Search results for query: *

I've always appreciated your wisdom, spirit and humour, young Jimmy, and enjoyed your posts. I'm going in the opposite direction-- I'm a LOT older than you are, and have recently quit the music after playing gigs over the past fifty years, mostly for my living. (The 600w Trace stack has gone...

I play both finger-style guitar and fingerstyle or pick bass right-handed. This causes big problems with nails, which are essential to my style of guitar playing but get seriously mashed once I pick up the bass. If I knew many years ago what I know now, I'd've stuck to playing guitar...

Music bit me as a penniless teen but I had no instrument to learn on. My equally impecunious friends and I used to go to the town tip (i.e. dump), where there was the bit of the piano with the strings on, and hit the strings with knitting needles to play out tunes (actually you can learn a lot...

Funny you should mention cruise ship motors, BassBrass. Here in Norfolk (UK) I used to play with jazz bands on a river boat called the Vintage Broadsman, which travels from Wroxham a few miles to another 'broad' (large lake), round the broad and comes back. The engine is under a sort of...

I was a full-time pro playing six nights a week when my Dad was dying in a hospice eighty miles away. I didn't get to be with him at the end as I didn't get back from the night's gig in time; he died a little sooner than expected in the early hours. That evening I just couldn't find a dep (this...

I don't think in note-names, I think and play like this: It's easy to read this way: if 1 is on a line, so is 3, so is 5, and top 1 is in a space. If 1 is in a space, so is 3, so is 5, and top 1 is on a line. There will be an accidental (# or b) if the note is different from the scales...

The very first band I ever played with was called Vacant Expression. I now play with Bright Spark (formed on Bonfire Night...), and our acoustic-style version called UnSparkPlugged. There are loads of bands called Bright Spark or The Bright Sparks but my suggestion of Sparkling Bright was vetoed.

I thought they were named after that wonderful sci-fi short story (can't remember who wrote it... Arthur C Clarke?) about the lonely guy on a far-off planet, and the gift left for him when the supply ship came by? Great writing and a lovely original idea.

ALL musicians are 28, by definition. Doesn't matter when we were born (can't remember that occasion and I doubt you can, either). If it was less than 28 years ago, doesn't matter, you're an honorary 28, because up to 28 you haven't paid yer doos. If you're still alive, you must be past that...

...understand the purpose of pentatonic scales. They are to keep guitarists out of the bass player's way.

Before I had my current bass (in my profile pic) built, I had a cradle made for my Gibson EB2DC, so no strap needed. The bass sits in the cradle, anchored by its strap buttons, and the cradle fits on to a cymbal stand.

Nah, the bass has the most important function in the band, that foundation for the rest of the fluffy stuff to stick to, or to float over. The bass pulls it all together and makes the music DO something. The bass controls the band, which is why people with controlling personalities, provided...

I bought a Buster many years ago and regretted it deeply. It produced a lot more fizzing and buzzing than it did volume and the sound (what there was of it) was like a wet dishcloth. I bought it from a shop and they had their engineer do what he could with it... basically he couldn't. Then I...

Have you ever noticed that Waterloo has the same bassline as Remember You're a Womble ... ?

Me too. I play nothing else. And because I play only this one bass, and have it mounted on a floor-stand, and have played it for quite a lot of years, and play a one-finger-one-fret system with five-fret and two-fret shifts only, I play it mostly without looking at it, except for the first note...

The very first band I played with was called Vacant Expression. Others have been The Ugly Bug Band, Hard Rain, The Kriptones and QBits. I now play with a band called Bright Spark. I think there are too many bands with a similar name, but I was voted down for wanting to rename us Sparkling...

Many years ago I was playing the holiday camps seven nights a week in the summer months, we played for dancing and to accompany the cabarets. It was all sight-reading, no probs. The cabarets used to change all the time and often there was no chance to rehearse with them, sometimes we didn't...

Obviously it's useful to know the note-names, if only to get the first note of each song or piece of music. But I played for my living most of my adult life in all sorts of bands, and was never once asked to 'name that note'! I can, but I don't think that way really. I'm with the OP on...

Those of you advocating violence against invaders need to remember that we are very vulnerable on stage, outnumbered by a crowd who have often had plenty of drink, and surrounded by thousands of pounds/dollars-worth of instruments and equipment that has to earn us our living. I had a bad...

My bass is built for (and is tuned) ADGCF, but it is designed so that I never play any open strings, including the A. It's not that 27.5Hz is too low to hear, but it's too low to hear as a pitched note. Just sounds like a fa.. umm... raspberry.

I agree with those who've mentioned tuning at the twelfth fret, though of course that's a harmonic at the twelfth fret, not a fretted note. Any tuner works more accurately like that, as there are twice as many vibrations for it to assess. What nobody seems to have mentioned is that really there...

I don't wear my bass, it's on a floor-stand, as in my profile pic. A high neck angle, I suppose, though not quite upright. My 'fretting' hand plays 'flat-finger' technique so although my bass is fretless I don't need to look at my fingers. Good job as I can't actually see them ... Both wrists...

Certainly sounds like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, from which I have suffered since the 1970s, when I was playing four hours per night, seven days a week, plus daytime sessions, previously having damaged both hands in accidents. Please get it sorted, as many others have advised, and don't let it get...

Intonation, yes, shifts, yes, chromatics, yes, proper scales, yes. Not pentatonics. Pentatonics are for guitarists, to keep them out of the bassist's way ;)

I solved this one many years ago, I don't need a light bass and I don't need a strap! My bass is designed to mount on a cymbal stand. It may look a little odd when I am dancing around and the bass is stationary, but it feels very natural to play and sounds lovely. Still have a bad back, though...