Music is a relationship thing............

-Come on, play the bass, he said.

-What??? I don't know how to, I answered.

-Well, you have to because my fingers are bleeding.

Come, I'll show you, he said and dragged me up

on the stage.

If I had been sober, I would have just refused, alas, 

I was not and so, suddenly I was on stage holding

a double bass. (Upright bass)

-You pluck the strings with your right hand and

make the notes with your left. Here, let me show

you.

I knew the names of the strings so when he showed

me where I could find a 'C' and how to place my

fingers around the neck of the bass, I said to myself:

''Just wing it."

Tentatively I tried a scale and I quickly realized

that I too would have bleeding fingers by the

end of the next set.

Honestly, when the drummer and pianist got up

on the stage and yelled out the key of the song

we were gonna play I just nodded and turned down 

the volume on the amp.

One hour later I had a huge blood blister on my

''plucking finger'' but fortunately for me, the gig was over.

Well, the gig was over but my love affair with playing

the bass had just begun.

I decided that I had to get a double bass and learn 

how to play it properly.

One of the teachers at the conservatorium that I

was attending told me that I could use his upright

bass until I could buy one.

I gratefully took him up on the offer and started

to take bass lessons.

This meant not only plucking strings but also learning

how to use a bow. Which proved to be very difficult

and made a heck of horrible sound. 

But I loved playing the bass and it helped me

to understand harmony on a much deeper level.

Where ever I went I dragged the full sized 1860s 

Russian bass with me. Which was not an easy thing as

I did not have a car and had to catch busses and

the Metro everywhere.

 I mean, the bass was much taller and bigger

then I was so it was definitely a chore.

Slowly my playing progressed and although I had

blood blisters on most of my fingers, I learnt how to

deal with them so that I could keep practicing the instrument.

When you play upright bass you're sort of caressing it

and the vibrations and sound in its big body reverberates

all through yours. You feel it as well as play it.

My last year in the conservatorium however, my piano 

and flute(transverse not recorder)teacher told me that

I had to make a choice between playing the bass or

the piano and flute because the blood blisters were

not compatible with the other instruments.

On my last day at the conservatorium,

 I handed the bass back to its owner.

Many years later in a land ''downunder'',

 I played an upright once again.

But not a lovely full sized Russian,

but a key on a keyboard,

named upright bass,

digital and lifeless,

clumsy no grace.

"Whether we press a key, 

pluck a string, hit a skin or

breathe air in to an opening,

playing an instrument is a deeply

personal and intimate thing."

(Citizen Z)

 

about the image: ''The Bass player''

texters on large paper