Airline Travel with Your Bass

I recently made an airline trip with my bass in my new Tuff-Lite bass trunk. Overall, the trip was pretty easy (surprisingly). Everyone was nice and my bass was well-cared for by the baggage and airline folks. I've included a few tips from my experiences. Hopefully this blog post will help future travelers with similar endeavors.

Just to give some details, I went from YYC to SFO via SLC and back. I flew Delta. As far as i can tell, the only airlines that are reasonable as far as traveling with a bass are Delta and Northwest. They are in the process of a merger, which I'm not sure is good or bad. We'll see.

I packed my bass in my Tuff-Lite case from the String Emporium. As I expected, I got a lot of odd looks at the airport, particularly from the Delta staff who at first seemed a little unsure as to what to do with the trunk.

TIP #1: DO YOUR HOMEWORK:
Prior to making the trip, I got confirmation from Delta that the bass in its case would make the trip. To do this, I spent roughly 45 minutes on the phone making my reservation and getting all the details ironed out. They asked for the measurements of my case and its weight (84" x 34" x 22" and about 100lbs fully loaded). Although this is in excess of Delta's rules (120 linear inches and 100 lb max), the reservation clerk found out the size of the cargo door on the plane (43" X 22") and told me that "if it fits, we'll take it." The person I dealt with on the phone documented our conversation, including all the measurements, and our conversation was able to be reviewed at the various airports by the Delta staff.

TIP #2: GET THERE EARLY:
Even with this assurance, I was pretty paranoid. At the airport, the Delta staff avoided me, looking past me and asking people after me in line to come up. Finally I asserted myself and asked to be served. They finally checked the bag although they were baffled by how the case would be handled once I cleared customs. The extra time it took to get the trunk cleared and in the hands of the baggage folks was about 40 minutes. Add this as additional time you'll need at the airport.

TIP #3: GET A GREEN CARD FOR YOUR INSTRUMENT:
The folks at US customs (which I cleared in Calgary) asked about the value of my instrument. Once I told them, they asked for a "green card" for the instrument. Apparently, when you're traveling with an expensive instrument, you can obtain a green card for that instrument from your home airport's custom authority. This card indicates that the instrument originated in Canada. In this way, when you return there are no questions regarding where the instrument came from. The Canadian customs people (and those in the US too) are apparently on the lookout for purchases made in the US on which duties and taxes may be owed. The green card avoids these hassles upon return. (Given that I don't have a green card for my bass, I'll deal with this potentiality in a week's time.)

TIP #4: BE NICE TO EVERYONE:
Naturally, when traveling with a bass trunk there is a lot of curiosity on the part of fellow travelers and airport staff. Be nice to all of them. Realize that you're in some sense at their mercy. Given that the bass trunk is over-sized, they can always decide not to take it. Its worth the extra time to talk with them, entertain their inquiries, and open the case again and again (for customs and security checks) with a smile on your face.

Leading ther Band

So, for the first time, I've taken the lead on putting together a band to play a series of shows. I've always been a sideman, never really wanting to by in charge. Well, now I have been given a regular gig for a few months and needed to put together a band. I chose a couple of the best players I know and a few sets of material. I scheduled a couple of rehearsals and wrote out some charts.

In short: Man, what a lot of work. And playing a show as the leader, I never realized how much thought you should put into calling out songs to create a flow of music. Plus, singing and soloing as the leader created a whole new sense of anxiety.

My apologies to all those leaders who I may not have been up to par at their gigs. I get it now. I get it.

Sound Problems

Over the last couple of weeks I've been gigging regularly, averaging three gigs and one rehearsal per week. At a gig a couple of weeks ago, an awful high-end buzzing noise started coming from my amp. I tried everything to isolate the cause or get rid of the sound: switching cables, bypassing my pre-amp, using a different speaker. Needing to play anyway, I EQ-ed much of the high-end out and tried to avoid the notes that seemed to aggravate the buzz. After the first gig, I brought my gear home and tried to recreate the sound as much as I could. However, I couldn't get that noise no matter what combination of EQ, volume and playing style I tried.

The following week, the sound was back. The worse thing was note the noise itself (I had found ways to EQ and play in such a way as to minimize it), but rather the look in the eyes of the other players I was working with. They looked at me as if I were some unprofessional goof, not taking care of or not knowing how to manage his equipment.

Again, the sound was intermittent and I was unable to track down a cause. FInally, at a gig this week I decided just to take my whole rig into a technician and play for the technician until we found the problem. I scheduled an appointment for Monday and had one last Saturday night gig to play.

Show time came. I went to tune up and there was the sound again. However, as I looked at my tuner, I noticed my amp was not on. How could I be hearing the noise without my amp on? I stared at my instrument and slowly my eyes focused on the culprit.

