I was delighted when I learned there was such a
thing as the Piccolo Bass. I play a
number of stringed instruments, especially instruments in the Guitar Family. But the Stringed Instruments that I can Play
most expressively are the Basses (… but of course there are the Violins, but I’m
always afraid that I will poke somebody’s eye out with those pointy little bows…). The primary Reason accounting for this more-than-ordinary
‘Expressiveness’ in the Basses is that they have Way More Clearance between
their Stings. One can really get one’s
fingers in There without fear of bumping into the wrong strings, and this really
helps with regulating the Feel and Intensity of one’s Playing – one can go from
a mere whisper by just gently rubbing the side of a string to the ‘bullet shot’
of hooking a finger under the string and giving it a good hard pull, and all
without touching the Volume Knob. That
kind of Expressiveness needs a bit of ‘elbow room’. With
Guitars, well, the strings are so close together that one is tempted to always
use Picks, and since it’s so difficult to isolate individual strings, well,
nearly all playing is done in chords and intervals, which Sounds Great… when
that is what you want, but sometimes wouldn’t we rather enjoy Finger Picking
out some lovely little lilting melody or some subtle and intriguing Arpeggio? So for
some Songs, some Styles and some Sounds, well, the Guitar is simply Not exactly
the Right Instrument, though we must all admit that a great many Guitar Players
manage to do rather well against those Limitations. But the Bass is not exactly perfect by any
means either, is it?... and it’s kind of obvious what Its Biggest Problem is –
it’s simply Too Low. What good is having
an Instrument with sufficient Clearance between the Strings to be Melodically
Beautiful if all the Notes come out sounding like a distant thunder?
But, let me start my Story -- there I was,
practicing the Bass, doing the best I could, but knowing that nearly everything
I could do on the Bass was too darn Low from where it ought to have been. So I
kept wondering what I could do about it…
I was almost ready to buy a Seven String Guitar, so
I could install just 4 Strings, leaving every other String Slot empty, and that
would have given me Twice as much Clearance between Strings as any normal Electric
Guitar. But that seemed like a bit Too Much
Clearance (Electric Guitar strings are spaced about 10mm apart, while Basses
are 15mm or 16mm). Then one day I got
lucky when a Salesman at the local guitar shop had heard about something that
he thought I would be interested in and he researched it out for me – he told
me of existence of the Piccolo Bass. Wow!...
For me, the Piccolo Bass Idea represented an Instrument in the Bass & Guitar
Family with close to Optimum Tonal Range AND with plenty of clearance between
strings.
The only Piccolo Basses I have heard of so far are
the Short Scale (30”) 4 String Piccolos.
Their Strings are the SAME Notes as the 4 thickest Strings on the Guitar
– E A D G. I would suppose that Many a
Musical Sceptic would suggest that a Piccolo Bass is “Just Like a Guitar, only
Two Strings Less”. So why not just get a
guitar!? Well, that Objection is
certainly True Enough, if taken solely in view of its own tightly focused Logic. With that being the case, well, if there is
any justification for the Existence of the Piccolo Bass at all, it has to be
because of its more Optimum String Spacing.
The Piccolo Basses I have heard about are converted
Fender (or Squire) Mustang 4-String Basses.
They come as regular ‘Low-Note’ Basses, and so you have to swap out the strings
to make the ‘Piccolo Conversion’.
D’Addario sells a Set of Strings
for the Piccolo 4 String – the Skinny G (.020) string is a Plain Wire String
(sounds Great!) and the other three strings are Round Wound (.052, .042, .032)–
which is not so great if you like Flat Wound.
But if you don’t mind ordering strings singly, you can get Flat Wounds
in .050, .040, and .032 (Ernie Ball and D’Addario sell them) – I strung my own Mustang
Piccolo with Flats (Ernie Ball .050 and .040, and a D’Addario .032) and I am
quite pleased with how it worked out.
Oh, there is a kind of a Lucky Peculiarity with the
Set of Strings that D’Addario sells for the Piccolo Bass – that while the
String Set is designed to have the correct Tension on a 30 inch Scale (to be
tuned to E A D G), the strings are actually “Long” Enough to be installed on a
34 inch Long Scale Bass… which is most Fender Basses. But those Strings are REALLY Tight even on the
shorter 30’ Scale, and so I would be afraid to tune them to E A D G on a Long
Scale Bass – either the Strings would Snap or your Poor Finger Tips would go
raw and bloody trying to pluck at the rigidly stiff things. I read over the Famous D’Addario String
Tension Chart PDF for several hours trying to see if I could identify any
suitable strings for a Long Scale Piccolo Bass (tuned to B E A D G)… well the
Deal Stoppers there are the two thinnest Strings, the D and G, as there are no
Long Scale Strings about ‘a half notch’ lighter than the .032 and the .020P. So if you wanted to Convert Long Scale Bass to Piccolo duty it seems that
one would have no choice but to drop the Tuning a full Note (two Frets) lower. Such a Drop
Tuning would give you a 4-String Long-Scale Piccolo Bass tuned to D G C F. If you had a 5-String Bass, it would become an
A D G C F. The Splendid Coincidence
about A D G C F Tuning is that a Standard Bass ALREADY has an A D and G Strings…
you just have to move them from One Side of the Neck to the Other. I already converted my 5-String Fender Jazz
Bass – it works and sounds great.
