It doesn't matter how well-honed your guitar chops are, the way your instrument is set up will have a huge effect on how ...

he switched to bass from guitar and famously began to thump the strings while playing in his mother's band as a teenager.

Because you can fit so many strings, you can use all of the standard strings for a bass and treble guitar, plus a few extra like the thickest bass string available and the thinnest guitar strings.

Phil Lesh, a classically trained violinist and jazz trumpeter who found his true calling reinventing the role of rock bass guitar as a founding member of The Grateful Dead, died Friday at age 84.