How to Adjust the Truss Rod on a Bass Guitar

As the weather changes from season to season, the wood in the neck of your bass guitar can bend or straighten slightly. If you know how to adjust the truss rod on a bass guitar, you can counteract those changes and keep your bass sounding great.

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Changes in temperature, pressure, and humidity can cause the wood to bend. The change in position can cause the strings to either pull away from the frets or rest against them; this makes playing almost impossible because the strings need space to vibrate freely over the entire length of the neck.

There needs to be a slight gap between the strings and the frets. To determine how much action is enough

1. Press the E string down at the first fret with your left hand and hold it.
2. Press the E string down at the last fret with your right hand.

This should open up a gap between the strings and the 7th and 12th frets (about the thickness of a credit card).

If the curvature of your bass neck is not correct, you need to adjust the truss rod. To adjust the action, turn the screw in the truss rod to change the curvature of the neck.

• If the gap is too large, insert the Allen wrench or Phillips screwdriver into the screw (located either on the headstock or at the other end of the neck) and then tighten the truss rod by turning the screw clockwise.
• If your strings buzz when you play on the first four frets (near the headstock), you need to loosen the truss rod by turning the wrench or screwdriver counterclockwise.

Generally, you’ll want to use the small Allen wrench that comes with your bass. If you lose this wrench, you can get another one from your local music store or the bass manufacturer. On other basses, the screw of the truss rod requires a Phillips screwdriver.

Don’t try to force the truss rod with anything that doesn’t quite fit. If you strip the truss rod, it’ll cost you. Turn the truss rod only between one-quarter and one-half of a turn per day. You need to allow the wood to settle before you do any more adjustments.

On some basses, you have to remove the neck from the body in order to reach the truss rod screw. Don’t attempt to loosen the screws at the back of the bass that hold the neck in place without first loosening the tension of the strings. Otherwise, the neck will snap off, stripping away the wood that holds the screws.

 

How to Clean a Bass Guitar

No matter how careful you are, your bass guitar is bound to collect battle scars. You need to know how to properly clean a bass guitar if you want yours to last for years to come. If you play your bass regularly, it needs to be cleaned regularly, and each part of the bass requires specific cleaning methods and materials.

The first step in cleaning your bass is to wash your hands. Really! The finish on the wood and hardware shows every fingerprint. So the least you should do is keep those fingerprints clean.

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The body and neck

You need to clean the body of your bass very carefully. You can polish the finish with a clean cloth (such as an old sweat shirt), but use guitar polish (available in a spray bottle at any music store) instead of furniture polish.

1. Apply a squirt or two to the cloth and work it into the fabric.
2. Rub your bass down — work on the body (front and back) and the back of the neck.

The hardware

The tuning heads, bridge, and strap pins are all considered hardware — that is, all the brass and metal parts attached to the wood except for frets and pickups. Just rub the hardware down with a dust cloth to keep it shiny. If the hardware is really dirty, use a mild brass polish from the supermarket. Just make sure you don’t get the cleaner onto the wood.

The pickups

The pickups accumulate a lot of dust. Use cotton swabs to clean the area where the wood meets the metal of the pickups.

Whatever you do, don’t use any liquids to clean them. Pickups are magnetic, and they can’t deal with liquid. The liquid can cause them to short out, making it necessary to replace them. Of course, getting new pickups every four weeks is one way to keep them clean.

The fingerboard

The fingerboard consists of two major parts: the long wooden strip on the front of the neck and the metal frets. Because these two parts are made of very different materials, each needs to be cleaned in its own special way.

The fingerboard can be cleaned only after removing your old strings — before restringing.

• The wood: The wood on the fingerboard is prone to drying out. To restore the wood to its original luster,
  1. Get rid of any dirt using a dry cloth.
  2. Place a few drops (no more than five) of fingerboard oil (which you can get from your local music store) on a clean cotton cloth and work it into the wood.

