Project 3 Final Statement

Bass is normally associated with men. If you think about bassists, often people like Flea, Larry Graham, Jaco Pastorious, and Bootsy Collins all come to mind. However, there’s so many talented women that have built a backbone for the music industry. They’re shadowed by their male peers even though they’re just as talented, if not more. My piece includes eight various female bassists- Gail Ann Dorsey, Blue DeTiger, Carol Kaye, Esperanza Spalding, Melissa Auf de Maur, Kristen Pfaff, and Tal Wilkenfield. From coming up with famous bass lines like Good Vibrations, to being the first woman to have her own signature fender model, to playing with some of the most influential figures in music history, these women have done it all. My piece highlights these overshadowed women by engaging audiences to interact with the projection mapping, which in turn causes them to inquire about the women they’re seeing on the bass. The body of the bass includes a looping video of these eight bassists that can be glitched by pressing a key on the key pad to reflect the lack of history and acknowledgement around these women. The neck features various visual effects that can be changed with the key pads, with the base effect being tiles that run up and down the neck of the bass. Everything metallic on the bass, such as pickups, logos, tuner knobs, and bolts, are highlighted with a rainbow gradient. Through this project I’ve learned so much about the female bassists who have paved a path for me as a bassist, and I’ve broken the masculine associations with bass, as it’s mainly male bass players who are in the spotlight.