I’ve been playing guitar for several years, and recently decided to really learn how to play bass guitar (mostly inspired by a discovery of Ben Folds Five and the fuzzed-out punk-meets-jazz style of Robert Sledge). I’ve fiddled around with bass in the past, but have stuck mostly with electric guitar for one simple reason: I have fairly small hands for a guy. The fretboard on your average bass is just too damn wide for me to play anything more complex than basic riffs.
Recently, I came across a half-size bass in a music shop that actually felt relatively comfortable in my hands, but I wasn’t able to plug it in and actually hear how it sounded. Since I’m hoping to get a bass that will last for years, and will probably be used for both gigs and recordings, having a decent tone is important. So I ask ye bassists of the SMDB: do smaller bass guitars sound good, or are they strictly “teaching” instruments, made just so that a novice player can get used to fretting before graduating to a full-size guitar? Assuming that good half-size basses exist, are there still perceivable differences between the sound of small and full-size basses? And lastly, d’you have any recommendations (brand/model-wise)?
Just try to find a regular bass with a fast, slim neck. I’ve heard the Geddy Lee special Fender Jazz Bass is great. Fender also made, decades ago, a small-scale bass called a Musicmaster. I have played this and I think it’s a great instrument, although many claim that it’s not loud enough.
Also: go back to that music shop and insist plugging in that instrument you’re referring to. Why couldn’t you do it? Did they not let you? I cannot imagine a music store not letting you try it on an amp. Go back there and do it!
I am also a huge fan of Robert Sledge’s playing. He was one of my early influences when I started playing bass back in 8th grade when “Whatever and ever amen” came out. In fact I think his role as a bassist with Ben Folds has been very unique and one of the most impressive uses of the bass in recent pop rock music.
I’m not sure what you mean by half-size. The standard scale length is 34". There are short-scale 30" basses that are considered real, adult instruments, but they’re not as popular. I haven’t tried one myself. I wouldn’t go shorter than that unless you want to play an Ashbory bass which sounds more like an upright.
Slimmer necks will be 1.5" wide at the nut, instead of 1.625 or 1.75.
It can help to use 1-2-4 fingering when you’re low on the neck instead of using one finger per fret. That way you don’t have to stretch so much.
The shorter ones will either have to have lower tension on the strings, or heavier strings that will give a clangier sound.
I’m a bass player with small hands, and I have just adjusted my style to make it work. Sometimes I wish I had huge meat hooks to dig in with, but other times my small hands come in “handy” (playing chords). Just get a bass that sounds good period. Worry about adjusting to that instrument after you have it. Nothing is going to feel right the first time you play it, but after you play a bunch, it will feel like home when you pick that baby up.
But the real reason for my post is this: Back when I was in music school, I had a friend that would rip your head off for calling it a bass guitar. It’s a bass, dammit! It ain’t no guitar!
We used to offend him regularly by offering him picks.
To whit: If you normally hang your thumb over the fingerboard, consider changing your technique. Your thumb should go behind the neck. You can reach everything better that way. It took me a month or two to adjust to this, and my playing improved by 97%.
Definitely YMMV. Much can be done with a bass with no pick, but sometimes a picked bass is the perfect thing. My bass player does both as needed.
Now, if you asked him, he would say that any bass player with more than 4 strings is a wanker. But he’s British and can say stuff like that - and it’s still just his opinion…
I felt the same way until I started playing a 5 string. It really is amazing the whole new world of possibilities that the low B adds.
I would chime in and agree to go with the full size bass. I too am a guitar player with smallish hands, bass took some practice but now I play a 5 string bass with no problems.
I remember picking up my guitar for the first time after spending about 2 months doing just bass work and feeling like everything on the guitar was SO SMALL. Its all a matter of what you get used to.
Rickenbacker basses have a shorter-than-standard scale length (32" I think) and a narrow neck. I’d love to have one, but they’re out of my price range. I’ll second the Geddy Lee Jazz Bass suggestion - I owned one for a while and it was extremely comfortable and had a thin, narrow neck.
Fender also makes the Mustang bass, which is smaller than “normal”.
We were doing a “bass definitions” thread over on a music board a couple years ago, and somebody came up with the following amusing bit:
4-string bass: for those who know they’re not good enough to play guitar
5-string bass: for those too lazy to move their hand up and down the neck
6-string bass: for those who don’t know they’re not good enough to play guitar
For the record, I usually play a 5-string, but I also have a couple 4-stringers. I’ve been looking for an affordable 6-string.