     Let the oil dry thoroughly before rubbing down the fingerboard again to remove any excess oil. Apply oil to the wood every other time you change the strings. The wood absorbs fingerboard oil easily.

• The frets: Polish the frets with an inexpensive jewelry polishing cloth that has polish already soaked into it (available in any supermarket).

When polishing the frets, don’t use the kind of abrasive jewelry polish that you have to pour out of a bottle. It’s too rough on the wood of the fingerboard.

The strings

Your strings take the most abuse, so they also need to be cleaned. Whenever you finish playing, always wipe the strings with a dry cotton cloth. But it is important to do a deeper cleaning on a regular basis.

1. Let a couple drops of rubbing alcohol soak into the cotton cloth.
2. Put a moist section of the cloth between your index finger and thumb and pinch one string at a time.
3. Rub the cloth up and down along the string’s length.
   

   Proper string cleaning technique.

Don’t get any of the alcohol on the wood; it’ll dry it out.

 

What to Include in a Cleaning and Repair Kit for Bass Guitar

Before you attempt any adjustments or cleaning for a bass guitar, you need to assemble the right tools. Knowing what to include in a bass guitar cleaning and repair kit will ensure that you are prepared for any necessity. Pack the following tools in a tool bag that you keep with your bass.

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The basic contents of a bass tool bag.

• Truss-rod wrench (this is usually the Allen wrench that comes with your bass)
• Screwdriver or Allen wrench for every screw on the bass

  A multi-screwdriver tool is okay, but you can get more leverage with separate screwdrivers. Make sure that you have a screwdriver or Allen wrench that fits the screws for the saddle.

• Rubbing alcohol (make sure it’s in a bottle that won’t leak)
• Cotton rags for cleaning (make sure to replace them once in a while)
• Super-fine steel wool
• Colorless nail polish (or a color that matches your bass)
• Electronic tuner (this needs to be part of your tool set if you adjust the intonation yourself)
• Wire cutters for changing your strings
• Jewelry polish cloth for polishing the frets

Be sure to keep your bass tools separate from your household tools so that they won’t get lost or damaged.

 

What Do You Had to Look At On A Custom Bass Guitar

Naturally, there is still the option of you modifying your bass guitar completely, but make sure that when you personalize your bass guitar that exactly what ever you do it does not influence the quality of sound. Luckily today, there are a number of business that provide customized bass guitars that are made to order. The only thing you need to do is provide them the exact information of exactly how you want your custom bass guitar to look and they develop it for you. However, this does cost a quite penny, but it is well worth it.

Since they love doing exactly what they do, an independent craftsman only creates customized bass guitars. They do not do it for the money included, even though that may be nice. They have a true love for dealing with wood and get a great fulfillment from seeing the completed item that they have actually created then hearing it played as soon as it is completed.

A customized bass guitar that is produced by a independent craftsman as opposed to on an assembly line has a life of its extremely own. A handmade guitar will not only have a life of their own, however they will feel and have a different shape. As an outcome, they will produce a much various sound that will be far more purer than an unit constructed guitar.

When you are picking an independent craftsman to develop your custom bass guitar you wish to choose somebody with years of experience in the company who has references. This person needs to have the ability to reveal you examples of their previous work and clarify in information each step that he takes to produce their customized bass guitars.

It is crucial to discover out exactly what kind of woods that they will be creating your bass guitar from, due to the fact that you do not desire your guitar developed from a wood that is not going to last. 2 of the very best woods to make a bass guitar out of is Alder and Ash, which are referred to as the Bass Woods. Keep this in mind when selecting your independent craftsman.

One customization you can do yourself is a truss rod cover, which is simple to set up and will enhance the appearance of your bass guitar. Possibly you would such as a more vintage look on your bass guitar. You could want to select some customized made pickups on a mahogany body if so. Mahogany is a wood that is no more requested any longer, so your bass guitar would most certainly be distinct.