Oh, I sort of accidentally stumbled upon Something
that maybe not everybody knows already.
You see, because I am now practicing with both a 4-String Short Scale E
A D G Piccolo, and a 5-String Long Scale A D G C F Piccolo (two frets Lower
than a “E A D G”), I was a bit surprised
when I found that I could jump between the two different Tunings and Scales
with such ease, and I was unwilling to just suppose that it was because I was somehow
‘that good’. You see, incidentally, I
have been studying Math (can’t play
music All the Time), and it occurred to me to compare the Two Different Tunings
and Scales with some precise Exponential Mathematics… and then a straight edge
ruler just to Make Sure. It turns out that while the Tuning of Each
Piccolo Bass is one Full Note apart (two frets), the Fret Sizes for the SAME
ACTUAL Notes are practically identical (for instance, the 12th ‘Double
Dot’ Fret on the 30” Scale Piccolo is a ‘G’, and that fret is virtually the
same size as the ‘G’ Fret on the Long Scale Piccolo which is played two frets further
down). What we can Infer from that is that IF you
plan to have both a Short Scale Piccolo and a Long Scale Piccolo, well, you shouldn’t
worry that you may have to drop the Tuning of the Long Scale Bass down a couple
of notches, since such tuning actually Preserves the Same Spacing between the ‘Fret
Notes’ from One Bass to the Other… you just have to slide up or down the neck
depending on which Piccolo you pick up to play.
Oh, by the way, that Same Note-to-Fret close similarity
exists for the other Common Guitar and Bass Scales – Using the Long Scale 34” Bass
as our reference, the next Scale down is the 32” Medium Scale Bass (a Half Step
or One Fret Higher), then comes the 30”
Short Scale Bass (2 Frets Higher), the 28 ½” Baritone Guitar Scale (3 Frets
Higher), the new 27” Electric Baritone Guitar Scale (4 Frets Higher), and of
course the Guitar at 25” which is 5 Frets or a ‘full String’ higher. Theoretically you should be able to use the
Same Strings on every one of those Scales, just tuning to the Higher Note made
possible by the Shorter Scale (But on the Practical Level, Strings in the 25” ‘Guitar
Scale come in a greater variety and are far more affordable).
So, with all that being said, I am relatively Happy
with my Piccolo Basses – the 5-String Jazz Bass and the Little 4-String Mustang
Conversions, But What If I Could have Anything
I Want…and if it did not already Exist, I could just snap my fingers to make it
magically appear ? Well, such a Thought
makes me wonder whether the Piccolo IDEA is really the best of All Possible
Ideas, for an instrument intended to be played in its Intended Style? Yes, the Piccolo Bass is a great deal better
than Nothing. BUT if I could design the
Optimum Instrument for that ‘Kind of Thing’, well, and it would be on the same 25”
Scale as ordinary Electric Guitars and it would use 5 regular scale Guitar
Strings. Well, I suppose there should be
a 4-String Version for the people who find the Narrower 4-String Neck ‘Faster’
and more ‘User Friendly’. The 4-String
application would not require a wider neck to permit 16.6mm of Clearance
between Strings, but a 5-String would need a Neck the same Width as a 5-String Bass. Also, Such
an Instrument could be tuned ‘One String’ or even ‘Two Strings’ higher than the
Piccolo Bass. It would certainly be more
versatile in its tuning options and possibilities. With the Wide String Spacing, such an Instrument
would be Expressive in a Whole Different Way than the usual Electric
Guitar. The World could use an
Instrument like that! Just look at how
the Music Industry works now… nobody wonders that a Lead Guitar Player is
playing essentially the SAME Instrument as the guy playing Rhythm. The Lead Guitar Player must necessarily be cramped
inside the Limitations of his Instrument.
Really Creative and Expressive Music, when it IS done nowadays, well, it
has to be done with all that Acoustic Stuff, because the Acoustic People have a
larger choice of Instrumentation, but, well, then you lose the Electric Sound…
and Everything you can DO with Electric Sound.
So, anyway, I think there is a
Gap in the Potential for Electric Music, and that a 4 or 5-String Instrument with Wide String Spacing but on the
Same Scale as the good ol’ Standard Guitar
could jump into that Breach. Hmmm… what to call such an Instrument? With the String Spacing of a Bass but being
of the same size and appearance as a Guitar, well, such a Cross Breed could be
called a ‘Bass-tar’ – wouldn’t That be a catchy enough Name?
Well, to conclude… since Anything Better does not seem
to Exist yet, I DO Hope the Piccolo Phenomena Catches On so that People can begin
to see the Stylistic Possibilities for That Kind of Instrument.
