Tag Archives: Overwater Hollowbody

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6-String Bass Duet – Fretless & Fretted – Bass Practice Diary 154

6-String Bass Duet – Fretless & Fretted – Warwick & Overwater – Bass Practice Diary – 20 April 2021

It seems that I’m in a contemplative mood after more than a year of lockdowns. There have been virtually no opportunities to play with other musicians. So, I’ve been recording on my own a lot. Recently, I’ve been trying to arrange material for these two basses, probably my favourite two basses. A fretted Overwater Hollowbody 6-string and a fretless Warwick Thumb SC 6-string bass. This arrangement came out of some Keith Jarrett improvisations that I was transcribing.

The Chord Progression

I’ve always felt that Keith Jarrett is a wonderful improviser. He regularly improvises entire solo piano concerts and he seems to effortlessly incorporate both jazz and classical influences. What I’ve played here is not exactly a transcription, but my own arrangement based on some of the harmonic ideas that I transcribed.

Here are diagrams for the chords I’m using. The diagrams are all written for 6-string bass in standard tuning. Don’t take the chord names too seriously. I considered not including any names above the chords, but I thought they might be helpful for locating the correct positions on the neck.

6 String Bass Duet Chords
6 String Bass Duet Chords

It’s hard to find accurate names for some chord shapes. For example, look at the last chord. It includes two D’s, an Ab and an Eb. It’s like an Ab Lydian triad (root, #4th & 5th) in the first inversion. So, I’ve called it Abmaj7(#11)/D. However, it doesn’t have a major third, C. The major 7th G is not in the chord either, but it is played by the fretless bass as a melody note. So, the chord symbol isn’t very helpful.

So, some of the chord symbols are helpful and others aren’t, don’t take them too seriously. I’m fairly certain that Keith Jarrett doesn’t think about chord symbols when he plays and I certainly didn’t think about chord symbols when I played this. I didn’t put the names on the chords until after I shot this.

In the performance, I played the chord sequence through twice in its entirety. Also, I used the first two chords played repeatedly as both an intro and an outro.

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Slow Train – A Bob Dylan song

Video

Slow Train – A Bob Dylan song performed by Johnny Cox

It’s now been over a year since musicians in the UK were last able to play together with other musicians. So, I’ve recently decided to do something that I’ve never done before, record and mix an entire track on my own including vocals. It feels like a big step to put this out on my channel. I’m not a singer and I don’t ever practice singing. I’ve been using Bob Dylan’s back catalogue as a source of material. His lyrics are unbelievably good and I also have a fighting chance of being able to sing them. I’ve recorded four of his songs so far. You can find the other three on my other YouTube channel called Johnny Cox Guitar & Bass School.

Bob Dylan

I’ve featured many of my musical influences on this channel, but I’ve never played anything by Bob Dylan until now. I guess that’s mostly because I’m not a singer. And without anyone to sing the lyrics, there didn’t seem any possibility of featuring one of his songs. However, recently during lockdown I’ve decided to work on music production and editing vocals. Without any other musicians to work with I’ve been singing Bob Dylan songs myself.

I’ve been listening to Dylan for my entire life (literally, his albums were playing at home since I was too young to remember). So, by now I know a lot of the lyrics off by heart, and singing them is so much fun because he is a truly brilliant lyricist.

I can remember this song, Slow Train, and the album of the same name as being something of a soundtrack to my childhood. My mother was and still is a Bob Dylan fan. Slow Train was released four years before I was born and for some reason, as a small child, I took a particular shine to it. It seems odd to me that I still listen now to an album that I used to like when I was four years old, but I guess it shows consistency in my character if nothing else.

Slow Train Coming

The song and the album were both released in 1979. This was the first of his so-called “gospel” albums following his conversion to Christianity in the late 70’s. But this song is a classic Dylan protest song that could draw parallels with some of his early work from the 60’s. The song was partly written prior to his religious conversion and partly after. So, the lyrics are not overtly Christian but they do contain references. Like “fools trying to manipulate Satan”. But really it’s a song about the state of America at the time he was writing. And as with a lot of great art, much of the content still seems relevant over 40 years later.

