Once considered a novelty, but now fully integrated into the bass guitar family, the six-string bass is a fact of modern bass life. Whereas the five-string is looked upon as a regular bass with an added low B, strangely most of us consider the six-string to be cast from an entirely different mould – probably down to losing all points of reference on the neck with the regular strings being in the thick of it all. “It’s like having a car with a larger engine,” Anthony Jackson told Bass Player .
“It doesn’t mean you’re going to go faster all the time, but high speeds are less of a strain. If Leo Fender could come back today I think he would approve.” Another prominent six-string bass proponent is John Myung of Dream Theater.
“It just made sense for me to venture into the world of six-string basses. The extra strings lend themselves to a more creative, chordal type of playing – the harmonics in Lifting Shadows Off a Dream were inspired by the six-string bass. “It was strange at first, but once I got warmed up, it wasn’t so foreign anymore.
” Some might well argue that four strings is all you need, but those people clearly haven't experienced the sheer joy of being able to hit those extra notes. “I guess there’s a place for it,” said Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan. “But not in what I do.
Four strings is gonna keep me busy for the rest of my life!” One thing's for certain: those who successfully make the transition rarely revert back to the .
