How did you and Chris come to play together?Chris started to emerge in the bluegrass community when he was only 12 or 13, so we all knew about him. My close friend Sam Bush produced a record for Chris about the time Chris’s band, Nickel Creek, was starting to hit, and I remember Chris calling me with questions he had about music education. Soon after that we started playing as a duo fairly frequently. This is our third substantial tour together, and it’s been great. Coincidentally, both our fathers are bass players who loved music and invested that very heavily in both of us.
In an acoustic duo like this one, dynamics seem of utmost importance.That’s for sure, and that’s the main reason we keep amplification down to almost nothing. If it’s loud, you actually can’t play with dynamics without hurting people. And by necessity, getting louder means compressing.
What’s the biggest challenge in this kind of duo setting?It really hasn’t been filled with challenges, outside of not always feeling like I’m playing well enough to be in this duo. The joys have been many.
What about this particular pairing works best?I enjoy working with people of all ages, but I’ve never done a project this serious with someone so much younger. Interestingly, our age gap makes the dynamic fundamentally different, but in a nice way. Chris is only 27, but he’s had a lifelong interest in a broad range of music. There’s always been a very strong bluegrass component, and that has given us a lot more overlap and commonality than most situations. Plus, Chris is simply a remarkable talent.
It also works because of how Chris and I both play. In a band setting, there’s just not enough room to play like we’re playing. With this instrumentation, we can play with more variety. I’m very happy that over the three tours we’ve done together, there’s been considerable evolution in the music, especially in the way we’re able to write together and interact onstage.
How does this pairing compare to the duo outings you’ve done with banjo player Béla Fleck?Both have contributed immeasurably to my own desire for self-improvement; I’m completely challenged by both. The differences are mainly in the personalities of the players. I play with Béla because he’s Béla, and because we’ve been friends for 27 years. But Chris is probably better at covering up my errors; being younger, he’s more willing to help out.
As a sonic partner, how does mandolin differ from banjo?I like mandolin and bass in terms of giving us both the freedom to play the way we like. The mandolin is easier to play with, but my basic goals as a bassist don’t change either way. Part of the difference is mechanical: the up-and-down picking as opposed to more complex bluegrass banjo picking.
Your recent performances with Chris have featured several pieces by Bach, and your 2000 recording of Bach’s cello suites remains a career high. What advice do you have for bassists looking to learn from Bach’s music?The best thing is to learn to play keyboards. The cello suites are fairly perfect for cello, but they’re awkward on the bass. Also, they’re perfect for the register where they’re written—if they’re played lower they don’t sound right. They may be useful as an exercise, but they don’t really sound like Bach anymore. The cello suites are great in the sense that they were written for a bass-clef instrument, and nobody was ever more aware of bass function than Bach. He wasn’t afraid to move low, and he’s incredibly clear when dealing with those low notes. But despite the very heavy hours I put into the cello suites, my primary time with Bach is still at the keyboard, where you can actually hear the music in the way that it was intended.
CAN BE HEARD ON
Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile [Nonesuch, 2008]
GEAR
Bass 1769 Gabrielli tuned EBEA (with a low-C extension)
Strings Pirastro Permanents on top, Thomastik Spirocores on bottom