Hi! I'm Steven. I'm calling from Melbourne, Australia. Just saying Hi to all my fellow Aspies/autistics, especially those of you who are also musically gifted. I'm a bass guitarist who enjoys playing various styles of electric bass, but I want to get into more 70s disco/funk and jazz type playing. I want to start or join and play bass guitar in a band or music-related entertainment project in the future, especially one that involves others with ASD and people with intellectual disabilities (male and/or female), but I don't have any good ideas on how I can achieve this. Interestingly, I found that I am more used to playing along with female musicians, which is not surprising because I even had some tuition and help from a couple of female bass guitarists in the past including a former autism service instructor I once had back in early 1998 who is very good at playing bass guitar herself. So if anyone here has any suggestions, E-mail them to me or simply post a message here. I hope to see and hear from you all sometime.
Love,
Steven. :grin:
Hi Steven, welcome to AFF.
Welcome Steven! I'm a bassplayer too!
Welcome Steven! I'm a bassplayer too!
Hi there Lonermutatnt. Welcome aboard. I just saw your little article and photo in the Autistic Adults Picture Project site and enjoyed what you had to say about your songwriting and bass playing. It sounds like we were both made to be bass guitarists, especially for the cause of autism/Aspie rights.
Keep rockin', brother!
Cheers,
Steven. :grin:
Thanks! I write lyrics and poems constantly, sadly mostly without rhymes, as I tend to write what pours out of me. I write about being bullied by kids, not being able to concentrate, etc.
I have a cheap Yamaha bass, a Hartke 30W combo amp and some boss pedals. What kind of Fender bass do you have on your picture?
What kind of Fender bass do you have on your picture?
Well, actually, the "Fender Jazz Bass" you see here is really a Topaz copy of the classic early 70s Fender Jazz Bass design which was actually made back in the early 1970s too, in fact. I also have two other Fender Jazz designs - one of these is a Canora copy and is a little smaller (originally made that way with kids and early teens in mind, I presume), while the other is a DIA copy and almost resembles the classic Jaco Pastorius Fender Jazz design (only this one is fretted). I also have a Torch "Fender Precision Bass" copy (which I used a lot for playing jazz/blues bass, the others I use mainly for disco/funk/soul and most rock styles of bass). My extra gear includes a portable 15-watt Samick VB15 bass amplifier and two wah-wah effects pedals - a genuine Jim Dunlop Cry-Baby Bass-Wah pedal and a less-popular brand of wah-wah pedal which I sometimes use to boost up/enhance the bass sounds. I also have a small Yamaha RX17 drum-machine box, and I even have an old JVC Victron electronic organ which I sometimes program to play by itself so that I can even play bass guitar along with the electronic organ (pretty cool, eh). :grin:
I'm finally moving my amp to my parents basement soon, so I can play without headphones and I'm going to contact a guy who leads a music/drama group for mentally disabled people to see if he maybe can help me get more confidence in playing and at least in concentrating when playing with others. My Yamaha is really good, I love the sound of it and the bridge jazz pickup gives it a great mid tone. My pedals are a Boss noise supressor (a must if you play a solid state (transistor) amp, a Boss limiter enchancer that I use as an extra eq and a Boss overdrive pedal. I'm thinking of getting a Morley Wah as Rex Brown and Cliff Burton used that kind of Wah.