - IMO John Myung fills a role that not many bassists do - and DT's music is written to accomodate his (and everyone else's) talents.

If you're playing with people everyone's style needs to complement each other's or stuff gets ugly in a hurry - musically and emotionally. Hitting the occasional doublet or chording, tapping or playing in the g*itarist's register is impressive as hell at times - but a few multistring players I've heard forget about the groove - at least at first

One thing to remember is that unless you're soloing while you're off in the upper registers <b>someone</b> has to do your job or the song falls apart. It's a pretty good idea to get someone to volunteer to do that rather than inflicting something on the rest of the band.

I have three-octave bass lines that I really like but most of the time I'm still holding up the bottom end with the middle four strings. It's nice to be able to branch out a little and do some stuff people don't normally hear bassists do and a bit of that mixed in with the normal stuff is just great.

My backup bass has four strings. I bought it for a couple of reasons - first, if I break a string onstage I can hand the six off, get it fixed and still keep playing, plus although there are folks who can play pretty heavy funk on a six I'm not one of them - it's just more effective for me to save the slap for the Jazz Bass. I know people who can slap multistring basses - and all of them are mutants.

Explore the upper registers and noodle around with chording, tapping and all kinds of other neat stuff - and show off a little. Learn lotsa music theory - then all this stuff will make sense. Solo when appropriate and take the skills you acquire and apply them to four or five-string instruments if you can. Write songs that showcase <b>your</b> style - that way you can be sure your groove fits the song. For me, playing a six opens up possibilities I wouldn't have thought of on a four-string instrument.

But - above all, have a blast with it. Learn lotsa cool stuff, show off a little just to impress the crowd and piss off the g*itarist, but make sure your music <b>fits</b> the song.

enjoy,

allan

 

I just did it and regreted the hell out of it. Now I have a custom 5 string and have found my place.

NO MORE SIX SHOOTERS FOR ME.

My advice is, don't do it.

 

Beware the call of the 7.

 

I recently took the plunge to a 7 ( F# on the bottom and C on top), and I don't regret it a bit. It has become my main axe for both studio and live gigs.
One word of advice.... while playing....

DONT LOOK DOWN!

It's not an addiction, I can go back to a 4 anytime I want to.

 

i love my 6 stringer, and it's not just because my only other options are a newly converted tenor 4 string gsr 190 or a dearmond ashbory.

 

The one big genuine difference and technique you need to work on is Muting! There is a lot more sympathetic resonance with a 6-string and you need to develop a technique for muting all the strings that you aren't playing or the sound will get very muddy.

So if you're playing on the C or G strings, there are quite a few strings below, that you can potentially make sound in error and consequently more attention needs to be paid to muting them. The sympathetic notes are also potentially discordant and if they don't create actual dissonance can affect the overall "sound".

 

Exactly. You need good muting technique with your fretting hand, as well as with your plucking hand - the floating thumb technique does help with this, as you utilise the thumb when it is not being used as a muting instrument. Click here for more info.

Wait till you try slapping a 6 or 7 - that's when accuracy and muting becomes a huge issue.

 

as i found out. i had a problem the first couple of days just plucking the right string. i would fret the right string and then pluck the wrong one. also just as an excersise i tried slapping the begining of classical thump the first day i had my 6 and it turned into an excerise in frustration.