The symbolism of the train is never explained or made clear in the lyrics. I think it’s intentionally left ambiguous for the listener to make their own interpretation. Is the train a religious metaphor, bring with it salvation and riding to some kind of promised land? Or is the train bringing something altogether more sinister. Such questions were probably lost on me as a child. At that point I think I just liked it because it had a funky bass line and some brilliant guitar playing from Mark Knopfler. But as the years have passed I’ve come to appreciate it as a brilliant example of Dylan’s lyric writing as well.

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Practicing Jazz on My Overwater Hollowbody – Up Jumped Spring – Bass Practice Diary 151

Video

Practicing Jazz on My Overwater Hollowbody – Up Jumped Spring – Bass Practice Diary – 23 March 2021

In this video, I’m improvising over the chord changes of the jazz standard Up Jumped Spring after recoding the chords into a looper. If you were wondering why you haven’t seen this beautiful bass on my channel for a few months. It’s because she’s been back with Chris May and the team at Overwater having a new bridge installed. However, she was returned to me this week and I’m so happy to have her back.

Overwater Hollowbody

She’s my custom made Overwater Hollowbody 6-string bass. The first fretted version to be made and the first with a 34″ scale length. The bass features a wooden acoustic style bridge, but with adjustable saddles, like an electric bass bridge. The first bridge was made from ebony, and I was finding that the wood was slightly too soft to hold some of the saddles in place and the intonation was slipping. Chris very kindly fashioned this new bridge from a very hard wood from South Africa. So far it seems to be holding the intonation perfectly.

Practicing with a looper

In the video I’m demonstrating something that I’ve done regularly in my practice for well over a decade. I bought my first looper pedal about 15 years ago, and I’ve found loopers to be an amazing practice tool. One of my favourite techniques for practicing using a looper is to record the chord changes to a jazz standard into the looper and then improvise over the looped changes. In this video I’m using the chord changes of Freddie Hubbard’s jazz waltz Up Jumped Spring.

I’ve often been asked “what is a good looper to buy?” And it’s a question I always feel uncomfortable answering. Because I’ve used various loopers from cheap ones with just a single button to expensive ones laden with features. Which one you choose depends on what you’re planning to use it for. If you just want one for the kind of practice that I’m doing in this video, then buy a very cheap one. It will do the job. However if you want something to perform with, then it’s impossible to advise you. Because you will have to choose a looper that has features that correspond to how you’re planning to use it in performance.

I recently purchased a Headrush Looperboard, which is like a recording device/audio interface/live looper all rolled into one. So far I’m impressed by it, but I haven’t yet had the chance to use it in a live performance as the UK has been in COVID lockdown continuously since I first bought it.

However, if you’re interested in trying looping for the first time, I would suggest buying something very cheap to try it out at home. And then you can upgrade later on if and when you start to feel like you need to.

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“Changes in Rhythm” based on Rhythm Changes – Bass Practice Diary 115

Video

“Changes in Rhythm” 6-String Bass Solo based on Rhythm Changes – Bass Practice Diary – 7th July 2020

This morning I released this solo bass piece called “Changes in Rhythm” as a demo of my new Overwater Hollowbody 6-string bass. The demo video featured just the sound of my solo bass playing along with a percussion track. But for those of you that follow my Bass Practice Diary videos, I wanted to release this version of the same video. It includes chords, that I added to help demonstrate the harmonic structure, and bass TAB for 6-string bass.

Transcription with 6-String Bass TAB

I wrote this based on the popular jazz chord progression Rhythm Changes. The chord changes that I’ve included on this version of the video more or less represent what I was thinking about when I wrote it. Although I was often thinking about building lines from chord substitutions that could then be played on the original changes.

Rhythm Changes was very popular in the Bebop era. Charlie Parker wrote a few tunes on this progression. My focus was on putting together a solo that uses some of the Blues and Bebop style of lines from that era, but with a totally different time feel, hence the title.

The middle 8 departs most radically from a traditional Rhythm Changes. I’m using lots of natural harmonics to make chords. But it still follows the cycle of fifths that everyone knows from the middle 8 of Rhythm Changes. Here is the piece in full.

