2005-01-26
Robin's Green Bass vs. Richard's Yamaha Acoustic Guitar
Richard and I have had a running joke that playing the bass is just a subset of playing guitar, and therefore, any decent guitarist is automatically a decent bassist. Well, it's usually Richard's joke, and I'm the butt of it.
It got brought up again in Richard's blog, and so I've been thinking about this again, and an associated question, is the bass itself just a subset of the guitar?
Well, let's compare my 5-string bass with Richard's well-used 6 string acoustic guitar. You might be surprised to learn that his guitar is actually less capable than my bass! As in, it's multi-tonally challenged. Like, it doesn't represent as broad a frequency spectrum as my bass. Proof? Read on.
I've got a full two-octave neck, which means I have 25 notes available per string, for a total of 125 non-unique notes. Richard's guitar neck meets the body at the 14th fret. Maybe you can usefully play another 3 notes or so past there - let's say 5 for the sake of argument. So let's say 20 notes per string, for a total of 120 non-unique notes. Bass in the lead!
What about unique notes? Well, I've done some figuring, and it seems I have 45 unique notes available, thanks to the 5th string and the 24 frets, from the lowest B up to the high G, almost 4 octaves up. Richard's guitar? Well, if he can usefully use up to the 19th fret (and listen, like I have - he can't) he's got a total of 44 unique notes available, from the low E to the high B, not-so-almost 4 octaves up.
My bass has 17 unique notes that I can play that Richard can't get on his Yamaha. These are some pretty sweet, fat, resonate notes too, by the way, starting at the 1st fret on the second highest string (D#) all the way down to low B. The acoustic? 16 plinky notes, starting with G# on the 4th fret of the highest sounding string, and working up as far as Rich's fingers can stretch.
So there you go, Green Bass wins on every count. I trust this will put Richard's bass comments to an end, except perhaps the now obviously self-deprecating ones he'll be obliged to make.
Hey, that's two in a row for the "and other thoughts" category.
It got brought up again in Richard's blog, and so I've been thinking about this again, and an associated question, is the bass itself just a subset of the guitar?
Well, let's compare my 5-string bass with Richard's well-used 6 string acoustic guitar. You might be surprised to learn that his guitar is actually less capable than my bass! As in, it's multi-tonally challenged. Like, it doesn't represent as broad a frequency spectrum as my bass. Proof? Read on.
I've got a full two-octave neck, which means I have 25 notes available per string, for a total of 125 non-unique notes. Richard's guitar neck meets the body at the 14th fret. Maybe you can usefully play another 3 notes or so past there - let's say 5 for the sake of argument. So let's say 20 notes per string, for a total of 120 non-unique notes. Bass in the lead!
What about unique notes? Well, I've done some figuring, and it seems I have 45 unique notes available, thanks to the 5th string and the 24 frets, from the lowest B up to the high G, almost 4 octaves up. Richard's guitar? Well, if he can usefully use up to the 19th fret (and listen, like I have - he can't) he's got a total of 44 unique notes available, from the low E to the high B, not-so-almost 4 octaves up.
My bass has 17 unique notes that I can play that Richard can't get on his Yamaha. These are some pretty sweet, fat, resonate notes too, by the way, starting at the 1st fret on the second highest string (D#) all the way down to low B. The acoustic? 16 plinky notes, starting with G# on the 4th fret of the highest sounding string, and working up as far as Rich's fingers can stretch.
So there you go, Green Bass wins on every count. I trust this will put Richard's bass comments to an end, except perhaps the now obviously self-deprecating ones he'll be obliged to make.
Hey, that's two in a row for the "and other thoughts" category.
