Bassless again

This evening I used Thomann's 30-day money-back guarantee and sent back my Harley Benton HBB400-SET 2. I decided to use this possibility to buy me a bass more suitable for a beginner. This decision came after a good friend of mine, who is a very good bass player and a (former) bass guitar teacher had a look at my bass and noticed that it was not possible to get the strings closer to the fretboard. The Harley Benton HBB400TBK might be OK to play for an experienced player, but it is too hard to play for a beginner, like me.

Since I bought it in a specially priced set it was better to send the whole package back, and I will then also upgrade to a better amplifier. 

So as soon as Thomann has refunded my money, these are now what I will go for: An Ibanez SR300 bass and a Behringer BXL1800 amplifier.

At least this new bass free time will give me a chance to learn the bass fretboard to perfection ;-)

Step 3 - Start practising

So at last I got my first bass! :-)
I had a sneak peek at lesson one of TMBG already last week, and now with a bass in my hands I can say that it looks easier than it is in reality ;-) Roy says in the first lesson something like 'the first time you play it might feel like peeling a banana while biking a mono bike and joggling', and I can agree with that.
So I just had to stop the DVD after a few minutes into the first lesson, and I have now spent an hour or two practising the very first things of Roy's instructions. It already feels like I'm progressing, but I also feel a need to rest. :-)

Joy and frustration

My copy of TMBG (Teach Me Bass Guitar) arrived this morning! :-) And a few hours later a box with the Harley Benton HB-40B, bass amp. :-)
But, what has DHL done with the bass and the rest of my gear from Thomann? :-(

I guess I'll just have to practice air-bass today...

Step 2 - Get a good teacher

The kids of today might think it is weird that neither the first nor the second step is to figure out a cool name and design the t-shirts for the band I will join once I know how to play, but I'm a geezer ;-)
My second step was to research (i.e. google) if there are any good online bass courses. One of the very first  pages I found was this: Teach Me Bass Guitar Review.
So after reading that, and some other reviews I headed over to  Teach Me Bass Guitar (from now on TMBG), checked the info there and some sample videos on YouTube .
Roy Vogt seemed to be just the right teacher for me, so I then ordered myself a copy of the course.

I also ordered a couple of Bass for dummies books online (I'll list them in a later post) and booked a couple of DVD/book bass courses from the local library. (Mainly because I fear that it will take a week or two for the TMBG course to arrive, and I want to start as soon as the bass has arrived).

I guess Step 3 is to now wait for the gear and DVDs to arrive, but I won't write a separate post for that...

Step 1 - Get the hardware

The jazz concert ended late Friday evening and one of the first thing I did on Saturday morning was to order a Harley Benton HBB400-SET 2 from Thomann :-)
Why from there? Because a good friend of mine from Sweden, who has been playing bass for over 35 years bought a cheap bass from there and he is very satisfied.
Why that set? Well, I didn't do ANY research about what kind of bass a beginner should buy, I only decided that the total price should not be over 250 Euro. When I listened online to this bass compared to others they have for sale in that price range, the Harley Benton HBB400TBK simply sounded best.
I also ordered a Thomann CTG-10, clip tuner.
As I write this the packages are on their way from Germany to Finland :-)

Why now?

So after all these years, why have I now decided to learn how to play an instrument? The answer is that it was triggered by two things happening within a week, one very tragic and one very nice:

The very tragic thing was that my younger cousin died in a bicycle accident. This made me think a lot. Naturally also about my own mortality, what I have achived so far in my life and the things I would regret if my turn to exit would come. I live a happy life and the thing I regret the most so far is that I have never learned to play an instrument properly.

The nice thing that happened last week was that my wife brought me to a jazz concert on Friday 10th of June with Anna-Mari Kähärän Orkesteri. The musicians where so amazingly good and had so much fun on stage. I was very inspired by them all. When we left the concert I told my wife "Tomorrow I'll order myself a bass"...

And why a bass? Well, I did like to play the drums and I think it will be easier for me to learn another rythm instrument.

Some background information

During my very first school years in the late sixties, in a small village in the middle of Sweden I started to attend a recorder (flute) course. But very early I decided to drop out since I thought it was very boring and the progress was so slow. As I remember it were we three boys who dropped at the same time, and as far as I know only one of the others later learned to play an instrument (guitar).
In the mid seventies I borrowed a guitar from a neighbour and some "Learn how to play" book from the library. But I gave up after only a few frustrated tries.

In 1979, at the age of 16 I was one day asked to sing in a band, though I hardly knew any of the members and had never been singing before. I was not a very good singer but still I became a member of the band and we had some minor success, in my home village at least. The music style was a mix of reggae, ska and punk. I played the bass on one of the songs, a cover of "Identity" by X-Ray Specs.  Click here to see how very simple that was ;-) (But note that I do not understand anything about the chords/tabs written on that page myself).

A year later or so The Stray Cats became popular and inspired by them we started a new band. This time it was punkabilly style. I became the drummer and I bought a snare + a bass drum. It was a short lived band and we never played live.I don't remember the details, but soon after we again formed a new band and I upgraded to a full, but low quality drum set. At the end of 1981 I replaced that with a better set. But I never had any drum lessons, and I rarely practised by myself, only together with the band. So I was naturally not a very good drummer.
With this last band we had some gigs in my home town and nearby. We also recorded about ten songs in a studio, but we never released them on record or tape.I'm not sure what the style would be categorized under, but perhaps it would have been 'new wave reggae'. :-)
As I remember it we had our last gig in 1983. It was a really bad gig and it ended with that someone pulled the plug for us :-) I never played the drums after that and I sold them some years later.

During those years, or later I never learned to read sheet music or even the VERY basic things about tones, notes,chords or whatever it is all called;-)

A side note: I am since 11 years back living in Finland.