Everyone has their technique… there’s a general technique but then everyone has their own. Like playing gut strings is different from playing metal strings. If I play a double bass with metal strings now, I literally can’t play it for 20 minutes, half an hour because you need a totally different technique. I really rake across the strings a lot, which most other bass players do, but I don’t know what it is, it’s slightly … gut strings are different.

When I first put the gut strings on, I couldn’t play them because my fingers just used to stick to them. But now my skin’s used to them, the oils or whatever, literally I put them on and I was like, “yeah, right, I’m ready to go, I am Charles Mingus” and I just couldn’t. It was like there was gum on the strings, I just couldn’t play, so I had to kinda change my technique a little bit. So I more think of it as if I’m pulling my arm into myself, so it’s all about that