Get off my LAWN! "Grumpy Old Farts"

[alaskaleftybass]

I came to bass later in my music education process and I will agree that you can almost learn to play bass using fingering patterns (for scales) and never need to know much more than what the starting note is. At least on a four string it is especially cool that once you've got the root note it's literally as easy to find a specific note by name as it is to instinctively move to the 3rd, 4th, 5th, relative minor, etc. for chord changes.

Leads on a guitar are almost as simple, but chords (except bar chords) do seem to make less intuitive sense when you're starting out.

I started out on an Alden's Mosrite style clone guitar. I played guitar for about four years when I met a guitarist who kicked my pants off and he invited me to play bass. I took to bass like a duck to water. Best move I ever made. Sometimes I play solos as a rhythm guitarist and singer but much prefer bass. But yes, once you understand the basics of a bass neck it starts coming naturally after that.

 

[the slug]

There's holiday celebrations and there's holiday celebrations

View attachment 4067588

yep. some people bake the turkey, some bake themselves

 

[StereoPlayer]

yep. some people bake the turkey, some bake themselves

Is that what that is! My eyes are still clearing up from cataract surgery.

 

[GwenOnBass]

Woo! High Five! Cataract surgery vets unite!

What it appeared to me as one raised in the traditional musical education system is by mid-late teens kids have pretty well sorted themselves out. Guessing (holds finger to the wind) about the same proportion of kids go on to higher music education as the number of sports kids in who make university teams. Of those, even fewer are going to have a serious go of it in life. Fewer still who buy their own jets.

That I make a go of it <ehrm> post-retirement means freedom of any pressure, imagined or real. The only pressure is what I put on myself. Likewise the only written music that's been in front of my nose in the last 30 years is music I put there myself.

Would that being able to read music a musician make. When the Bench W guys at school asked me to bring my sax to join their band, I ask in all seriousness where's the music? Because improvisation is one of those skills that may come later, or may not come at all for some. It's because there's so much to it.

Here with the Thing That's Going Around, all this music theory stuff is beginning to convince me I can actually play

 

[beans-on-toast]

I have always loved music and it was in college in the mid '80s that I took a Music Appreciation elective course on American Music (think Gershwin). I wrote a paper on the influence of blues in rock and roll and really got into the blues. I saw James Cotton, the late great harmonica player in person a few years later and spent time talking to him. From there I became a student of blues and blues harmonica. Fast forward to a little less than 3 years ago, and I started to feel that blues harmonica was very limited in terms of songs and even genres in general. So I wanted to be more involved and play all the music I like, from Albert and B.B. King to the Allman Bros., CCR, and ZZ Top. I just felt like the bass would do that for me. I had a friend at work that played bass for over 20 years in weekend bands and he help pick out my first bass, a Fender Squier VM 70s Jazz (left handed, of course). Up until I opened the box from Sweetwater, I never truly played a bass before. Sure, I picked one up in a music store and flipped it over and tried to play Smoke On The Water but that was it. Since picking it up, I practice 7-10 hours a week. This is not noodling, but working on technique, scales, new songs, and ear training. I keep a log of how long I played, what I practiced, and even what bass I practiced on. I can honestly say after over two years, I still get excited every time I pick up a bass. It feels natural to me. It feels part of me while I am playing. I improved way faster on bass than I ever did on harmonica. I wish I would have picked it up sooner.

Then I find this TB forum and realize there are others that are also passionate about the bass, so I am not alone in my craziness.

P.S. Sorry about the ramble on. My wife says I am the only one that can make a short story long.....

Passionate stories of how things came to be are always interesting. Being a musician takes you down a lifelong path. Seldom do you finish with what you started with.

I love those small wattage tube harp amps. They distort so easily and put out such a sweet tone.

 

[StereoPlayer]

Woo! High Five! Cataract surgery vets unite!

Yea! I still can’t see well for a while. My insurance didn’t cover lenses for stigmatism. An extra $2000.00 per eye. Nope. I don’t mind glasses. Good eye protection in the wind and doing jobs around the house. Can’t see sh.. though for a while.

