Lefty Bass Player … Sort of.
A week or so ago, I attended a party at a fancy catering place. The evening included cocktails, dinner and music being played by a local group that obviously plays these kinds of parties regularly. I listened. They were quite good.
Some of the licks the bass player was playing caught my attention, so I focused on him a bit. The first thing I noticed was that he was a lefty. That’s not all that unusual; Paul McCartney, a pretty famous bass player, was a lefty.
The next thing I noticed was that that the bass player wasn’t playing a bass made for lefties, but rather he was playing a right-hand bass, but turned upside down. Although I didn’t recall ever having seen a bass guitar player do that, I have seen left handed guitar players do that quite often. They simply flip the guitar over and restring it (i.e. reverse the strings) for left-hand playing, as can be seen in the case of Jimi Hendrix here.
OK, so I was thinking that this bass player was doing a Jimi Hendrix thing with the bass, but the problem was that his fingers were in the wrong places to be making the sounds I was hearing. WTF?
I looked closer, and I’ll be damned. He was playing the bass upside down, with the STRINGS upside down too. He simply flipped a righty bass upside down and played it that way as a lefty.
Watching him play (and he was damned good) was twisting my mind in all sorts of directions.
I felt I had to share this amazing thing with someone. I saw a colleague standing at the bar, and here’s about how it went:
Me: Hey, did you check out that bass player?
Him: (looks at bass player) Yeah, what about him?
Me: Well, for openers, he’s a lefty.
Him:
Me:
Him: How about those Giants?
Undaunted, I sought out another person with whom to share my amazement at what I was seeing and hearing.
Me: Hey, did you check out that bass player?
Him: Which one is he?
Me: He’s the guy on the left.
Him: (looks at bass player) Yeah, do you know him or something?
Me: No, I don’t know him, but did you notice that he’s a lefty?
Him: How can you tell?
Me: (Trying to think of way to answer the question without using words like “fret board” or “headstock”). Well, look at the guitar player next to him.
Him: The guy playing the red guitar?
Me: Yeah, that guy — the guy on the right. You see how his guitar is pointing to the left?
Him: Oh, yeah. So he’s a lefty?
Me: No. He’s a righty. Look at the bass player — the guy on the left. His guitar is pointing to the right.
Him: So, the guy on the left is a righty?
Me: No, he’s a lefty.
Him: His guitar is pointing to the right and he’s a lefty? I don’t get it.
Me:
Him:
Me: How about those Giants?
This kind of shit happens to me a lot.
Being a lefty, I can kind of grok playing a restrung instrument, but learning just plain upside down?
Wish I coulda seen it.
Comment by Craig — February 1, 2008 @ 7:16 pm
You gotta wonder if he could play it with the strings in the right order, too.
Comment by Cousin Jack — February 1, 2008 @ 8:04 pm
Right! no, left!
Yarrrrrrrrr!
Comment by Mike — February 1, 2008 @ 8:38 pm
“This kind of shit happens to me a lot.”
Jim I bet you know how often this kind of shit happens to ME.
Comment by dogette — February 1, 2008 @ 9:09 pm
How ’bout them Giants?
Seriously, that’s impressive.
Comment by That 1 Guy — February 1, 2008 @ 11:09 pm
ROFL…I am sooooo glad this kind of shit happens to you a lot, so we get to read about it here.
Funny. Funny.
Comment by Jean — February 2, 2008 @ 12:21 am
I’m amazed when ever I see someone setup like that. Which is not very often.
Comment by hammer — February 2, 2008 @ 12:59 am
Yeah, how about them New Joisey Giants?
Comment by GUYK — February 2, 2008 @ 9:04 am
I didn’t need an instrument for lefties when growing up. I needed a trombone for the untalented.
Just passing by. Erica’s latest post is too mellowed out to crap it up with a smartass comment.
Comment by Cappy — February 2, 2008 @ 11:17 am
Y’know that’s like being able to write you name backward and upside down without thinking about it… Very cool.
Comment by Teresa — February 2, 2008 @ 11:42 am
Rest assured, gentle Hairboy, that even as a quasi-ambidextrous, green-eyed, Sagittarius lefty from Brooklyn, who enjoys a splash of Crème de Menthe in her black Russians, had it been me you ponied up to at the bar instead of those two other peeps, that lonesome disconnect you experienced probably would not have happened. It would really behoove so many of our educational institutions would just incorporate a “Relating to Others 101†course into their core curriculums.
Comment by Erica — February 2, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
you have the patience of a saint. I would have said, “Listen doofus, they’re facing us, their left faces your right”. but then again you’re also a nice person!
Comment by Journey — February 2, 2008 @ 9:28 pm
I it interesting that you had to point out the bassist to anyone at all, meaning that they don’t know the difference between a guitarist and bassist and what the instruments look like.
Then again I dated a guy who was in many bands and my own twins are respectively, a guitarist and a bassist.
I have never, ever seen a bassist do it that way!
I am very impressed by your powers of observation!
How ’bout them Giants?
Comment by aithne — February 3, 2008 @ 8:10 pm
cool though
Comment by wRitErsbLock — February 3, 2008 @ 8:59 pm
Uh, Hairboy? How ’bout dem NEW YORK Giants?
🙂
Comment by Erica — February 3, 2008 @ 10:53 pm
Hey Jimbo,
Even though I am a drummer (which I play lefty ala Phil Collins), I play a righty guitar as well as bass strung righty and just played upside down and backwards. When I play, the low E string is at the bottom and to get that regular full chord strum I have to make an upstroke.
It is even funnier when people watch when i play riffs like U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” on guitar. People just shake their head ask how the “F” do ya do it?
I don’t know any other way to play.
Comment by Robbie K. — February 4, 2008 @ 10:33 am
There was a traditional Southern blues/folk singer, Libba Cotton, who played guitar the same way. It seems she was self-taught, and no one was around to tell her she was doing it wrong!
Comment by Pat Dennis — February 14, 2008 @ 11:55 am
Played bass lefty for years when I was younger. Recently got back into it after a LONG layoff and figured righty was the way to go since lefty basses are much more rare and much more expensive. After about two months I’ve just flipped the bass and am playing it left handed strung righty. MUCH easier for me than making the transition to rughty! MUCH!!! as for impressive feats, hows this… I recently saw a bassist doing the upsidedown thing in a music shop. No big deal except that he was playing Marcus Miller SLAP lines. Still have no idea how he managed to do that. When I asked him, his response was’ I don’t know. I never really thought about it, I just do IT.”
Comment by ronin — October 31, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
Played bass lefty for years when I was younger. Recently got back into it after a LONG layoff and figured righty was the way to go since lefty basses are much more rare and much more expensive. After about two months I’ve just flipped the bass and am playing it left handed strung righty. MUCH easier for me than making the transition to righty! MUCH!!! As for impressive feats, hows this… I recently saw a bassist doing the upsidedown thing in a music shop. No big deal except that he was playing Marcus Miller SLAP lines. Still have no idea how he managed to do that. When I asked him, his response was “I don’t know. I never really thought about it, I just do it.”
Comment by ronin — October 31, 2008 @ 1:52 pm