The next Mr. Waters? i wish ...

one of my friends had the same exact bass that roger had in live at pompeii. and it was an original one too. it was a nice bass. don't know what kind that is. is that one the fender precision?

The scary thing was, unlike the dreams where I've played wind and brass instruments (and REALLY had no clue what I was doing), I was at least doing some things properly. I think I was moving up a proper number of frets to produce the tones, and plucking the strings at the right times. Though who knows how on earth that thing was tuned? And furthermore, I KNOW the tone wouldn't have been that clean in real life...

But it was really cool. Almost motivated me to go out to my local guitar shop, and see if they might be willing to let me try a bass, to see how it feels. Think they'd let me do that?

FloydWright: where I come from, I can waltz into any guitar shop and try their merchandise. I dunno if that applies to your area, however.

Thorin: yep, your freind's bass and Roger's bass at Pompeii are both Fender Precisions.

Stratman: you gave away a '67 Hofner violin bass? Why on Earth did you do that?

Yeah, you're right...I figure I could.

FloydWright: if anyone gives you a harsh look for picking up a bass, then give them one right back. If you can't try the merchandise, than what's the point of having it out, hanging on the walls?

Hah, you have a point!

Then again, know what's really funny? For some reason, the guitar world seems very male-dominated, so there are some who are actually very happy to see a female interested in playing. I bet that would be even more so with the bass...how often do you see a female bassist?

And another interesting sidetrack, in traditional bands, like PF, how often do you see a woman playing any of the instruments? You see vocalists, but I notice not as many great guitarists or bassists or keyboardists (and how many female DRUMMERS are there anyway, great or otherwise?!) that are female. Not even in modern bands do I notice a lot of mixed-gender bands...very strange, that...

Sorry for the off-topic rant!

Melissa auf Der Mar (sp?) plays the bass in Hole.

there are a lot of female bass players. perfect circle, smashing pumpkins, sheryl crow to name a few. not to mention all girl bands.

Funny you should mention female bassists, FloydWright. The last band I was in had a female bass player.

We were a punk band, so we played as fast as the above smiley band currently is.)


Also, White Zombie had a girl playing bass, too.

A momentary lapse of reason. A friend of mine who plays bass (and collects them) was always drooling over it, borrowing it and begging me to sell it to him. Since I never played it anymore, one day I was overcome by a spasm of generosity, and gave it to him. I've beat myself up ever since for being such a numb-nuts. But I'm not tacky enough to ask for it back.

F-W, yeah, just go into a music store and ask to play with one. They will fall all over themselves to let you. Then, just plug in and do the bassline to "Money". They'll be dazzled.

I actually HAVE made the acquaintance of a female bassist on one occasion...it just seemed like a rarity to me.

Doubt I could get "Money" right on my first try...I don't even know how they tune basses! But you can bet that would be the first thing I'd try!

Another thing I think would be fun is, I have a cousin who plays violin...I wonder if she'd be brave enough to let me try it next time I visit?

A bass is tuned like the first four strings of a guitar - EADG - except it's two octaves lower. Hence, you can play basslines on the first 4 strings of your guitar, FloydWright.

Money is pretty easy. It's just that the odd time signature can be a little confusing on the first few tries. The first 4 notes are just a B power chord. The rest is simple, too.

As for violin, I played one back in 6th grade. I would suppose that you would need small fingers for it - the fingerboard is pretty small.

And Stratman: what a nice guy!

Tune the bass just like the guitar...E A D G
Another favorite bass riff of mine....Sympathy for the Devil.
I always wanted to try a violin too.

Thanks for the help, guys!