Smart Bass Guitar Announces New Featured Interview with Zander Zon

Bass guitar blog, Smart Bass Guitar, announces the release of a new featured interview with solo bassist and composer, Zander Zon.

This interview is the most recent interview Zander Zon has had since early 2013 with Institute of Bass. The 13-question featured piece covers topics exploring more of the musical background of Zander Zon as well as what goes into taking his YouTube videos which as of recently have accumulated collectively over 3 million views since 2008.

Highlights of the interview include:
• Insights into Zander’s beginnings in music including how he used to be a cello player before switching to bass after hearing Michael Manring and Victor Wooten perform.

• He used to play with a pick at one point in his time as a bass player.

• A look into his current bass guitar setup and recording setup used to make his YouTube videos. According to Zander, his current setup is, [a] “Zon VB4, Fishman Solo Amp, Boss GT10 and Line 6 DL4. For recording, a SmartResearch DI box, Apogee Duet and Logic.”

• An in-depth look at the process of choosing what song to cover and record to YouTube including the selection process, learning and arranging the song and the actual recording process. Zander states that,

 “Most importantly, I have to really like the song. Next, I have to be able to play it! Songs with fast melodies don’t tend to work as well for me; neither do songs where there’s lots of key changes. Being able to play root notes with open strings is important so if there’s key changes or too many different types of chords, it becomes more challenging.

    The length of time it takes to arrange songs will vary: sometimes it takes me a day, other times it takes me a month. These days, I try to figure out the melody and harmony while at the same time working out an interesting way of playing it. A lot of the time, an unconventional way of playing the music, like with harmonics or tapping, is actually the only way I can get the notes. That’s the thing about playing solo bass – the limitations can breed creativity.”

The entire interview can be found here.