What do you call this?
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When does a Baritone Guitar become a Short scale bass?
- Thread starter MrMerrey
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The greatest living bassist, but not a fashion guru.
I always thought of bass as a role or a function in music- not an instrument.
So in my little corner of the universe, if you're "playing bass," then it doesn't really matter what you're playing it on.
Om!
Yes, I expend a lot of effort trying to make my bass sound like a synth or low strings. It's as much the controller of sound I know how to manipulate the best. Although given triggering issues keyboards have to be resorted too (or for sustained low string sounds).
There is such a thing as a baritone clef -- actually there are a few varieties, but they all look like either a tenor clef or a bass clef that's been offset from the center of the staff -- but I'm willing to bet that the number of baritone guitarists who read baritone clef is somewhere between 0 and none. Baritone guitar is considered a transposing instrument; you write for it in treble clef as if it was a regular guitar and then expect it to sound an octave and a fourth lower (presuming it's tuned BEADF#B).
It's a shame that inventors of these stringed instruments didn't stick with the (slightly more) standardized nomenclature used to describe woodwind instruments. Any orchestrator with half a semester's experience knows how to arrange for a contra-alto clarinet, and where its register lies in relationship to, say, a bass clarinet. If only Stanley Clarke had called his Carl Thompson 8va instruments "soprano bass" instead of "piccolo bass"!
Role is a different topic though. Mike Kerr from Royal Blood is using the bass in a guitaristic role for example. Another example: rhythm guitar is a role; guitar is an instrument - there is no such instrument as 'rhythm guitar'.
I've sometimes wondered about the utility of a baritone guitar in bands which are non-traditional in terms of what might be holding down the bass end. E.g. it might be a keyboard or bass strings patches on a keyboard for some tracks, or a traditional bass for others. With a baritone guitar then via octave, pitch shift, or pitch-to-MIDI with slightly faster response times you could cover some bass sounds at various points, and twangy low guitar at others, down to a 5 string bass depth. Mind you, you could do it to the register of a 4 string with a standard guitar...
An example might be Dead Can Dance but you'd want a triple-neck baritone, bouzouki, hammered dulcimer
An example might be Dead Can Dance but you'd want a triple-neck baritone, bouzouki, hammered dulcimer
You've lost me a bit here. On one hand you seem to be agreeing. But on the other you seem to not be doing so.
Minor point- as I said earlier, in my corner of reality, "bass" and "bass playing" is a role. Period. The names given instruments are wholly incidental to me. Feel free to disagree. But that alone doesn't give me much cause to reassess my position or way of thinking on that point. Not that any of this really matters one way or another in the larger scheme of things. Splitting definitions is slippery and only marginally useful at the best of times when it comes to discussing things like this. And that's true even when they're my own definitions and distinctions. So feel free to take them with a grain of salt. Because I certainly do.
I don't think anyone on this thread is taking the issue too seriously either, but in general your practice of being concerned only about an instrument's role is unique. The OP is asking about the definition of instruments. If Anthony Braxton is squealing about in the high register of a bass clarinet, he is not playing a stereotypical 'bass role' in music but the instrument is still a bass clarinet. The definition of the instrument itself never changes.
I agree with you that the role of an instrument can be an interesting topic in its own right, but when people say "I play lead guitar" or "I play rhythm guitar" they are really making two statements: "I play an instrument called guitar and I tend to [wheedle about on high notes / play the chords of a song]."
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Again, unique or not, I see it all as roles. Not instruments. Which to me makes sense in that music is the only artform that exists primarily as a function in time. (i.e. Frequencies -which are themselves a funtion of time - moving through air for a given duration.) So lacking a "material" component (i.e. an artifact) such as sculpture or painting has, it just seems to make more sense (to me) to think of it in terms of actions and roles rather than as things or tools
Which is not to say I'm right, or even more correct in any sort of absoute sense. It's just my way of seeing the question, and which I merely offered the OP as something to think about. I wasn't asking for the OP or anyone else to agree.
As you might've noticed, I have somewhat of my own take on music. (Which occasionally drives my guitar playing GF nuts. But she's used to it after all these years we've been together.)
