Kids Bass

[swarfrat]

Ok, my boy is still REAL little, but he absolutely loves music, and his favorite instrument is the bass. Far be it from me, that I should neglect to nurture this bent in any way. Even though my heart is the guitar. (Maybe especially because my heart is the guitar. Heh. Heh. Heh.)  I was strongly considering embarking on a 14-18" scale nylon string mini-guitar and doing some electroniz wizardry to pitch shift each string, but I've found a couple options on some other forums.

1) Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro. Runs about $180. It's a real short real bass. 28" scale length. Maybe when he's older, like 8.

2) Samick MCR-1. About perfect, was cheap when it was available. 25" scale length.  No longer made. Ebay price is not horrible, but way outside the 'Toddler Christmas present' range.  It actually sounds cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ubSQpKnlqU

3) This little ebay deal.  Runs about $80ish +/- 20. Also 25" scale length. You can drop $60 on plastic toys easy, so I don't feel bad about the price at all. Plus he can play this thing for years, and if he don't, I can will [anyway whether he does or not cause its way cool] At least with a solid body, I know anything is fixable if you want to put the effort and cash into it. 

Here's a mashup for scale with a full size P-bass.

It appears to come in Red, Blue, or occasionally Black. Red is snazzy. But dad's p-bass is black w/ white pg. I wouldn't have picked the color myself, but I'm thinking matching dad's is cooler than red. (Ironically our basses will cost about the same.  And use the same strings - most people use BEAD string gauges on these super short scale basses, and tune em EADG.)

 

[Slackjaw]

Yeah, the black somehow looks less "cheap" but that Samick definitely looks like the better bass...

 

[swarfrat]

Yeah. If I can find a Samick in time for not too much money. At this very instant there are NONE on ebay or reverb.  No craigslist entries nationwide in the past year.  Then again, we can go back to project. Since concert pitch appears to be doable around 25", I might could just take a guitar kit, plug or reshape the headstock, maybe shave an 1/8" off either side of the neck, cut a new body outline to size it like a bass (bridge at the butt, cuts a bunch of length and weight down).  But I think I'll go with the $80 ebay 36" child's bass at this point. Any kit or neck is going to cost north of $120ish.  Especially since I'd have to mash up a guitar and bass to get the neck and hardware.

Actually the black mini is the red one photoshopped.

 

[swarfrat]

I'm going with the ebay bass. But another option came up. The Loog is a 3 string kids guitat w a 23" scale lenth. The guitar sells for 160ish but just the neck runs 60 bucks. I may end up doing something like that later on if he starts to learn for real. For the meantime this will just be another of dad's instruments that he gets to play, with similar rules. (Supervised play)

 

[swarfrat]

Just FTR. There appear to be two similar basses both billed "36 in child's bass guitar" on ebay. One has no name and the other has a F headstock that's gonna get sued and carries the Stedman Pro label. I didn't see it till after i ordered but one of the bass forums gave higher marks to the noname.
Plus the noname means you can put their name or favorite character there.

I got the Stedman. I had to loosen the truss rod a lot and raise the action to kill the buzzing. But I got a decent setup. The low E is a bit wonky but any 25.5" scale bass is going to do that. Its a barrel of fun just because its so absurd. can't wait to see my boys face on Christmas.  Might have to srnd him to grandmas soon so I can play it some more.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I would stay away from the Loog 3 string just because they shouldn't learn on weird instrument just to have the rug pulled out from them when they do advance.  When he gets bigger, an extra string and extra scale length?  No need to learn the instrument twice.  Many "pro" players stick with the habits they develope as beginners.  I've met several bass players who play a 5 string not because they like the extra range, but because that's what they've always played.  Kerry King uses a Kahler not because he thinks it's better than a Floyd, but because it's what he learned on.  I have to wonder too what Doyle II, Dick Dale, or Albert King would've done had they had access to a lefty instrument as a beginner. 

Of the 2 you pictured, although smaller scale length, the bridge, pickups, frets, and number of frets appear to be the same as their full size counterparts.

 

[swarfrat]

Here's the actual bass along side my Squire P. It's still taller than he is, but the body is small enough that I think he can hold it. I started to say "I'll post better pics when I get home", but I actually took it in to work to show a coworker who plays drums and has grandkids.  Still gonna have to wait though.

It sounds like I've already sold two of em, my coworker is getting one for his grandkids, and the bass player in his band is too. Just the ticket for molding young minds. Momma's don't let your babies grow up to be guitar players. Let em be drummers and bassist and such.  (The problem with drums is you use weapons to play them, and we're trying to teach him not to hit [so hard] Apparently it's a lifelong task with drummers.)

 

[stubhead]

Playing one note at a time is easy, he definitely doesn't need to be dicking around with acrobatic "stretching" exercises. Playing bass well is mostly about playing BASS PARTS, you can probably ABSOLUTELY play 75% of great rock song bass parts with two fingers. And you don't need to be fast and decorative, you just need to WHOMP the right notes at the right time - it's all timing. Guitarists get to stand out front and be decorative, bass parts fill dance floors. OK... OK... here it is.

50% of everything you ever need to know or at least think about is right here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gObUFdb9SFw

Timothy B. Schmit plays the verse bass parts really short & staccato, almost like reggae but held back even tighter. And then in the choruses, he lets the notes ring out and changes up to a bit more of a swing time. It's more noticeable in the second verse, but even under Felder's guitar solo he's keeping the verse section really reigned in - when he wants the rest of them to sound better, he lets it out.  :laughing7:

It absolutely makes the song - there's really not much of anything else happening there, Felder is loud and annoying, Joe Walsh is still in the early stages of conquering a hangover he'd been building for 30 years and the drums just get louder and softer. Who knows why that violin player is sawing away in the background playing that accordion-sounding nonsense? But you hit that "Al-l-l-ready" part and it launches. And only about one out of fifty people could tell you how that actually works, and they're all bass players.

