Arnis Lefthand Basses (Informations for lefty bass players)

Bart Bruno

New Haven, CT/USA

I began playing bass in my late teens, starting with a restrung copy of a Gibson EB-3, and a Peavey amp. The need for college tuition forced me to sell my setup, but I vowed to get back into bass after receiving my degree. Upon graduating college, I sought a left-handed bass, but consistantly ran into what I refer to as "Connecticut mentality", ie, I was told to either learn to play right-handed or restring a righty bass(funny, I never have a problem find lefty axes in other states, only this one).This went on for years, and eventually I moved on to do other things, and bass playing became largely forgotten(on the occasion that I would go to a music store, I would again run into the previously mentioned roadblocks). Then one day in June, 1997, I drove by a store in New Haven quite by accident, and decided to drop in, not knowing that this chance encounter would alter my life. There in the showroom was the black '96 P which I'm holding in the photo. At that point, I knew that it was now or never, being 39 at the time, and two days later, I became the proud owner of my first Fender. For a time, I brushed up with tapes and books, then fell out of it again when personal problems occurred. For the next few years, I played sporadically in my bedroom. Then in the Spring of 2000, A friend asked me to pick up a Fender catalog for him. I did, and this more or less "got me going" again. The people at Joe's Guitars in Wallingford, Ct urged me to get back in, and even carried some lefty instruments(in time, I would buy a Mexican J and a Squire PJ from them). Sometime later, I decided to obtain formal training, and began to take lessons, mostly to improve my dexterity, which had declined after many years of not playing.

In November of 2001, I played in my first band in over 20 years, a "faux metal" band as I coined them, as they didn't play much in the way of metal ( I once suggested we do a Rammstein song, and they cringed!). Since then, I've played in rock, blues, and wedding bands. My current band, River Jack, plays mostly 60's and early 70's rock; we plan to expand to music from other decades as well, and in time do originals. I am also in the praise and worship team at my church, and play two Sundays each month, and also special events. I am currently writing Christian rock songs in my spare time, which I hope to one day play at the church.

DAY JOB: After 25 years working as a Microbiologist, I went through a career change in November of last year. The city that I work for chose not to fund the laboratory; before I could leave, Social Services hired me as their Vocational Coordinator. I now help the underpriveleged obtain job skills leading to employment. I guess you can say that I went from doing lab work to doing God's work, a great tradeoff as I see it! I've also published a couple of papers on the natural history of Pine Snakes. They can be viewed on pituophis.org.

BASS(es): The P-Bass "army" remains intact. The orange bass in the photo(s) is a 70's reissue from Fender Japan. I added a Duncan '57 pickup and LaBella flats. It sounds as awesome as it looks! I have numerous other basses, and will send photos soon.

AMP(s): After experimenting with a number of amps, I arrived at a simple conclusion: if you're gonna play bass, you gotta do Ampeg (works for me,anyway). I play out with an SVT-3 pro head (all tubes!) and a 4X10 cab. I rehearse with a BA-210 SP combo and also the truly incredible Rocket Bass combo, the best 100 watt amp I've ever used.