Using a capo on a bass

auti

I was at a gig last night and noticed that the bassist in one of the bands was using a capo in the second fret of his instrument as were the two guitarists in the band. He then moved the capo to the first fret when the guitarists moved theirs and eventually took it off, again in line with the the guitarists.

I remarked to my friend that I thought it was very odd (being a bassist myself I would never use a capo, never even occured to me) and he said oh yeah, that guy in Kasabian uses one too. He thought there was nothing unusual about it.

Now I am trying to figure out why a bassist might use a capo and what I have figured is this:

-Playing chords (although this is a bit of stretch especially for the guy I saw last night)
-Tonality, to compensate of the zero fret sounding different to a fretted note on a poor quality instrument
-Laziness, just not being bothered moving your hand to the second fret while playing a root note in f#
-Lack of ability, not having the strength in your hand to fret the first one or two frets of the bass.
-Lack of understanding that you do not actually have to use a capo on the bass even when the guitarists are using one as you are generally only playing one note at a time.

Does anyone have any thought or insight here? Even having thought about it, the above reasons are kind of ropey.

Is the world experiencing a new wave of super lazy bassists or do these guys know something the rest of us don't?

rcaz

First and last ones are the only ones making sense to me.. I don't think anyone would be in a gigging band with weak hands or that much laziness. And the 'tonality' one doesn't make sense - a capo still makes a fretted note. Do you mean tuning the bass down below E and using a capo to get back up to E at a fret? Assuming we're talking standard tuning here...

Was the guy playing chords?

And don't confuse tonality with timbre

b318isp

Perhaps he only knows a few scales?

rcaz

b318isp wrote: »

Perhaps he only knows a few scales?

He shouldn't need a capo for that anyway, once you know a scale you just move that shape around the fretboard... A capo won't compensate for not knowing how to play scales.

JoePie

Maybe he found it easier to play some sweet riff with a capo on? I know I've done it. I'd rather take the help, than wreck the song.

auti

El Pr0n wrote: »

Was the guy playing chords?

And don't confuse tonality with timbre

Apologies, I did mean timbre, as in the difference in sound between an open string and a fretted string which in my opinion can be quite pronounced on the bass. Some bassists I know use a brass nut to compensate for this so I thought that maybe this bassist was trying to achieve this result with a capo.

The guy was absolutely not playing chords, far from it my gut tells me his use of a capo was a combination of laziness and lack of technique. He was also playing a pretty rubbish instrument and I'm gussing that it wasn't set up all that well either. I remember my first bass and I found it difficult to fret the first few notes on each string for a while. This is of course assuming that he was a new bassist. There were certainly no acrobatics bing performed, all basic stuff. It just looked so strange to me, I thought there might be something in it.

Dord

He probably did it because the guitarists told him to. I've played around with a capo on bass but it was just for fun and lasted about 5 minutes.

Welease

I'm wondering if it was just muscle memory.. He learnt songs in a different key, and used some open notes..

Either the guitarist, or more likely the singer needed it in a different key, and it was just easier to capo rather then relearn... especially if he is new to the bass.

Gaspode

Possibly he was using combinations of open notes with notes higher up the fret-board - sounds great until you change key -using the capo can help keep the effect.
I've done it for one or two songs in the past, dont see any problem with it tbh.

Owen

Here's a novel use for one :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is9v-1B-z0U

il gatto

Never seen it done but I suppose to each their own.

Ostrom

I used to use one on my bass back when I was playing in a band. I used it probably out of laziness, but the two songs I did use it on involved playing a particular pattern in second position which involved excessive movement, and I do have weak hands (I still struggle with first & second fret bar chords on some of my guitars).

It didn't sound right (to my ears anyway) in higher positions or with other combinations, so I just used a capo. Cant see anything wrong with it.