Music for bass duet to show off a new bass

Howdy,

I've been working on a little side project now for a while, and while trying to keep the post germane to the topic of "Share your music", I'll also post a piece that I came up with for a bass duet.

Actually, I'll go ahead and post the duet first, because the story is a little long

I came up with this arrangement using Band in a Box as starting point, and then tweaking it and recording parts of it for a backing track through Composer. It's just a very simple, very open arrangement of Adeste Fidelis, and I made it for two basses to trade off alternately between the bass line, and the melody. This file is more for "demonstration purposes", as we embellished the performances somewhat, but one great thing was that by having the files (Woong also has Composer), we could practice at our own convenience. I set up this file as the "main" file. This is the file that I used, minus the melody and bass lines, to record our backing track of drums and piano that we used for the performance. I also made two separate practice files - one for me and one for Woong - that had our own part muted out so that we could practice virtually when it was convenient. This technique made it really easy for us to only have a few practices together to get a fairly polished performance.

<center><table border=1><tr><td>Adeste Fidelis for two basses
Adeste fidelis for bass duet.not (203.1 k)</td></tr></table></center>

You'll notice that I left the melody notation in treble clef. Woong also plays clarinet and I play whistle, so it wasn't a problem, and I left it that way to sort of remind us that when we were playing melody, it was to be a different feel than when we were playing the "bass line".

The little side project is a new, hand carved, mahogany and purpleheart electric bass. It started out last summer, when I discovered an old piece of mahogany out in my woodshop that I had forgotten that I had. It was an extra piece for a stair tread that was left over from our kitchen renovation, but it was a beautiful piece of wood, and quite dense. I thought it would make a fun "in my spare time" project to carve it into a new body for my electric bass. Rarely do any of my projects turn out that simply, though, and this was no exception. Here is a shot of the first rough cut mahogany blank.



I researched (hands-on, visiting a music store with lots of really nice basses) body shapes for balance, overall weight, how they hung (for easy access to different positions for playing), etc., and I'm really glad I did. In the meantime, I was conversing with one of my virtual friends on my church bass email list. I had thought about trying to find some sort of "show" wood to put on the top face, to contrast against the mahogany. But since I was trying to keep this project cheap (ie, free), I didn't pursue it. Donl is getting into luthiery, and he was very excited about my little project (he's also helping me with electronics on my fretless bass), and said he had some flamed purpleheart (rather rare) that would look really nice with this, would I like some? Not being one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, I said sure So he sent me a really nice piece of flamed purple heart, along with some trim strips he had cut from some necks he was making (I've never done a neck, and probably never will ).

So I cut out some pieces from this, after looking at it carefully, and figuring out how the trim strips would look proportionally, etc. and this is what I came up with at that point:



The color really shows up here - yow! Having it on a yellow background sort of brings that out

After that, I had to rout the holes for the pickups and electronics, decide on the final body shape, the dimensions for carving, etc. I used the bandsaw, tilted over about 45 degrees, for the rough shaping, then files and rasps for the final shaping. I then sanded it down, and used a cabinet scraper to get the final smoothness. I used polyurethane as the finish coat. I didn't use a filler, because I actually like to feel a little grain - it reminds me that it's wood and not plastic

I also covered the headstock with a piece of purpleheart veneer, as well as the "tongue" on the neck, to tie it all together. I made knobs out of some of the scraps of the purpleheart, because the big knobs that had been on it before were just too obtrusive. I also cut a new nut for it out of micarta, and that helps the sustain, too, as the previous nut was just plastic. Here's the finished project:




For other techno-geeks out there, the pickups are dual EMG-style humbuckers, active/passive controls, pickup pan, bass and treble controls (for active only). I string it through the body, and the sustain now is incredible. I also have more definition on the low end, and that 0-B is low I'm quite happy with how this has turned out - the research on bodies was time well spent, because this bass just fits me perfectly - easy access with left hand to frets and right hand positions for tonal differences, the smaller body is well balanced even though it's heavier than the previous larger body (the original body is basswood), and it's just some beautiful wood. I bevelled the edges to show off the mahogany vs. purpleheart contrast around the edges. I love nice wood

So anyway, that's what I've been doing in my spare time lately. Now I have to make myself do the "gotta does" to keep me from just sitting and messing around with my bass all the time

I'm planning to record the above Adeste Fidelis piece using my bass and the performance accompaniment track that Woong and I used, and I'll post it on my SoundClick site when I do.

ttfn,
Sherry

Very nice, Sherry. A real labour of love. 5 string bass -- very interesting. Go play it!

By the way: You make stair treads out of mahogany? I want to see your house!

David (Just plain old pine on my stairs) Jacklin

Howdy David,

Thanks - it has been a labour of love, and I've really enjoyed it. And I now have an even higher esteem of those that make beautiful instruments to sell to others - I don't think I could do it for a living!