You didn't really think it was Don Felder's big teeth, did you? :icon_thumright:

 

[swarfrat]

Right now we're working on "music is fun, bass is cool, climb up in dad's lap with musical instrument and make noise". I just wanted to make sure he could hold it and I could play it. (Which is why it's so cool that the body is so small on this one, even if the neck is still a bit long for him.)  He'll be 2 in January, we'll work on scales in a couple years.

But I *have* introduced him to the metronome already.  It drives mommy crazy (no need to drive, it's in walking distance), but as a toddler, a highly repetitive noise maker is right up his alley. I'm not going to be one of the push your progidy to practice 8 hours a day folks, but I AM going to make sure any time he WANTS to we can go play music.

 

[swarfrat]

Finally remembered to go check the link out. I'm sorry, but that song is forever ruined for me by the lyric "have to eat your lunch all by yourself".  I think it probably went something like...

Hey what rhymes with shelf?
I dunno, hey man, nobody listens to the lyrics anyway.
I know but it at least has to fit the pretense of the song.
Screw it just put something in so when can stop for a beer.

 

[stubhead]

I'm relatively certain that "Eat your lunch all by yourself..." is some sort of impossibly-hip inside joke, and... I'm not inside. There was some relatively good-natured feuding and kidding around with the rest of the clan or nest or gaggle or clot of other bands who have now been retroactively classified as the purveyors of "Yacht Rock." Somewhere in "Hotel California" is the line "...stab it with your steely knives" which is well known as a reference to their "enemies," Steely Dan. Who reciprocated? Provoked it? with "Turn up the Eagles; the neighbors are listening...."  from "The Royal Scam." As Steely Dan took their name from a dildo in a novel called "Naked Lunch" by William Burroughs, "Eat your lunch..." might be another secret coded message. I don't, actually, care enough to look into it. After one too many blaring boomboxes in one too many kitchen jobs for several too many years and one too many crappy-paying bass jobs playing the "hits of my generation"... well, there must be some reason about 80% of my CD collection is instrumental music. There's even somewhat of a 70's shaped HOLE in the middle of it. I went back and reloaded on the "guitar lesson" albums - Hendrix's "Cry of Love", "Layla", "Exile on Main Street", "Allman Brothers Live" etc. But not one Eagles, nor Steely Dan or Doobie Brothers or Hair Balladeers like Aerosmith, Journey, Starship, Oreo Speedcookie, Foreigner, Styx snork-snork-snork. Life is short.

 

[swarfrat]

I actually like a lot of seventies stuff, but mostly just components of it. Especially a lot of 70's R&B stuff, but big grooves were everywhere. I'm trying to build up a collection of old school funk/R&B with big horns, but its been frustrating and dissapointing. And i hate the scooped chicka guitar parts of the era. i've always thought replacing the chickas of Le Freak with a throaty marshall in heat playing a similar rhythm part down in the mids would totally rock. But that might have been a pepperoni inspired dream.

 

[swarfrat]

Making sure everything is ok while the kid sleeps. Would hate for him to be disappointed by a bad setup, so I try to make sure I have plenty of chances to check it out in advance. (Man this thing is a hoot).

 

[stubhead]

Short scales are at least as much fun as baritones.... I guess they sort of turn into one another, in a way. I love my little four-string solidbody electric mandolin, and when I get my infernal teeth paid off I may go for a Moongazer Baritone kit:
http://www.moongazermusic.com/dejavub5kit.html

5 strings, 18.1875" scale, tuning - whatever you make of it, sorta. You can get an idea of what he does with some of the kits WITH pictures:
http://www.moongazermusic.com/dejavudolakit1.html
Good reputation, lotsa of options. Hey, his DejaVu line is FENDER-inspired... ahem...

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Dang... startin' this kid early - still a toddler, how old exactly?

Victor Wooten started playing bass when he was only 5, so there's certainly a precedent.  :icon_thumright:

 

[swarfrat]

He turns 2 a few weeks  after Christmas. Yeah. I know.  We had an unexpected turn though. I was reading one of his books, we got to a page with a bluegrass band so I went and found a video. Should not have done that.

Uhh son.. I got some bad news. Bluegrass might be  fun if you're a banjo, guitar, or mandolin player. Not so much if you're a bass player.  I'm sure Stub will now produce a video of Abe Laboriel shredding Hang Your Head Tom Dooley or something, but it's still generally true.

 

[bagman67]

Here you go, buddy.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xeLXC5Ph98

 

[swarfrat]

Absolutely no dog box! Unless they change the rules allow you to use your 529 college savings to buy an URB.

 

[bagman67]

Fine.


Here's Kyle Brock:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_4A4xnbOlU


ANd Stu Hamm:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br29sKy9PRA

 

[stubhead]

Edgar Meyer was a Nashville native, and he was known in his callow youth for showing up at the bluegrass open mike nights with his umpteen-$$$ 18-something-something German full bass and torching the banjo players. Playing way, way, way up high with no frets, where nobody plays. Perfectly in tune. So, where does every hotshot young banjo player in America move to and start going to open mike nights when they think they're ready to "make it".....  :toothy11: