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What are you talking about, "coffee table" bass?
- Thread starter icecycle66
- Start date
No lie! I never thought of the term "coffee table bass" as dismissive at all. My thinking is that generally, if somebody goes out and buys a coffee table for their home, it's because they find that table to be very attractive. Similarly, I think a lot of the fancier basses are stone-cold beautiful, and I love looking at them.Personally, I am an old dinosaur. As such, I've always found that for ME, the simplistic beauty of a Fender Jazz or P is what I'm most attracted to for my own use. That doesn't mean that I can't appreciate somebody else playing a beautifully finished "coffee table bass". Just like women, while I might have my own preference, I can also appreciate beauty in any variety I might encounter. Beauty is beauty...
It's too bad nobody makes coffee tables that look like Fender basses. They would look cool and render the term coffee table bass completely irrelevant. I could see a sonic blue finished alder table with rosewood legs and chrome accents looking really good.
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
The term "coffee table bass" is only dismissive depending on the context. Sometimes it implies a level of craftsmanship that rises above the norm or exceeds the demands of simple functionality. Nothing at all wrong with that. I love an exotic top as much as a simple painted alder body.
Where it's used dismissively, I think, is when we refer to a heavily ornate instrument whose basic function (sound, playability, or usability) fails to live up to its aesthetic beauty. It therefore becomes less useful as a bass and more useful as a coffee table.
But I think this reveals a fundamental problem with the way we mentally endow instruments to have a sound or vibe based upon how they look. I suspect many of us have bought a bass online thinking it was going to sound or play a certain way because of its looks or what we believe the characteristics of it's components to be. Not to say that we don't make a very educated guess, but the success rate is similar to shopping for wine and purchasing the bottle with the nicest label; you never know that it's any good until you drink it.
Now if I can just find a bottle of buckeye burl cabernet and a zebra wood cork...
-Alan
Where it's used dismissively, I think, is when we refer to a heavily ornate instrument whose basic function (sound, playability, or usability) fails to live up to its aesthetic beauty. It therefore becomes less useful as a bass and more useful as a coffee table.
But I think this reveals a fundamental problem with the way we mentally endow instruments to have a sound or vibe based upon how they look. I suspect many of us have bought a bass online thinking it was going to sound or play a certain way because of its looks or what we believe the characteristics of it's components to be. Not to say that we don't make a very educated guess, but the success rate is similar to shopping for wine and purchasing the bottle with the nicest label; you never know that it's any good until you drink it.
Now if I can just find a bottle of buckeye burl cabernet and a zebra wood cork...
-Alan
Smaller in real life than it actually appears. Available at your local IKEA retailer.
M. M.
Is this the best coffee table for metal...
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q-Uz5Dz_N...Tg/M8hWSqVVti8/s1600/FINAL+COFFIN+1+SMALL.jpg
(sorry, somebody had to do it)
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q-Uz5Dz_N...Tg/M8hWSqVVti8/s1600/FINAL+COFFIN+1+SMALL.jpg
(sorry, somebody had to do it)
EdwardofHuncote
I Still Dream of Jeannie
- Aug 21, 2013
- 6,669
- 2
- 16,481
- Disclosures
- I privately own and operate a local musical instument repair shop.
Usually I avoid threads like this, but what the heck... this world would be a boring place if we all liked the same thing anyway. I appreciate well-made basses, period. Here's a couple of my "coffee tables" and one of my less ornate, but certainly no less treasured basses.
Attachments
I love my 650B and find it's playability matches it's beauty,especially considering it's almost a 40 yr old instrument
Agreed: I've never thought "coffee table bass" was pejorative. "Hippie sandwich" might be borderline snarky, but not necessarily... context is everything. There is/was a user here called hippiesandwich who owned a bunch of... coffee table basses.
Same as you, I'm a vintage guy who loves the vintage look but who can also appreciate coffee table basses. However I've decided to avoid them for the following reason: I know this is silly, but in my mind, fancy-looking basses imply fancy chops. I'm just a "blue-collar" support bassist: don't like soloing, don't know any Jaco or Wooten licks. So, I'm most comfortable wearing an FSO (Fender-shaped object). It's like blue jeans versus a tux -- though at wedding gigs I will happily accessorize my tux with an FSO.
I have just copyrighted the term Guitar & Bass Burkas. I will shortly be marketing fine garments you can cover your coffee table basses in when you take them out of the house while leaving them 100% playable. That way no one who sees them will be offended or tempted by their beauty. Available soon in black and possibly white!
