Subj : it's all in the hands...
To   : Steve Kaplan
From : Martin Ridgley
Date : Fri Jul 14 2000 06:35 am

-=> Steve Kaplan wrote to Martin Ridgley <=-

 SK> SEE MARTIN, before you disagree with me, understand, the word
 SK> TONE, isn't synonimous with technique :)  I never said a good
 SK> TONE = a good bassist.

   Right... neither was I...

 SK> I'm saying that TONE can result from a person setting an SVT/
 SK> Nice jazz bass together, and tweaking them so just playing the
 SK> open g string has a NICE TONE...

   Okay, I think that's a given...  a decent bass, good strings,
 tweaking the amp, etc.  Those things are understood.  But there is
 something beyond that in many guitar and bass players' sound which
 I think has to do, in part at least, with the way they actually pluck
 the strings and/or finger the notes.  It probably comes under the
 heading of 'playing technique'.  That's what I was talking about.

 SK> So Jaco playing a musicmaster bass, can produce a nicer BLEND,
 SK> then most with an Alembic, and a nicer guitar :) If we just define
 SK> tone as "sound in general", and not the quality of a particular
 SK> frequency interpretted by the human ear, then yes..I concede...
 SK> It's all in the fingers...

   Yes, it's a multi-faceted thing.  I think that one aspect of it is
 in the way the musician uses his fingers and hands.  I saw a bassist
 just last night who, although he played simply, had a very musical
 style in the way that he played each note and the way his hands moved
 around the instrument.  I could hear that in his sound.  As I said,
 it's probably best described as 'playing technique', but it's not
 necessarily related to musical knowledge, or what we generally regard
 as technical skills or proficiency.
   Does that make sense?

    Martin
   ~~~~~~~~

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