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Couldn't see.......played the wrong notes

#27
nortonrider said:
White-out could be worth a try!

I was thinking about a couple of dabs of that glow-in-the-dark paint. Has anyone ever tried using it?
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Actually, now that you mention it- My Jazz is old and the dots on the side of the fretboard are old/worn/dirty so I used to stick blue stars on either my 3rd and 5th fret or the 5th and 7th. They were just the regular "attaboy" stars you got in 3rd grade- I'd have to replace them once a month or so, but they didn't wreck the finish and it was easy.
 
#28
I ran into the same problem a couple of weeks ago...

Since I always switch between 34" and 35" scale basses, I use the side dots as a guide. But on the dark stage, the lighting was so bad I couldn't see them on my Lakland, so...

I put bigger dots on the side of the neck - just some hole punched labels (cut in half) at each side dot. Doesn't look bad at all (kinda like half-moon side markers), and it's made a huge difference.

And it's not permanent, so I can take 'em off at any time. :hyper:
 
#29
g4string said:
I dont know if your being sarcastic or helpful:hmm: I know the fretboard. Like I said, I have been playing for 20 years. I have basses w/o dots too. FWIW, It was so dark that I couldn't even see what position I was in.
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I'm trying to be helpful here: IMO, knowing the fretboard doesn't necessarily mean that you've developed muscular memory, which is the key for playing in such situations. I can tell that I've trained myself for that (and try to get my students into that from the very beginning). Of course, there are situations in which it's really complicated to do it (i.e. playing a groove on the first position and then a quick fill on the sixteenth position), but for lots of situations you should be able to make shifts without depending on looking at the fingerboard. To me this is an extremely valuable asset, specially on sight-reading situations. I can guarantee you that the total amount of time looking at the fingerboard in this 6 minutes, 25 seconds performance by myself is exactly 39 seconds (and it could be much less if I were willing to record more takes). It can be done but again, you must train your muscular memory, which is different to fingerboard knowledge.

Hope this helps. :)
 
#32
Alvaro Martín Gómez A.;7322419 said:
I'm trying to be helpful here: IMO, knowing the fretboard doesn't necessarily mean that you've developed muscular memory, which is the key for playing in such situations. I can tell that I've trained myself for that (and try to get my students into that from the very beginning).
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I agree. Back in the day when I used to tour, we would get ready for the road by rehearsing in complete darkness. Even went so far as to sabotage each other by unplugging someone elses cables or stepping on a stompbox or two. Got us all to focus on our playing, develop muscle memory to play in any situation, and to use our ears to diagnose when something went wrong with our respective signal chains. I can't recall who thought of it first, but it was GREAT training for playing live gigs. I highly recommend it.
 
#33
nsmar4211 said:
I asked a tech about those LED things, he said he's put in a few sets, if you do it like the instructions say it'll do exactly what it says. Said they look pretty cool, but if you aren't careful you can damage em. I'm wary of how they'd feel under my fingers personally.
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FWIW, I've had mine on my Alembic Epic 5 for over two years and they still work great. They aren't particularly fragile. The plastic strip they are mounted in is so thin (and nicely rounded) that very quickly I got to where I don't even notice it's there.
 
#36
g4string said:
I played a gig on Sat.....I got tucked in the back part of the stage, poor lighting and some shadows. I had a hard time seeing where I was at on the fretboard on several occasions which caused me to hit the wrong note. Has this ever happened to anyone else?? I have been playing for about 20 years and gigging for about 15 years out of the 20. This was the first time this has ever happened to me.......
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I suggest practicing + playing with your eyes closed. It seems logical to me, since Double Bassists rely on their ears. Since I thought about that I've been practicing with my eyes closed, except when getting the visual aspect together.

At first, I see what I'm doing, see how my hands are doing it, and then close my eyes. I feel accomplished for being able to jump from B on A string to E on B string without looking (yeah... lame but improving.)

Luck. :bassist:
 
#38
I was drunk and my friend told the bassist from the bar band at our hotel on S. Padre Island that I was a bassist. We bought him and drink and I didn't know I'd been set up. When the band got back onstage after their break, they called me up to play. I refused. The bassist came into the crowd, dragged me up on stage, hooked me up and asked what AC/DC songs I could play. I mentioned about 5 songs, not knowing which we were going to play. The drummer and guitarist started playing..............wait, stop............I couldn't find the notes. Restarted.............then, I realized the bassist used no monitor and I couldn't hear what song the drummer and guitarist were playing. It was horrible. Here are the terrible pictures where I'm trying to find myself on the neck because I'm hitting notes but I can't hear them. It was a horrible and embarrassing experince. I asked the bassist later how he could hear himself and he was using in-ear monitors which he didn't let me use. Uhhhhhhh.................
 

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#40
Trapeze Fan said:
...I didn't know I'd been set up... The bassist came into the crowd, dragged me up on stage... The drummer and guitarist started playing... I realized the bassist used no monitor and I couldn't hear what song the drummer and guitarist were playing. I asked the bassist later how he could hear himself and he was using in-ear monitors which he didn't let me use.
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The drummer and guitarist went along with this? Sounds like a band full of jerks to me. Ha ha. :scowl:
 

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