About six months ago, my dear close friend William died suddenly. We were all devastated. Several months later, his widow came by with a few mementoes for me, among which were his favorite painting, and his bass guitar. I don’t think William or his wife ever knew that I have long harbored a secret desire to play bass; but if you had known William, that coincidence wouldn’t be surprising.
Anyway, I am going to play it! I have already had some minor electrical repairs done on the pickups. So I have a couple of questions – please forgive me if they are ignorant. It’s been years since I have even picked up a stringed instrument. So:
If one happens to have only a P-bass to learn on, and one has a kind of short reach, can you hold the bass sorta vertically so that you can reach all the frets? Is this frowned on or whatever?
The strings on it now are very heavy, and until I build up callus and strength it’s hard to hold the strings down properly. I am thinking that maybe I should start out with some lighter strings. What kind do you recommend? Do they still make copperwound strings? I used to like the way those sounded.
You know the nuts at the bottom of the bass, I think that they adjust the action? They have a cylindrical brass piece and a long screw and a spring? What is their proper name, because I am going to have to replace at least one of them, and I want to know what to ask for when I buy it/them.
I probably should have mentioned what kind of bass it is – it’s a Cortez “Gull” series with beautiful nacre inlay fret markers.
I am sorry for your loss. Hopefully you can fulfill your dream with his gift. I’ve been a bass player for a few decades now, welcome to the brotherhood! It’s a hell of a lot of fun, and not really that difficult. (I hope I don’t end up in an argument over that last part.)
I would say hold it any way you feel comfortable holding it. If people say it’s wrong, who cares? If you have a hard time reaching the lowest (in pitch) frets, I find playing standing with a strap is more comfortable. I have short arms (and smallish hands), too. A 34" scale bass is a reach for me, and spanning those first five frets quickly can be a pain. Anything you do to make it comfortable for you, do that.
However, if you continue to have problems with reach or comfort, you might consider a 30" scale bass. I have a couple of them that sound just as good as any 34" scale bass. As a bonus, the strings are more loose, causing less fatigue.
Hmm, been playing bass for decades, and I’ve still never run into those! Apparently they’re still made, and my preferred mfr, D’Addario makes a “light bottom” set. Those will have thinner strings than most when you get to the lower (in pitch) side of the fretboard. However, your hands are going to hurt for the first few weeks of learning any stringed instrument, at least that’s my experience. I started on violin, and then moved to guitar, and eventually to bass. Each time the strings were heavier, and each time my hands hurt until they got stronger and were calloused enough to deal with the coarser string windings. After bass, no stringed instrument I’ve tried has been a problem, so it’s probably one of the hardest at first. I hear harp is worse than bass, but I’ve never tried that one.
The whole assembly for all four strings is called the bridge. The cylindrical brass piece is called the saddle. Idle question: Why do you need to replace one of the saddles?
Weird, I have never heard of that brand, and I am into strange off-brand Japanese makes. Apparently Cortez made what is known as “Lawsuit Era” guitars in Japan in the 70’s. They were copies of American brands that were very close to, and sometimes better than, the originals. Hence, they were eventually banned from being distributed in the U.S. via a lawsuit brought by the U.S. manufacturers. It’s probably an awesome bass, keep it!
I need to replace one of the saddles because my friend who re-soldered the pots on the pickups told me that this one saddle is apparently in backwards? You see, he said that the saddles appear to have a long side and a short side, relative to the seam in the middle. One out of the four is reversed with respect to the other three; it is not sitting straight laterally, but skewed; also, that string buzzes and won’t hold pitch well.
His assessment is probably correct, but why not just take it off and flip it back around the correct way?
ETA: This should be pretty easy to do while changing strings.
ETA2: I’m “adventurous” when it comes to guitars. You will have to re-set the action and possibly re-insert the screws that adjust the action when flipping the saddle over.