Much brighter light and color though! Glasses will happen soonish.

 

[beans-on-toast]

I don’t know how he pulls this off. In all his videos, the dog just loves music.

 

[GwenOnBass]

He's too happy to fire!

 

[bobyoung53]

Jazz, smoke and Black & White go together, shot in 1987 in Paris, a year before he nodded off and fell out of a third story hotel room in Amsterdam, some great upright playing in this too. Chet was a lifelong junkie who lived to be 58, couldn't really read music and played by ear and never practiced, he was too busy chasing around, one of the best.

 

[bobyoung53]

He stretches out in this one, great solos, bass solo is excellent but especially his is, the way he builds this solo is very instructive. His solo reminds me of a butterfly flying around getting buffeted about by the air. Also from 1987 but not B&W, sorry. He had a very ahem...interesting life, he got punched out during a drug deal in the late 60's which knocked out all his teeth and destroyed his embouchure, he had to learn how to play all over again, took him a few years before he could play again, worked in a gas station part of the time. This was after he had been a huge star during the 50's.

 

[Jeff Scott]

Yea! I still can’t see well for a while. My insurance didn’t cover lenses for stigmatism. An extra $2000.00 per eye.

There's always something they won't cover!

I don’t mind glasses. Good eye protection in the wind and doing jobs around the house.

Same here; I prefer wearing glasses vs. having things flying into my eyes.

 

[GwenOnBass]

Insurance could have easily covered a permanent correction for astigmatism when they did my cataract surgery except Reasons. It's an ace in the hole nobody above rank and file at that insurance company has their astigmatism correction denied.

 

[GonePlaid]

I think the only place sight reading skills are useful (often mandatory) is for studio musicians or pit orchestra work where they want you to play exactly what was written. Sight reading was part of my formal music education in the 60's and 70's, but it's not been something I ever really had to rely on to save the day except once or twice since. Both times were musicals/pit orchestra jobs with original music that required precisely what was written and we had limited rehearsal time.

For me it has been concert band(so-called "legit" music)and big band, usually with written charts, sometimes just chord symbols, occasionally both. The BL's generally want what's on the paper as it 'fits' what everyone else is doing, esp. concert band where I'm prolly doubling a tuba.

 

[alaskaleftybass]

There's always something they won't cover!

Same here; I prefer wearing glasses vs. having things flying into my eyes.

When I was a young musician contact lenses were really becoming popular among musicians. Being trendy, I bought several pair. Although the concept was wonderful, I felt truly naked without glasses on my face. I felt vulnerable. I think soon I'm going to be due for cataract surgery and I'm probably going to still wear glasses. I feel more secure with a pair on my face.

Odd, my wife is the same way. She had cataract surgery in both eyes for nearsighted, but still needed reading glasses. She is perfectly fine with wearing glasses and prefers to. To each their own....

 

[GwenOnBass]

Unless something's changed since my cataract surgeries, everyone needs reading glasses after.

 

[alaskaleftybass]

Unless something's changed since my cataract surgeries, everyone needs reading glasses after.

I have a retired college instructor who got a special kind of cataract surgery. It turns out the two lens are configured differently so that eventually she'll be able to see close and far. She had to spend three months between surgeries so her eyes could adjust. I'm holding off until the vaccines are distributed and we each get vaccinated.

 

[mikeoso]

Unless something's changed since my cataract surgeries, everyone needs reading glasses after.

After my cataract surgery I was free of specs for 12 years.

 

[mikeoso]

Ok...71 years old, been on the ground in a civil war and two revolutions, married 51 years, spent 36 years dealing with other people's teenagers...and still taking major risks. Today, Black Friday, I went one on one with Best Buy, and walked away, totally un-pissed-off, with a doorbuster laptop. I have drunk from the fountains of majesty!

 

[Jeff Scott]

Odd, my wife, is the same way.

FIFY

 

[GwenOnBass]

Both my cataract surgeries were when I was 50. My annual eye appointment is in two weeks. As my foot continues to heal, there is a possibility I can walk to the doctor's office.