For years I've been using Underwood pickups. I think they provide the most full sound for my style of playing and have a lot of versatility (e.g., moving the pickup around on the bridge can give very different sounds, the pickup can be easily removed and switched to another instrument). The pickup itself is held to the tailpiece by a plastic cable tie. As I stared at the pickup, I noticed that the end of the cable tie was touching the body of the bass. Whenever I gave the G-string a good slap, the end of the cable tie vibrated against the body, producing a sound that, when amplified by the piezo pickup, sounded as if my amp was shorting out or the crossover in my cabinet was shot.



I borrowed someone's knife and in about 5 seconds eliminated the noise (i.e., cut the cable tie so that the end would not touch the soundboard). Cost of fixing the problem: zero; cost to my sanity and already high levels of stress: priceless.

I'm always surprised how easy it is to overlook the easiest of solutions to these kind of problems. It reminds me that oftentimes the problems we have with our sound are not due to equipment failures, but often to our instruments themselves or our personal playing style.

Sound in Motion (David McGill)

I recently finished reading Sound in Motion by David McGill. This is a great book. Originally written for wind players, the book discusses the fine points of phrasing and performance. The central theme on phrasing generally follows that put forth in Thurmond's Note Groupings, but in a more enjoyable and clear presentation. My read on McGill's directive of putting motion in your playing is that one should focus on grouping notes much as one groups words into sentences when speaking. In doing so, one must not look to the bar lines as indicating the end of a phrase (just as one would not look to the end of a line of written text when grouping words into sentences), but to the natural completion of the musical idea. In Thurmond's book, he focuses the reader/player on looking at the upbeats in a phrase as indicating the demarcation points of phrases and notes that should be emphasized. McGill presents this idea in a more illustrative way, with many clear examples.

As a bassist who spends most of his time accompanying others with walking lines, I found McGill's book an enjoyable and insightful read. After having finished the book, I tried to implement some of the ideas in the coarsest form: at a gig I tried guiding my playing by playing the root on the down beat of each phrase (I was playing with a jump blues group) and used the rest of the bar to phrase a line that moved towards the next chord. This a musical phrase was not walking over a chord, but rather a series of notes that brought me to the start of a new chord. This did not always mean playing other notes in the chords. In fact, I tried to avoid playing the other notes in the chord by focusing exclusively on creating a series of notes (starting on the second beat of the measure) which formed a complete phrase ending on the root of the next measure (first beat of subsequent measure).

The results were mixed. While the guys in the band commented that I sounded great that night (a noteworthy event as these guys are pretty short on complements) there were some grinder blues numbers that it did not work. In retrospect, I know why... and should have known at the time. That said, the gig was a success: I got a complement from the band, learned something, nobody got hurt, nothing got broken.

Six Rounds review

I recently received the Six Rounds Rockabilly Recoil and Double Barrel pickups for upright bass. At a recent gig, I broke an old Underwood when I fell off my bass unexpectedly (long story; maybe another post). I was looking for an inexpensive pickup to replace it and came across those made by Six Rounds.

The Recoil has one wing pickup and one fingerboard pickup (similar to the K&K rockabilly system) while the Double Barrel has two wing pickups (much link an Underwood). The Recoil also has a separate volume control for the fingerboard pickup which, unlike the K&K, is passive and doesn't require a battery. I use a separate preamp and really liked this feature.

I got the pickups before the first in what was a long series of gigs. I was short on time and didn't have the option of experimenting with the pickups. Installing the pickups was easy, although the fingerboard pickup on the Recoil is much larger than that of the K&K. As a result, I had a harder time finding a large enough flat spot under the fingerboard where I could install it. I ended up putting it at the top of the fingerboard.

I started with the rockabilly recoil pickup on a Czech plywood bass, but also had another underwood hooked up to do a comparison. While I had briefly tested everything at home before the show (albeit at low volumes) that night the recoil did nothing but feedback. I ended up having to roll off all the bass in order to get anything usable. (I should mention that throughout these gigs I was using a Fishman Preamp, an Acoustic Image Focus and a Bag End cabinet.)

The next day, I decided to run a few experiments. I tried a lot of different EQ tricks but then used something harder (a saw reed) in place of the cork spacers that came with the Six Round pickups. This solved the feedback issues immediately. Its as if the cork absorbs too much vibration from the bass and weakens the signal received by the piezo. As a result, what should have a sharp attack gets muted and those low frequencies are left to bounce around the room. The reed (or anything harder) solved this problem. After some more experimenting, I found that a reed on the bottom and a cork spacer on the top gave me the best sound for the wing pickup.

That night I tried the same set up and the Recoil gave me a more natural sound, rivaling the Underwood. When I slapped, the Recoil was an improvement over the Underwood.

On Sunday I had a gig at an art gallery and used the Double Barrel with one reed and one cork spacer in each wing. It sounded great.

Over the next gigs I compared the Double Barrel to the David Gage Realist on a plywood bass and a carved instrument. These were mainly jazz, swing, and folk gigs so I didn't do a lot of slapping. Across all of these gigs, I needed to modify my tone to fit the genre. Again, using a reed in the wing as a spacer, the Double Barrel gave the Realist a run for its money. The only cases where the Realist and the Underwood were noticeably better were when I mounted the pickups on a carved bass (the Realist captured more of the tonal color of that bass than did the Six Rounds) and when I was bowing.

