Confession: I've not been playing much guitar lately, I spent the whole of last week with my bass, picking up the guitar only for pedal auditions. I'm not about to switch to bass full time but there are times when I'd reflect how little time I had with my bass & there's this growing need to play more of this wonderful instrument.
The bass has been traditionally relegated to the 2nd fiddle when it comes to an instrumental band format, the guitar always gets the limelight while the bass gets its shadow. I'm rather thankful there are people like Billy Sheehan, the late Jaco Pastorius, Marcus Miller & Mark King (among others) who make people listen when the bass speaks. I'm left awestruck everytime I watch Michael Manring play his Zon; it's beyond plucking the strings for aural entertainment, it's an art. Manring incorporates lots of knocks (yes, hitting the neck & body with the plam/ fingers- how musical can that be, you ask? Well this lad made it musical...) into his playing, not to mention that sublime detuning/ retuning during play. He takes his time to carefully fret his notes & employ his choice of picking/ pinching/ slapping/ popping; with Manring, you don't know what's coming but when it does, it's nothing less than a masterstroke. I'm really glad I bought Soliloquy.
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