Baby Vivaldi

That very night I had a gig. Yikes! Brave? I didn't even think about the implications at that time ... I was so excited about my "new" bass. The worst thing that happened was that I occasionally played fifths instead of chord roots. Of course I was used to using the E-string as my visual reference. Which 4-string player is not!

It was around 1988 that I became interested in playing 5-string. Although the concept had been adopted well over a hundred years ago for double bass, it was quite new for bass guitar. Being a formally trained classical double bass player, I was already familiar with the 5-string concept in its various guises, and had played several 5-string upright basses on occasion.

One of my face-to-face students recently asked my about converting his 5-string bass to a 4-string. This "backward" conversion brought back memories of my first 5-string bass.

The student I mentioned above has not done his "backward" conversion yet.

This new consciousness has helped me enormously in my confidence of playing any stringed instrument (except when I am playing completely by ear) and definitely helped my learning of the 6-string bass (which is another story where further learning elements were introduced).

George has performed with artists ranging from Rolf Harris through to Judith Durham, Beccy Cole, Marina Prior, George Washingmachine, Thelma Housten and the New York production of Porgy and Bess. His former students include Brendan Clarke (winner of the Australian National Jazz Award), Kim Khahn (Robbie Williams, Mel C, Natalie Imbruglia) and Rory Quirk (John Butler Trio).

Besides being an innovative and highly respected music educator, George Urbaszek plays double bass, guitar, bass guitar and bassitar. He has over 3000 performances and 120 recording sessions to his credit and has toured Australia, Central Europe, Canada, USA and the Pacific Islands.

Because no music stores in my area had 5-string bass guitars at that time, I decided to convert my one-and-only bass guitar myself. I bought a bridge, a tuning peg, a B-string and a blank nut, drilled a hole in the headstock, filed the nut grooves, and did the conversion in one afternoon. Brave? I don't know. I just had to find out.

My First 5-String Bass Guitar

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