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@40Hz I mentioned this earlier but I'm still not sure about your exact take on this, so what do you think of this reasoning? (which is how I see it, I would like to know if it agrees with your philosophy)
1) Music/musicians are defined by roles, not by instrument
2) This role is defined by what they're playing, e.g. hitting rhythmatic low notes, playing full chords, arpeggios, melodic lines, counterpoint, and so on
3) However, different instruments are differently suited to different roles. The timbre of a synth bass sounds entirely different from that of a string bass; the timbre of a clarinet sounds entirely different from that of a saturated lead guitar, and so on. So for example, the "lead guitarist" (a role) can use his guitar with distortion pedals through a suitable amp (instruments) to play the role of a clarinetist in an ensemble, but he may not do a very good job of it depending on how closely he can nail the tone, phrasing, and so on (e.g. the fingering and physics of the guitar inherently creates a different phrasing as compared to the fingering and physics of a clarinet)
4) So while in theory, a bass guitar may also be used in a synth bass role, or a rhythm guitar role, or a baritone guitar role, and so on, a short scale bass is more likely to be suited to playing the latter roles than a long scale bass. And depending on the tuning of the strings, the thickness of the strings, the length of the neck and so on, the physics of the instrument may result in different fingering and 'feel' (e.g. how it feels when plucking/picking/strumming) that makes the instrument inherently more suitable for a particular rule.
And therefore, while strictly speaking, there isn't a "baritone guitar" or "short scale bass", there are instruments more suitable for playing the role of a "baritone guitarist" or "short scale bassist". I would guess that where I would most likely differ from you, if I'm reading your reasoning right, is that to me, if the instrument is really suitable for playing that role, then I'd just go ahead and declare "this is a baritone guitar". I mean, I'd expect that strumming chords on a short scale bass with thicker strings than a baritone guitar in a band setting would feel and sound like you're strumming a full scale bass, and not sit in the mix as well as compared to if you used an instrument set up for the baritone guitar role...
And this suitability could be on a few factors:
- whether it can reach the appropriate pitch
- timbre and note envelope of the instrument
- physical feel of the instrument when you play it, and how this suggests the appropriate phrasing for the part
Speaking of that last point, I once sessioned for a local production of a broadway musical and it was an interesting experience for me and the guitarist, since the parts were written on piano by a pianist, and the choice of notes and phrasing were stuff that's perfectly natural for a keyboard instrument but awkward on a normally-tuned guitar. But it was a great learning experience. Anyway, I was playing the role of a bassist, but perhaps I could have been playing the role of a piano left hand using a bass guitar to generate a different timbre.
Anyway, so far it's pretty abstract, but some concrete examples that might be a bit more relevant to the folks on talkBASS:
1) The bass guitar was originally created to take the place of the upright bass. But the technology allowed it to go in new directions. In addition, judging by the number of threads around here on "how do I make my bass guitar sound like an upright?", I'd say that the bass guitar and upright bass do play different roles because they're inherently different instruments. Although they can both be used in the same role (and a piccolo flute can't, since it doesn't have the same range of notes), because of timbre and feel and some undefinable mojo, the upright is less suited to playing full on metal just as the electric is less suited to playing old school swing, both genres created on those respective instruments and with the full weight of history and societal expectations behind them.
Of course, there's the caveat that if you really really wanted to, you could always use the upright for the metal bassist role and the electric for the old school swing bassist role, especially with some really good pedals and soundmen, but you probably wouldn't be doing the role as well as you could with the appropriate instrument. Same goes for baritone/short scale IMO, just that the line is a bit blurrer here.
2) And for me, personally, I play heavy rock and metal with a fretless, which is arguably an awkward instrument for the role as traditionally defined because it simply doesn't have the same timbre and tonal elements and the instrument suggests different fingering and phrasing, but I'm totally cool with my role as a "fretless bassist in a metal band".
I'd be totally cool with using a fretless baritone guitar in that same role, if I can get used to the fingering, but I don't know if I can find one that lets me tune down without the strings getting absurdly thick or the tension getting too low that it gets in the way of my playing, which then goes back to the same argument of certain instruments being more suitable than others.
The way I've phrased thing above might make it sound as though whether you nail the role or not is a binary, but I don't really think so. Like an instrument may be more suited for the role, and in your hands as a musician, you might get it so exact that no one can tell, or you might get close enough that the average listener can't tell and that's good enough, or you might not even get close at all but no one cares because it doesn't matter whether you're playing the bass clarinet role or the synth bass role. I think at the end of the day, choice of instrument, timbre, role and whatever else should be a conscious decision you make as a musician and you ought to be able to justify why you're picking an instrument, calling it a baritone guitar, and playing the role of a baritone guitarist in the band by choosing certain notes and phrasings.
