OT: [was]Re: ctrl-c - Electric Bass and Callouses...

[Fairlight]

This public service announcement was brought to you by Keith' Weatherhead:
> Mark, you can post to the list if it doesn't fly there, as for 
> awhile Bill's filters have prevent DirecWay.com users from sending 
> to the list. -kfw

We'll see what Bill says about it.  Hopefully something.

> Well I will see your pain and raise you a couple of "tip" points...

I don't want more pain!!!!  :)

> I started playing violin at the age of 8, added guitar at the age of 
> 13 and added and made electric bass my main instrument at 15.  I 
> still play a little guitar and play my bass whenever I can get away 
> with it.  Now, on the north side of 50+, I have a couple friends 
> that we get together for a jam session every couple of months as our 
> schedules seem to be totally opposite no matter how hard we try to 
> plan for a single Saturday or Sunday afternoon, even once a quarter.

That's been my problem...I only really get to the point of playing like a
day or three in a row, every 3-4 months these days.  I can heartily say
that starting off with Benatar's "Heartbreaker", Queensryche's "Operation:
MindCrime", or -any- Ministry song is a wholly nuts idea...but I've done it
anyway. :) Actually, I find the Cure's "Kiss Me" album is a good warmup.

Last few times I had time and locale to play though, I went for the
synth--less painful, and I've been putting off restringing the bass anyway,
which it needs.  The synth is just "always ready".  I miss playing bass
though, so I'll likely hit it next time.

> 1. Water is your enemy !!   Hygiene is important and there are lots 
> of Anti-Bacterial hand cleaners that are effective and can be used 
> quickly for most situations without using water.  Showers are way 
> better than baths... swimming is a choice between pain and comfort, too.

Er...not when you take hour-long showers.  (OCD...)  Boy, is that a glaring
mistake.  Worse when you perspire easily and your hands get naturally damp.
Owwwww.  I hate that.  And it happens until you get the callouses
going--then that part seems to not perspire (prolly because it's really
dead skin) and you're okay except around the edges.  Yeah, I know the water
thing all too well.  Oh, and the -worst- is if you have even damp hands and
manage to "play off" the callous you've put in a month or two building up.
Arghhhhh!

> 2. Go out to www.MuscianFriend.com  and invest in two (2) 
> GripMasters (9.95 or 14.95 each) they come in three (3) tensions...
> Extra Light, Light, Medium.  Unless you have a lot of hand strength 
> and have been ACTIVELY playing, like gigging nitely start with the
> "Light" and work your way to the Medium (medium should be labeled as 
> "Tough" in reality !  I know, I made the mistake of starting there 
> went I was on the road playing professionally figuring I was in 
> great shape and I could just improve from there, not the smartest 
> choice.

Hand strength isn't an issue at all for me.  Considering all the washing I
do, and the pressure I apply when doing so, my hands constantly get a
workout every day.  If anything, I over-play, actually.  Mind you I've no
professional training at all...I'm a hobbyist.  But when watching videos of
bassists, I notice that they hardly seem to pull the strings much.  My
problem is that I -do- pull them...pretty hard.  I'm -guessing- 50%+
harder.  The problem is that I've only got a pair of 40w amps, and my
ancient bass has passive pickups.  Ergo, it's not very loud--or at least
not as loud as I like it, although our upstairs neighbor disagrees.  :)
It's maybe 1/3-1/2 as loud on the same amp as I can make the synth go on
its -least- powerful outputs.  So I use the extra pull to get the volume
out of it.  I have an intricate plan to minimise this soon though--I'm
going to get an extra cable and feed the bass through the synth.  I will
get a huge volume boost as well as be able to use the KDFX board to put on
whatever effects I like, including "studios", echo, reverb, feedback...plus
it will be on both amps instead of just one as I currently plug it into.

> I later bought a Light especially since I no longer actively gigging 
> and the medium wastes my hand in 3-5 minutes max.  For another (4.95 
> or 9.95/set) add the Callous Tips for the GripMaster.  You can move 
> them between the units but because I can be real lazy, at that price 
> I bought two (2) sets and put them on both my Light and Medium Units.

Those look interesting though.  Don't need the exercise part, but the tips
sound like a good idea.

I play mostly pluck...say 90% of the time.  I -so- used to suck at pick,
but last year I sat down with one that I found I liked and actually put in
several weeks of practise so that I was at least marginally competant with
it.  It helps on some songs, actually.  And when I'm in the "breaking in"
phase in the first three days or so, I'll switch to pick just to give the
fingers on at least one hand a break.  Doesn't help the other hand, but I
can live with that a lot more.  (At least on pluck, I only affect 2
fingers, really...I don't use all four, but rather the first two, and the
index finger takes the brunt of it until it hurts too much.)  The problem I
have with pick is that, especially because I do give it extra pull even
when using one, it can come off twangy by comparison.  It only suits
certain tracks, usually--generally ones in 16th notes or faster, but the
tonality is still off if I do it just wrong.  I'm just not a fan of pick,
honestly.  