Once your bass guitar has been personalized, then it may want to be just as long lasting as it was prior to being customized. It may look a bit different, but it is still the exact same old buddy that you understood before having it personalized and it will be around for a while. Bear in mind to take excellent care of your custom-made bass guitar so as much as you did before and pay close attention to your brand-new customizations. Buy rickenbacker 4003 fireglo

 

You Can Learn to Play the Guitar by Ear

All professional musicians, whether they’re playing jazz, rock, bluegrass and country music, have spent their first years of practicing bent over a half speed record player. You might be wondering what does this have to do with trying to learn to play the guitar by ear. As you will learn from this article, it actually has a lot to do with it.

Slowing Things Down

In order to learn to play the guitar by ear you have to begin with learning the melodies, chords and leads from a recording. To be able to do this, you’ve got to slow them down a bit. Some exceptionally gifted people with really good ears are able to learn to play some slow songs just by listening to them at a normal speed. However, even those folks have problems with learning faster melodies and need to slow things down.

Most of us can’t even figure out slow songs just by listening to them at a normal speed. While most of us can match a note with our guitar or voice if it’s the only thing we’re hearing, we tend to get confused when lots of notes are played together. If you slow the music down, we can separate the notes and play them piece by piece until we learn the whole song.

Slowdown Technology

Years ago, the slowing down process was done using half speed tape recorders. However, as you slowed the music down, the pitch dropped. By the time you got to half speed, the pitch had already dropped a lot. Anyway, for most of us, half speed is still to fast. You will probably need a 1/10 speed in order to figure out certain pieces.

Fortunately, nowadays everything has been made easier with the aid of digital slowdown technology. You can now slow the melody down as much as you want, without having the pitch dropping.

Do You Really Have to Put So Much Work Into It?

You’re probably thinking that spending so much time on figuring out each note yourself must be awfully hard. Why not just buy a book and get over this part?

Of course, you can buy a book, but, as it usually happens with all music theory books, it will probably be gathering dust on your bookshelf forever. If you really want to learn to play the guitar by ear, you will have to get involved in the process and figure out the notes from a melody yourself.

While figuring out note by note on your own is the best way to go, consulting a transcription book from time to time while you’re trying to figure out the music is also good. Some beginner guitar players who want to learn to play the guitar by ear learn from a transcription book first and then play along with the original recording at a slower pace to get the rhythm.

You should learn to play the guitar by ear just because this way you get the most fun. Playing the guitar should be fun and this is why you should have started to learn it in the first place. However, the more you time you invest into the learning process by getting involved in practical activities, the faster the progress.

 

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Enter the world of Music

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Technology has made our lives simpler and with the new developments in technology not only is life getting simpler but technology is continuing to make more differences in our lives by contributing to various spheres of our lives like entertainment . With the internet all this has now come to our very doorstep at just the click of the mouse.

Earlier for the purpose of listening to a song atleast a visit to your local music store was required and seeing a video meant watching the band perform at one of their concerts or then getting  a music video from the music store. Now anytime you wish to listen to some great music or watch a music video just log on and you can watch your favorite songs or watch free music videos and watch music videos in the comfort of your home. There is just no need anymore to venture out , technology has brought everything you desire right into your home or workplace.

There is good news for all music lovers . Now with internet technology , music fans can not only listen to their favourite artists but also watch free lyrics.  All the songs are available at just a click sitting in the comfort of your home. Not only can you now watch songs but also song lyrics and hear and enjoy the music and even sing along with the lyrics and all available to you.

Internet is a world of choices for all music lovers and provides you all the information and the latest happenings in the music world. You can be up to date on all music news and the current hits on the US top 20 or the singles charts. The music site offers you the flexibility of watching your favourite stars totally uninterrupted(free from all the hosts) . The music site is a legal way to watch music unlike using pirated versions .