So, after giving the Six Rounds pickups a workout over two weeks of gigs, I'm impressed with them. For the price I don't think they can't be beat. They sound great and are easy to control in terms of their ability to give you the tonal color you want. I think for regular gigs, this is a great option, particularly the Recoil as you have the extra control with the fingerboard pickup.

LaFaro, Bremy, Bruce

I recently picked up a copy of Scott LaFaro transcriptions by Phil Palombi. I'm a big fan of LaFaro's. I've often joke that if Paul Chambers is the Charlie Parker of the bass, then Scott LaFaro was the Randy Rhodes of the bass, but ahead of Randy's time. (Listen to his solo on Waltz for Debbie and tell me there's not a little bit of Hessian in LaFaro.)

In any event, I've been working through this book and learning a lot. At a recent gig I was playing to an almo0st empty room with a trio and decided to try some of the LaFaro-ish tricks I had picked up from the book. I was quite happy with the results, particularly how rhythmically using triplets and quintuplets in my solos added a nice feel and gave me room to explore different note groupings. I was also incorporating a lot of double stops into my playing that night.

I was really excited when, on one of our breaks, a patron came up to me and mentioned how much he liked my playing and, to my surprise, said that some of my playing was reminiscent of Scott LaFaro. I graciously thanked him for the complement and told him about the book. A little while later somebody else came up to me and said how much they like the band and mentioned how my playing reminded them of a young Pete Bremy (of the Vanilla Fudge) or Jack Bruce (of Cream). I thanked them for the complement. That said, I liked the first complement better.

Worse Paper Cut Ever

Last Wednesday I suffered what must qualify as the worst paper cut ever.

I picked up a ream of paper at work and slid my hands along the sides of the package with the intent of opening it. Unfortunately, the label on the end of the package slipped underneath the fingernail on my right-hand middle finger, putting a 7 mm cut between my finger and fingernail. After cleaning up the blood and using some super glue to reattach my fingernail, my thoughts turned to the weekend. I had five gigs between Thursday night and Sunday morning, each about four hours in length and each requiring that I slap on my bass (rockabilly and jump blues). Basically I prepared for a weekend of pain and suffering.

To a large extent, the weekend went as I expected: I was in pain. Every time I slapped (which requires pulling the string away from the fingerboard with my right hand) my finger ached. Every once in a while I would try to slap only using only my index finger. Unfortunately, is left my middle finger dangling in the air where on more than one occasion it smacked into the fingerboard or hit a string fingertip-on. By Saturday night, the cut on my finger was big enough to fit a G-string.

I did the best I could to take care of the cut (short of having been more careful opening the package of paper). I used lotion and wrapped my finger at night. During the day I tried to keep it covered and used Polysporin to help it heal. I was really amazed at how well Polysporin worked at speeding up the healing process. Before each gig (and sometimes between sets) I used a little bit of Liquid Skin to avoid opening the cut again. In the end, I learned was a lot about taking care of a cut and a little about how not to open a ream of paper.

Fans (?)

Last night (28th of February 2008) started as one of those gigs and musicians hate. We were playing rockabilly/honky-tonk and, at first, the crowd seemed to like the music: dancing, applause after each song. However, by the time the second set started we were hated. A few groups of tourists had come in and approached the band with requests for funk, reggae, Nirvana, Three Weeks ‘till Tuesday (our one of those bands). Finally, one guy in a down jacket (Why do you wear down jacket in a club?) requested Johnny Cash but wanted it played with a funk beat. (I'm not even sure what that means.)

Not that we were particularly playing for these guys, but we play Johnny Cash, without the funk beat. As we started to play the song, or guitar player walked up to the mic and said "We're going to play Johnny Cash for the guy here in the life jacket," referring to the guy’s down jacket. Basically, for the rest of the set were getting ready for a fight.

It's a hard gig when the crowd doesn't like you. It's harder when they're drunk and want to physically hurt you.

For the rest of the second set, no applause. No dancing. Just scowls. Near the end of the set the drunken tourists of note got up and did some strange 1980s looking dance. Something Molly Ringwald would've done in the Breakfast Club. I think they were trying (a high school sort of way) to make fun of us. (I don't mean to be condescending, it’s just how you would make fun of a band in high school: dancing away you think reflects poorly on them. If I was still in high school or have the IQ of a bowling ball, I would have been offended. OK, now on being condescending.)

Fortunately (I guess) the group of tourists in question each did 14 shots of Jagermeister. (On their web site, Jagermeister promotes responsible drinking. Maybe they meant responsible binge drinking?)

Somewhere between the second and third sets, the tourists of note disappeared. A bouncer told me he threw out two of them for getting a fight with each other. A server told me the one of them got sick and the girl’s bathroom. (I should mention, they were all guys.) Maybe it was just the presence of these guys, but the third set had dancing, applause, and smiles on the faces of all. In the end it was a fun gig, although I think we were a little disappointed that are revving up for a fight was for naught.