Bass Capo |
I almost didn't believe this guy when he told me he had made a capo for the upright bass! It turned out to be true and I'm very proud to present this truely unique item: |
Blue Dew Capo Made in 1993 by John Beumer, Netherlands. "The story with it is that some years ago I had problems using my left arm so I couldn't play with my folkband Blue Dew. That changed when I made the capo. It made playing open strings possible at different positions. In bluegrass that's enough to play basic. I made the capo of the following ingredients:
[Donated by John Beumer. His arm is allright now.] |
What is George Martin staring at during the Rubber Soul sessions? Oh yes, it is a Hamilton capo on Paul McCartney's Rickenbacker bass!
"What am I doing there?
Well,
the
thing with the bass on a lot of this stuff was that I'd try anything once.
So I'll try a capo. I often do that when I'm writing a song - stick a capo on
just so it's a different instrument
than the one I normally play. Everything goes up a little bit and goes more
tingly, and you get a song that
reflects that. So it may well have been that we'd written a song on guitars: a
certain key, so I only knew it
in that key. Or maybe it was to get a higher sound. I often used to tune the
strings down a tone, too, so
the E would become a D. I would just mess around with any
experimental effects. I'd try anything!"
[Source: Bass Player magazine 1995, Tony Bacon interviewing Paul McCartney.]