How I play

Bass guitar

July 18, 2013

This is my latest bass, a Carvin ICON6P, six string bass guitar that I bought used off Ebay a couple of months ago. This is now my primary gig, and recording bass. I am left handed, but I play with my strings set up for a right handed person because my first bass guitar was a right handed one. I didn't have money to buy a new set of strings, and the strings on it had all excess string cut off, so I flipped it over and learned how to play that way. I have about 16 basses, and most are right handed, and I flip them over to play, making the "cutaway", and long horn on the bottom. With the left handed bass, the cutaway is in the right position, but I had to re-string it with my "B" string on the bottom, and my "C" string on top. I've since met quite a few cats that play both guitar, and bass that way, but 40 plus years ago, when I first started, I was a real oddity, even to myself. Go to Youtube to check Jeff Schmidt, or Keith Horne, or me playing live with a couple of bands.

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howardtc
July 19, 2013 Reply

Hi Dave, I'm still learning the interface to this site, so I don't know if I'm replying to you at the correct place or not, but here it goes! I grew up poor, and some cats in my neighborhood needed a bass player for their little band, and I offered to buy a bass, and the guitar player could show me how to play it. There were no options availble if I wanted to be a bass player other than to play it the best way I could, it just seemed natural to me, because to hold it right handed felt really strange.
howardtc
July 19, 2013 Reply

Hi Dave, I'm still learning the interface to this site, so I don't know if I'm replying to you at the correct place or not, but here it goes! I grew up poor, and some cats in my neighborhood needed a bass player for their little band, and I offered to buy a bass, and the guitar player could show me how to play it. There were no options availble if I wanted to be a bass player other than to play it the best way I could, it just seemed natural to me, because to hold it right handed felt really strange.
Dave
July 18, 2013 Reply

Really cool how you learned how to play. I know another lefty bassist who plays the same way.

howardtc