Aaaaand. Some food for thought. Defining these roles, while fuzzy, still imposes some kind of categorization and we could always go into closer detail. Earlier I talked about roles not just as a "bassist" but as a "jazz bassist" or "metal bassist" and so on which then imposes certain requirements or expectations on the tone and phrasing and choice of notes... but what about if you're covering a particular band and you want to nail the exact tone of the original musician and play the parts note for note? Are you playing the role of, say, a "rock bassist" or are you playing the role of (whichever professional bassist originally recorded the song)? For that matter, when that bassist plays live, does he or she play it exactly the same way with the same tone as on the record? For example, I hear around the forum that it's pretty difficult to nail the bass parts on Muse records, and live, the bassist actually uses different instruments and instrumentation to get a similar sound and feel. Then, is he playing the same role as he played on the record?
1) Music/musicians are defined by roles, not by instrument
2) This role is defined by what they're playing, e.g. hitting rhythmatic low notes, playing full chords, arpeggios, melodic lines, counterpoint, and so on
3) However, different instruments are differently suited to different roles. The timbre of a synth bass sounds entirely different from that of a string bass; the timbre of a clarinet sounds entirely different from that of a saturated lead guitar, and so on. So for example, the "lead guitarist" (a role) can use his guitar with distortion pedals through a suitable amp (instruments) to play the role of a clarinetist in an ensemble, but he may not do a very good job of it depending on how closely he can nail the tone, phrasing, and so on (e.g. the fingering and physics of the guitar inherently creates a different phrasing as compared to the fingering and physics of a clarinet)
4) So while in theory, a bass guitar may also be used in a synth bass role, or a rhythm guitar role, or a baritone guitar role, and so on, a short scale bass is more likely to be suited to playing the latter roles than a long scale bass. And depending on the tuning of the strings, the thickness of the strings, the length of the neck and so on, the physics of the instrument may result in different fingering and 'feel' (e.g. how it feels when plucking/picking/strumming) that makes the instrument inherently more suitable for a particular rule.
And therefore, while strictly speaking, there isn't a "baritone guitar" or "short scale bass", there are instruments more suitable for playing the role of a "baritone guitarist" or "short scale bassist". I would guess that where I would most likely differ from you, if I'm reading your reasoning right, is that to me, if the instrument is really suitable for playing that role, then I'd just go ahead and declare "this is a baritone guitar". I mean, I'd expect that strumming chords on a short scale bass with thicker strings than a baritone guitar in a band setting would feel and sound like you're strumming a full scale bass, and not sit in the mix as well as compared to if you used an instrument set up for the baritone guitar role...
And this suitability could be on a few factors:
- whether it can reach the appropriate pitch
- timbre and note envelope of the instrument
- physical feel of the instrument when you play it, and how this suggests the appropriate phrasing for the part
Speaking of that last point, I once sessioned for a local production of a broadway musical and it was an interesting experience for me and the guitarist, since the parts were written on piano by a pianist, and the choice of notes and phrasing were stuff that's perfectly natural for a keyboard instrument but awkward on a normally-tuned guitar. But it was a great learning experience. Anyway, I was playing the role of a bassist, but perhaps I could have been playing the role of a piano left hand using a bass guitar to generate a different timbre.
Anyway, so far it's pretty abstract, but some concrete examples that might be a bit more relevant to the folks on talkBASS:
1) The bass guitar was originally created to take the place of the upright bass. But the technology allowed it to go in new directions. In addition, judging by the number of threads around here on "how do I make my bass guitar sound like an upright?", I'd say that the bass guitar and upright bass do play different roles because they're inherently different instruments. Although they can both be used in the same role (and a piccolo flute can't, since it doesn't have the same range of notes), because of timbre and feel and some undefinable mojo, the upright is less suited to playing full on metal just as the electric is less suited to playing old school swing, both genres created on those respective instruments and with the full weight of history and societal expectations behind them.
Of course, there's the caveat that if you really really wanted to, you could always use the upright for the metal bassist role and the electric for the old school swing bassist role, especially with some really good pedals and soundmen, but you probably wouldn't be doing the role as well as you could with the appropriate instrument. Same goes for baritone/short scale IMO, just that the line is a bit blurrer here.
2) And for me, personally, I play heavy rock and metal with a fretless, which is arguably an awkward instrument for the role as traditionally defined because it simply doesn't have the same timbre and tonal elements and the instrument suggests different fingering and phrasing, but I'm totally cool with my role as a "fretless bassist in a metal band".
I'd be totally cool with using a fretless baritone guitar in that same role, if I can get used to the fingering, but I don't know if I can find one that lets me tune down without the strings getting absurdly thick or the tension getting too low that it gets in the way of my playing, which then goes back to the same argument of certain instruments being more suitable than others.