Changes in Rhythm
Changes in Rhythm

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Overwater Hollowbody Thinline Fretted 6-string Bass – Fingerstyle Demo

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“Changes in Rhythm” – Overwater Hollowbody Thinline Fretted 6-string Bass Demo

Here’s a finger style demo of my new Overwater Hollowbody Thinline fretted 6-string bass. I’ve owned the bass for a couple of weeks now and I wanted to get a demo out because a lot of people have asked for one. In the video, I’m playing only through the bridge pickup and the low end and the mids are slightly boosted and the treble slightly dipped. This is a tremendously versatile instrument, and this demo only really demonstrates one aspect of its personality. So I will be recording more demos in order to show off its full range of characteristics.

Changes in Rhythm (based on Rhythm Changes) by Johnny Cox

I’m currently writing compositions specifically to be played on this bass. And “Changes in Rhythm” is the first one that I’ve completed. The piece is based on the jazz chord progression known as Rhythm Changes. Rhythm Changes is probably the second most popular jazz chord progression (after the 12-bar blues) and it’s almost always played with a medium fast or fast swing feel. My idea was to take the Rhythm Changes progression but completely change the feel to a slowish 16th note Latin feel. Hence the title “Changes in Rhythm”.

I wanted to record this with a percussionist as a duo. Similar to the concept of Jaco Pastorius and Don Alias playing Donna Lee. But unfortunately the lockdown put an end to those ideas. Hopefully I will record this tune again in the future as part of a duo.

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My New Overwater Hollowbody 6-string – Bass Practice Diary 113

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My New Overwater Hollowbody 6-string Bass Guitar – Bass Practice Diary – 23rd June 2020

This week I received my custom made Overwater Hollowbody 6-string bass guitar. It’s taken just over a year to build. And this bass is currently unique. It’s the first fretted 6-string hollowbody that Overwater has made and the first with a 34″ scale length. I’ve only owned this bass for a few days, but my early impressions are very positive. It’s relatively light for a 6-string bass, but the low end it gives you is huge. And it has one of the best low B-strings of any bass I’ve played.

Chris May and Overwater Basses

Bass players outside the UK might not be familiar yet with Overwater basses. The company was founded in 1979 and is run by it’s founder Chris May. Many British professional bass players play Overwaters including Scott Devine of Scott’s Bass Lessons. Chris has featured in videos on Scott’s Bass Lessons and he has earned his reputation as one of the best bass builders in the business.

Over the last few years I’ve spoken to several companies about making me a lightweight 6-string. As you know, I’ve always played Warwick 6-string basses. They’re great, but they’re heavy. And it’s not always practical to take out a heavy 6-string bass. Especially when I know I’m going to be playing long sets. So, I’ve often found myself taking out lighter 4 or 5 string basses when I’d prefer to play 6.

I first spoke to Warwick about making me something lighter. Their position was, that if you make a bass too light, it won’t sound like a Warwick. Which is a very fair point, but it lead me to the conclusion that I needed to look elsewhere in order to find what I was looking for. So, I started by talking to UK based bass manufacturers like Status, Sei and Overwater. All of them make great instruments that I would be happy to play.

The reason that I opted for Overwater was down to Chris May. Out of all the companies that I spoke to. It’s not easy to build a good light 6-string bass. And I felt that all of the other companies I spoke to were slightly cautious about taking on the challenge. But Chris was exceptional in his enthusiasm and expertise and in taking a personal interest in what I needed.

My Overwater Hollowbody 6-string bass

The bass has a Walnut top and a Swamp Ash body. It has a 3-piece maple neck and the neck joint is glued. The fretboard is Indian Rosewood. It’s a thinline body. I’ve played a fretless version of this model with a much thicker body shape and a 35″ scale. It sounded awesome but it was heavy!

Overwater have their own pickups and they match the wood on the pickup covers to the bass. They also do their own 3-band active eq with matching wood covers on the control knobs. The onboard preamp also includes a balanced XLR output, which effectively makes the bass itself an active DI box. With the two outputs you can route the jack output to your amp and send the balanced XLR output to the front of house.

I’ll do a proper demo of this bass in the next few weeks. The playing in this video was literally the first time I’d played this bass. And I was playing with all the EQ’s on the bass and amp set flat. I’ll be able to give a much better demonstration of what this bass is capable of when I’ve played her for a few weeks.