My First 5-String Bass Guitar

One of my face-to-face students recently asked my about converting his 5-string bass to a 4-string. This "backward" conversion brought back memories of my first 5-string bass.

It was around 1988 that I became concerned in playing 5-string. Although the concept had been adopted well over a hundred years ago for double bass, it was quite new for bass guitar. Being a formally trained classical double bass player, I was already familiar with the 5-string concept in its varied guises, and had played some 5-string upright basses on occasion.

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Because no music stores in my area had 5-string bass guitars at that time, I decided to turn my one-and-only bass guitar myself. I bought a bridge, a tuning peg, a B-string and a blank nut, drilled a hole in the headstock, filed the nut grooves, and did the conversion in one afternoon. Brave? I don't know. I just had to find out.

My First 5-String Bass Guitar

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Vienna Strings Hamburg Bass Feature

• Solid Sitka Spruce Top
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The Hamburg Model Bass represents mastership in the art of making fine upright basses.The Spruce Top is the soul of a fine bass Vienna Strings uses Alaskan Sitka Spruce for the Hamburg Model Basses. Each board foot consists of 24 spheres allowing sound vibration to travel freely along the grain of the wood, giving the Hamburg excellent acoustic projection. As in all our models, players will treasure the feel of the Hamburg Bass. The perfect curvature and placement provides superior playability.Features: * Solid Sitka Spruce Top * North American Maple back and sides * Premium Ebony Fingerboard and Tailpiece * Hand Inlaid Purfling Insures Stability * Dark Brown Shaded Finish * Optional Natural Wood Finish * Heavy Duty Low Geared Machine Tuners * Double Padded BagSizes: 1/4, 1/2 , 3/4 call for availability

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Customer Reviews

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Jun 10, 2012 00:30:06

That very night I had a gig. Yikes! Brave? I didn't even think about the implications at that time ... I was so excited about my "new" bass. The worst thing that happened was that I occasionally played fifths instead of chord roots. Of course I was used to using the E-string as my optical reference. Which 4-string player is not!

The lesson I learnt from that very first night on my 5-string was to learn the notes equally well on All strings and to not use any specific string as a reference. The main thing I practiced - and made myself conscious of on all gigs - was to know which string I was on at any given time.

This new consciousness has helped me enormously in my belief of playing any stringed instrument (except when I am playing completely by ear) and undoubtedly helped my studying of the 6-string bass (which is other story where supplementary studying elements were introduced).

The student I mentioned above has not done his "backward" conversion yet.

My First 5-String Bass Guitar

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