Stanley
Clarke, Brian Bromberg, Stuart Hamm, Alain Caron, Rhonda Smith, Will
Lee have found a new voice, a way to extend their medium of musical
expression: the Piccolo Bass.
What
is a Piccolo Bass?
Like
any piccolo instrument, the piccolo bass is a derivative of the parent
bass guitar. When I have played people recordings of my music featuring
the piccolo, the unanimous reaction is: "Who is on guitar".
Ah...........I say, that's piccolo bass! The dialogue continues: "
You used guitar for the rhythm parts, so why don't you play guitar for
the lead lines"?
Good
question........And yes I do have an answer to that!
The
piccolo bass' range is similar to the most desirable timbres of the
Spanish guitar and it has the feel of the bass guitar. Of course, you
have to become comfortable with the lighter strings, and the new range
of frequencies.
The
Instrument
In
the last few years, I have experimented with higher strings in my four
and five string fretted and fretless basses. I abandoned the principle
of stringing my standard 34 inch scale bass an octave higher. I must
have gone through (broken)countless low gage strings only to realise
that I couldn't be able to string my standard four string as a piccolo
and have a string tension suitable for bending and vibrato.
News
to me
At
the end of last year I stumbled on an article in Bass Player about piccolo
bass, they covered all the issues concerned with short and long scale
instruments. To my surprise they listed manufacturers of 34 scale piccolo
bass string sets: GHS, Zon, Fodera.
Great!
If you live in the U.S, here in the U.K due to our conservative musical
tastes the prospect of discovering a set of piccolo bass strings in
the shops would be remote.
Hand
Made
I
contacted a local string manufacturer and I was bemused to find that
no one had ever placed an order for such a set of strings. I initially
ordered a 018, 022, 034, 048. The 034 and 048 felt fine but I still
couldn't reach the G and D 8va tunings with out breaking the strings.
My
second string order was a replacement 016 (G) and 022 (D) but this time
the strings were wound on a narrower round core, opposed to the regular
hexagonal core which most strings are wound.
