A short reflection from my meeting with John Edwards
A brief summary and reflection on two specific things that John Edwards and I discussed during our talks. John has been a great role model for me for many years. When I first discovered him and his music, I was so inspired that I, like him, tried to raise the action of the strings to the breaking-point and thereby strengthen my dynamic range. The sound increased and grew until at a certain height of the strings, after that, instead of more volume, the frequencies of the middle register increased. Due to this and the fact that it was impossible to implement certain techniques due to the action of the strings, I gradually started to lower them. John, however, is the only bassist that I know, who perhaps more practically, but also aesthetically strives for this specific middle register in his bass sound. He has realized that it helps his sound to penetrate dynamic and dense extremes. Also, in contexts with dense sounds and strong dynamics, John tries to find gaps where he can attack and penetrate and thus make his voice heard. Maybe more similar to how a trumpet or a saxophone player would have played, rather than a bass player.