It not only the music enthusiasts but also the music companies that have realized the potential of the internet as a great marketing tool for promoting their music.  You can not only watch music videos but also rate music videos. This would be useful to the other members in making a decision on their watch and also provides a good feedback to the music companies about the choices or preferences of the fans.

The music site thus, provides you access into a whole world of music and music alone where you are the King. You can decide as to what you want and bring it home at just a click. You can then listen to the music of your choice or watch music videos at your own convenience and even rewind and see your favourite music videos over and over again. The world of music is now waiting for you to explore and soak in all that you can. Just log on and at the click you can venture into this beautiful melodious world and be lost in the tunes and rhythms of your favourite stars.

 

Besame Mucho – Guitar Chords And Lyrics

Besame Mucho is one of the most popular songs of all time, being recorded by an extraordinarily diverse range of singers and instrumentalists.

It was written in 1940 by a sixteen-year-old Mexican girl called Consuelo Velasquez. The song was a steamy expression of a young girl’s longing to be kissed. The title of the song means “kiss me alot” and it stirred the imaginations of men and women all over the world. In 1944 a young American singer named Kitty Kallen sang the song with Jimmy Dorsey and his orchestra and it stayed for six weeks on the charts of Billboard Magazine.

Another key figure in the story of Besame Mucho is Sunny Skylar, composer and arranger who sang with big bands in the nieteen forties. He wrote music and lyrics for many popular songs including: Amor, And So To Sleep Again and Love Me With All Your Heart. There are other translations of the song but Skylar’s seems to be a favorite. Here are the lyrics as interpreted by Sunny Skylar:
Bésame, bésame mucho
Each time I cling to your kiss, I hear music divine
Bésame mucho
Hold me my darling and say that you’ll always be mine
This joy is something new
My arms enfolding you
Never knew this thrill before
Whoever thought I’d be
Holding you close to me
Whispering “It’s you I adore”
Dearest one
If you should leave me
Each little dream would take wing, and my life would be through
Bésame mucho
Love me forever and make all my dreams come true

At the time of writing the song Consuelo insisted she had never been kissed but she certainly sounds like she knew what she wanted. I think Skylar was wise in not translating the words “besane mucho” into literal English like “kiss me much” or “kiss me alot”.

Just to get the feel of the song, here are Consuelo’s original words:
And here are the original lyrics by Consuelo Velazquez:
Bésame, bésame mucho
Como si fuera esta noche la última vez
Bésame mucho
Que tengo miedo perderte, perderte otra vez
Quiero tenerte muy
Cerca, mirarme en tus
Ojos, verte junto a mí
Piensa que tal vez
Mañana yo ya estaré
Lejos, muy lejos de ti
Bésame, bésame mucho
Como si fuera esta noche la última vez
Bésame mucho
Que tengo miedo perderte, perderte después

If you are a guitar player and you know how to play the A minor, D minor, A major and E major chords you will easily be able to play Besame Mucho.

As for the composer of the song, she was supposed to have been a classical concert pianist having learnt the piano when she was four years old.  Consuelo wrote many other popular Mexican songs including: Amar y vivir, Verdad amarga, Franqueza, Que seas feliz, Cachito and Enamorada.

The list of vocal and instrumental artists who have recorded Besame  Mucho goes on and on. Some notable ones are: Andrea Bocelli, Artie Shaw, The Beatles, Charles Aznavour, Chris Isaak, Edith Piaf, The Dead Brothers, Leslie Nielsen(!!), Sammy Davis Jr and Stan Getz.

For lovers of acoustic guitar, Besame Mucho is included on an album of latin standards by flamenco guitarist, Paco de Lucia. Other tracks on the CD include: Malaguena, Mantilla De Feria, Granada, Manha De Carnaval, Perfidia, La Virgen De La Macarena and Moliendo Cafe. Paco is one of the world’s greatest guitarists and it would be well worth your while to have a listen to this excellent CD. Meanwhile, good luck with your own efforts at playing this luscious song.

 

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