Learning Baseline Bass Lines - Inanimate Insanity

CHAPTER EIGHT: I Wanna Ruin Our Friendship.

Pepper haphazardly slid her fingers up and down the frets of the bass guitar, trying to push away the day before to focus on the tabs from the paper in front of her, and just beyond the music stand sat Paintbrush, watching her intently.

It was late morning, the sound from the amp echoed through the room, brushed in soft white lights, and the two were almost done with their lesson, pepper finished off the bar and looked to Paintbrush for feedback,

"Pepper, that was great! I think you need to press harder to stop that metal vibrating sound from happening," they looked to the guitar they were holding and demonstrated the sound differences,

"But that usually comes with practice, and getting your fingers stronger." Paintbrush made a strongman pose, and Pepper giggled,

"Thanks again, Paintbrush, I really appreciate it." Pepper smiled, then went back to fiddling with her instrument.

"No problem, P, this has been really fun so far." Paintbrush said, slipping the guitar off and placing it on the wall.

Pepper looked up to the walls and surrounding room, so many instruments,

"So, uh, painty," Pepper started, Paintbrush whipped their head around at the name, "do you play, like ALL the things here?"

"Uhh, pretty much at one point or another, I know songs on the piano, Bass, guitar, bells, drums, violin, and I've done a little bit of woodwind stuff," Paintbrush motioned to the things around the room,

"Whoa! Really!? That's incredible" Pepper yelled, looking at their collection.

"Yeah, I'm pretty much always trying to learn or master something." Paintbrush said smiling

Pepper took off her guitar and standing beside them, placed it next to Paintbrush's on the wall, "Is there like, any instrument you haven't tried?" Pepper asked jokingly while rolling her eyes,

"I mean, If you want a serious answer, I have one,"

"For reals?" Pepper was genuinely surprised,

Paintbrush walked over to the chair and sat back down, "yeah it's kinda weird though,"

They pulled out their phone, and Pepper followed over to look, Paintbrush showed her a picture of a strange-looking device, it was kinda shaped like a bean, about as thick as a chapter book, and with buttons all along the front,

"Okay like I said, kinda weird, but it's something called an Omnichord, lots of my instruments are actually second-hand, or gifts I've had for a long time, so they're on the cheaper side. But Omnichords are not only kinda hard to find, but pretty expensive."

paintbrush pointed to the price of the first second-hand listing, 500$.

"Oh geez"

"Yeah, I know right? It's a synth, on this one, you press the buttons and they hit certain notes,"

"Oh! like a keyboard!"

"Yeah! kinda. and then you can strum this metal bit, and it kinda sounds like sliding up on the bells."

"Whoa! that's like, so cool! can I hear it?" Pepper said leaning over their shoulder and tapping paintbrush's phone to the videos tab and opening one,

"h-hey!"

"Oh sorry"

pepper clung to their chair, watching the video load up,

"Oh I've seen this one before, they're really good," Paintbrush said

pepper watched as the person pressed onto the buttons, and it made a strange melodic hum, like an electronic harp, and then they drug their fingers across the metal band, and it was just like Painty said, with the bells, but it was that same computer noise.