The five strings make it a really versatile instrument. I play mostly for church, and we don't have an organ. So sometimes for some of the hymns, I can play pedal notes on that fifth string that just resonate and fill up the place. It's fun The fifth string also gives me a lot of versatility for where I play on the neck, and keep me from having to jump up and down the fretboard as much. A fair number of folks on my church bass list play six strings, and a few brave souls even play more. Five is perfect for me We also play a lot of contemporary music at church, and having the extra low B to E is useful for some of those songs.

As for the stair tread, we live in a big 110+ year old stone farmhouse, that was built back when most of the Michigan thumb area was still standing forest, and not the bean fields of today. The original part of the house has beautiful oak, maple, and cherry trim and waiscoting - the door mouldings are 6" wide, with big rosettes at the corners. Some of it is painted over (ugh), but part of it was restored by the folks who lived here previous to us.

The part that we renovated into the kitchen was an addition that was put on later, and wasn't finished in the same manner as the rest of the house. When we renovated, we wanted to install wood flooring to go with the rest of the house (we had ripped out the lime-green carpet and refinished the beautiful maple and hard yellow pine floors for most of the rooms). However, the best "match" woodwise was maple, and it would have been really light, and it was more than we could afford at that point anyway. The guys at the lumber mill we went to (a couple of Mennonite brothers) asked us if we'd considered Brazillian Cherry. I'd never heard of it before, and they said it was harder than maple, and about half the price! (sidenote: it's really hard - I dented a stainless steel pan that I dropped on the floor, and left no mark on the floor)

So we agreed, and we ordered that, and some 2" thickness for making the stair treads. When the fellow who was helping us out with the renovation ordered the wood for the stair treads, he thought we wanted an extension step, and so ordered an extra length. Well, the mill didn't have the BC in 2" thickness, so they asked if we minded if they substituted 2" thickness dark mahogany at the same price So, we got the mahogany at a lesser price, and I got an extra piece (eventually) to make a new bass body.

So, I love my kitchen (it's big - I'm blessed), and I play my bass in there for practice sessions at home And that's where I did a lot of the practice for the Adeste Fidelis piece (how's that for full circle ;) )

ttfn,
Sherry

p.s. David - anytime you're down this way, give us a holler (That goes for anyone else, too) I'd even let you play my bass ;)

ttfn,
Sherry

Hello Sherry
Glad you're back on the scene and with such a beautiful bass.Having low B is wonderful too( having BEAD tuning on my basses too).
I can't wait listening how the bass sounds.
How about a six string for your next axe ?
Cheers
Djim

Howdy Djim,

Thanks for the comments This project is actually over a year old now (jeepers - how time flies), but I am still loving my bass

I know some other guys that tune their four strings BEAD as well. I have a four string fretless, but I've not tried tuning it BEAD. I'd have to re-cut a new nut, and it's a short scale, so I think the B string would be too floppy on a scale like that.

I've thought about a six string, but I think that would be more than I'd need. And I might get it confused with my skinny-string ;)

I think I might eventually like to try making a neck-through fretless. Necks can be bought (I don't think I'd ever want to carve my own - too much like a lotta work ;) ) and the rest of the woodworking on something like that would be easy. Figuring out which pickups to purchase might be a challenge, but it could be fun playing a lot of basses for research, like I did to decide on the body shape for this project.

How are the cello pieces coming along?

ttfn,
Sherry

Hi Sherry Low Bee
How are you doing with your new 5-string bass ? Still enyoing the low regions ? You must be.I really liked the bass duet with the smooth walking bass and the beautifull well known melody.I saved the composition as a MP3 file ( Synthfont + Merlin creative soundfont+ Merlin A Grand piano +
Merlin trumpet in the melody part+ Alembic bass + SB live soundcard +
EAX concert hall effect).Sounds terrific to me.I love trumpet and big church organs concerts (Bach,Telemann,Faure) especially when played in those big cathedrals (London,Amsterdam,Paris,Vienna etc).
I am getting a bit tired of Bach cello pieces.I finally decided to add
some chorus/delay to overcome intonation problems (just cheating !!).
Keep on grooving
Djim

Howdy Djim,

Yep, I'm still loving my fiver Using that bottom string high up on the fretboard really has a "fill it up" effect as opposed to the cleaner sound of the same notes on the thinner strings. Just depends on what I want to do with a given note

I'd love to hear the mp3 you made of the file - do you happen to have that posted somewhere? I love brass played well, too. I had done this one as clarinet, just to humor Woong, as he is also a clarinet player.


Chorus effect on a fretless sounds nice, whether you're cheating or not ;) I really should pull out my fretless, but I'm devoting most of my practice time (what little I can get in these days) to learning the songs for our upcoming gig in August. We've had a couple of practices, and I'm loving playing with the drummer He's really good, and just a lot of fun to groove with. Very solid, very experienced. I hope he doesn't mind the bass player ;)

ttfn,
Sherry

Hi Sherry
Any suggestions how to upload a MP3 file?I became a registered member(listener) of Soundclick but I found it rather confusing to find my way around in Soundclick.I suppose you are a Soundclick artist member
too.How is Notation Musician connected to Soundclick ?
Just a few questions for now.
By the way,playing up the 5th fret gives a different tonality(very nice)
and besides that....less stretching !
Keep grooving
Djim