The way I've phrased thing above might make it sound as though whether you nail the role or not is a binary, but I don't really think so. Like an instrument may be more suited for the role, and in your hands as a musician, you might get it so exact that no one can tell, or you might get close enough that the average listener can't tell and that's good enough, or you might not even get close at all but no one cares because it doesn't matter whether you're playing the bass clarinet role or the synth bass role. I think at the end of the day, choice of instrument, timbre, role and whatever else should be a conscious decision you make as a musician and you ought to be able to justify why you're picking an instrument, calling it a baritone guitar, and playing the role of a baritone guitarist in the band by choosing certain notes and phrasings.
Aaaaand. Some food for thought. Defining these roles, while fuzzy, still imposes some kind of categorization and we could always go into closer detail. Earlier I talked about roles not just as a "bassist" but as a "jazz bassist" or "metal bassist" and so on which then imposes certain requirements or expectations on the tone and phrasing and choice of notes... but what about if you're covering a particular band and you want to nail the exact tone of the original musician and play the parts note for note? Are you playing the role of, say, a "rock bassist" or are you playing the role of (whichever professional bassist originally recorded the song)? For that matter, when that bassist plays live, does he or she play it exactly the same way with the same tone as on the record? For example, I hear around the forum that it's pretty difficult to nail the bass parts on Muse records, and live, the bassist actually uses different instruments and instrumentation to get a similar sound and feel. Then, is he playing the same role as he played on the record?
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@Nic. When I'm speaking of the "bass role" I'm speaking of what I personally feel are the three primary and critical functions I feel that "the bass" provides in music:
1) Framing - in much the same sense as an "establishing shot" does in movies or a "setting scene" does in literature, the bass role sets the stage, establishes context, and sets the overall tonal and time framework for the piece of music in question.
2) Continuity & Forward Impulse - the bass role provides continuity and connectivity (i.e. sonic glue) between the various elements in a song. It also provides the impulsion that points to changes in the direction of rhythmic and melodic progressions.
3) Completion - the bass role adds the "missing pieces" left out by the other instruments. This is what I see as the "being in the pocket" and "sitting in the mix" you hear so much about. It's the missing piece(s) in the puzzle when your brain is subconsciously processing musical information.
This is all very similar to the baroque idea of the basso continuo.
Please be aware the above is just my way of thinking. I have no idea if any of this is "correct" or even worth considering. It's just how I approach playing bass and being a bass player. I'm sure there are many other equally valid ways to think about it.
1) Framing - in much the same sense as an "establishing shot" does in movies or a "setting scene" does in literature, the bass role sets the stage, establishes context, and sets the overall tonal and time framework for the piece of music in question.
2) Continuity & Forward Impulse - the bass role provides continuity and connectivity (i.e. sonic glue) between the various elements in a song. It also provides the impulsion that points to changes in the direction of rhythmic and melodic progressions.
3) Completion - the bass role adds the "missing pieces" left out by the other instruments. This is what I see as the "being in the pocket" and "sitting in the mix" you hear so much about. It's the missing piece(s) in the puzzle when your brain is subconsciously processing musical information.
This is all very similar to the baroque idea of the basso continuo.
Please be aware the above is just my way of thinking. I have no idea if any of this is "correct" or even worth considering. It's just how I approach playing bass and being a bass player. I'm sure there are many other equally valid ways to think about it.
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@40Hz I think those are good ways to approach playing bass! Can these functions be applied to other instruments too though...?
I built a really nice Baritone Strat last year - all warmoth, just lovely - I have it strung from B to B but would consider going from A to A - why not?
Musicians are defined by instrument more than role. If it was just role (bottom end) then you would have the same person play tuba, bass guitar, double bass, or synth bass keys as required. And whilst I have seen one person play bass and tuba in the same band, I've yet to see all four in one performance.
@-Asdfgh- to me, role includes timbre. The tuba, bass guitar, double bass and synth bass keys are all different roles...
Sorry to muddy the waters more, but If an musician is described by Role, and the Instrument they use is what is based non how it is used, but every instrument has it's own timbre and is therefore a different role, each instrument defines the role of the musician and we still don't know what this hypothetical half guitar half bass instrument is...
So, a 30" scale Bass IV E-e with thicker strings is a Bass.
A, 28"-30" scale guitar A-a with guitar strings is a Baritone
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So... What is a 30" guitar E-e with guitar strings?
A, 28"-30" scale guitar A-a with guitar strings is a Baritone
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So... What is a 30" guitar E-e with guitar strings?
