BASSOURA

Bassoura is a one-string fretless bass whose body is a broom. The word “Bassoura” is a portmanteau of the words “bass” and “vassoura“, which is Portuguese for broom. The concept behind this instrument came from two ideas: the first one was that some songs have such simple bass lines that they could be easily played with only one string; the second one was that a good pickup could be placed even in a broomstick and the sound would still come out great (although the first version had the cheapest pickup I could find, which costed less than $10 at that time). I told my idea to luthier Inaldo Souza who brought my concept to life by crafting this instrument. Recently, it was repaired by luthier Alex Arroyo and upgraded with Sergio Rosar pickups. The assembling secret was to mount the pickup parallel to the string so that the vibration could be captured all along its extension.