I do have a method that works for slower songs.  I put my arm around the
side and use my fingers a bit like hammers.  It's kind of like slap, but
wayyyy out to the ends of the strings, far down at the part where they're
fastened, and without the twang that's usually associated with slap up on
the fretboard.  This sounds -really- good if attack isn't wanted or needed.
It also gives a good break.  It has the same net effect as Tony Levin's
"funky fingers" hammers that he wears on his two leading fingers.  (I still
have NO idea how he can actually not be looking and know what he's hitting
with his hand 6" removed from the actual strings.  He used those on Pink
Floyd's "Sorrow" and I was impressed with the results, actually.  (A track
whose bass is fun played on both bass and synth, actually...)

My REAL secret to getting through the blister period more comfortably?  Use
flat-wounds.  :)  I got some with my bass when I got it at a pawn shoppe,
and later replaced them--but not after noticing how they felt a HECK of a
lot better in this situation.  Sure, the sustain and brightness of attack
aren't anywhere near as good as roundwounds (especially the sustain...it's
got a horridly decay for some reason), but if you don't need to make your
notes last 5 seconds, you'll be okay.  After you get to the callous stage,
switch off to roundwounds and you won't even notice.  Which isn't to say
you don't get -any- blistering, but it's a lot less painful, and it's
more imposed by the stress of pulling rather than the added abrasion of the
strings themselves.  That cuts the pain by a good 50% for the first few
hours of every time you pick it up.  After 2-3 hours, you're hitting that
pull stress where your skin is just plain not wanting anymore.  But it's
still not also being abraded.

Ohyeah...another tip, and one that should be obvious to anyone except me,
apparently--stay OFF from over the pickups if they're the older studded
kind and if your action isn't set high.  I have no choice but to have the
action low because they're passive pickups and I'd like to hear the darned
thing.  But this runs me the risk of snagging the stud on the pickup.  Now,
I prefer the tone and attack if I play right at that region as opposed to
down at the bottom, and there's less pulling on the skin in the long run
because the tension is less there and you don't have to pull as hard to get
the same out of it.  But if you scrape those...OUCH!  I'll stay to one side
or the other until I'm fully hardened.  Learned that the hard way.

Best move for me would be a new bass with active pickups.  But then I want
a new amp, and the bass -WILL- be a 5-string next time because I'm bloody
sick of having no low D, and by the time I get done I'll be in several
grand.  Which is why it hasn't happened yet. :)  My wife wouldn't care, but
it's kind of an expense for a hobbyist.  Still, one day...  Ohyeah, and
much as I hate headless, I'll probably go for it for the Steinberger
tuners.  I hate the look, but short of your strings going bad the tuners
make it almost impossible to go out of tune.  I -loved- that about the Cort
my best friend had when I played his.  Which means it'll be even more
expensive.  *sigh*  :)

> Side Note:  My Mother-in-Law had a stroke last August and I bought 
> an Extra-Light one for her to use as a hand dexterity and strength 
> exerciser for her recovery.  Works great !

Sounds like it would.  As I said, when you wash your hands to the point
where you get cramps in your muscles, hand strength is -really- not an
issue.  :)  Even my pinky on the fretboard is stronger than I ever figured
it would be--although I like to double the 3rd finger on it just to be
sure.  (I'm not a chord player...it's just not something I'm interested in,
and it's not my style.)

> When I do have some time at home to play my bass, I can at least 
> enjoy it without having to quit 30 minutes later cause my finger 
> were bleeding.

Man, if you're bleeding from bass, you're doing something wrong! :( I've
never had one bleed on me.  I've ripped off a callous or two (once due to
wet hands), but it's never bled.  Even at the blister stage they don't
bleed.  What speed metal -are- you playing?! :) :) :)

If you can afford the sustain loss, try roundwounds.  I have a feeling that
would help a lot.  It does for me.  I'm saving the link to those tips.  I
may just take a look at those.

I'll just break for a couple hours and move to synth, then go back to bass
later when I can take a bit more pain.

You said you play guitar as well...  That's what I don't get--how anyone
could do a slide -without- a Steely Dan type slide bar and NOT have their
fingers look like they've just had a nasty encounder with an old wire
cheese slicer.  The G and above are simply unbearable for me for any
sliding on a regular guitar.  Yet I've seen people do it.  FWIW, I rarely
play guitar.  I can do a little lead, but not well, and only a very few
tracks.  I actually am more likely to drag the solos down a few octaves and
play them  on bass (Floyd's "Money" is incredibly fun that way).  But I
just can't do guitar well for 2 reasons:  1) My fingers are "fat"...the
string spacing just is not conduscive to this, although Gilmour has
interesting tricks that make me think it's possible, and 2) I'm a lefty and
play as such--but strung righty, so chords for me are next to impossible
because they're all designed for proper string alignment.  This also makes
proper slap bass very difficult to not miss and hit the other strings, but
I rarely play that style anyway.

And yet further OT, but you may know the answer and are certainly better
trained than I and slides just brought it to mind:  When you watch players,
they'll be at a certain point on the fretboard, let's say midway up or so,
right?  Then you see them run their hand down to the end of the neck and
back up to wherever.  No tension, no pressure, nothing.  There's no slide
effect, no bending, nothing at all audible about what they do...they may
even do it like twice in a row before hitting just that one next note.
What he heck are they doing?  I mean, in most cases it looks like a 2-fret
move and they're going all the way out and back in for some reason.  This
has puzzled me for like 20 years now and I've never heard anyone explain
it.  I keep wondering if it's some position-finding technique I've never
been exposed to for lack of formal training.  I've seen it done on both
bass and guitar--and even upright fretless, actually.

mark->