Reckon it's easy to find me here in the combo club, now, nice work boys.
Pretty certain I'm not woodshedding for Tuesday's open mike for the snake people eating gourmet pizza. The humble spork — favourite of the criminally insane everywhere — is nowhere to be seen as barkeeps clothed for maximal visual impact serve spendy craft beers.
The open mike host and I agreed on blues, and hey that's okay with me cause
View attachment 3122487 View attachment 3122488
my bass is quite blue and this brings me to how the new bass got a name. Never really one for anthropomorphizing, I always thought of my StingRay as "my bass". Thirty-nine years of "my bass" and perhaps my tastes in tone are more refined these days. Or perhaps I can't hear for [strong word]. When the Ray and I were gigging, it was all Dean Markley Super Rounds.
When I returned to My Bass after, you know, life and everything, I found I wanted a warmer sound than the rounds on My Bass. Because I haven't actually played with anyone in decades, I figure the blues is as good a place to start as any. It
is an art form — Tommy Shannon just knocks it out of the park.
Which is how I came to acquire the New Bass. I'm hearing that "thud" of that whole British Invasion thing. Slap on some D'Addario tapes and hey! — I've got that tone I imagined for myself.
Saying "New Bass" and "Old Bass" doesn't feel right and I ask around. Lots of suggestions having to do with blue and water &c. Mermaid names. The light comes on when I recall the bass shipped with a tag indicating its date of completion as June 20, 2018. Ding Ding Ding Ding We Have a Winner.
Solstice Eve.
(and My Ray)
Once upon a time I took one lesson with Ray Brown. He said:
Learn Every Song in the Real Book. This is a very worthy goal indeed and I understand that completely.
What I'm doing instead right now are scale sequences over two octaves in Any Key. My woodshedding might look like: play root - 2 - 3 (skip) 6 so that the last note is three scale steps away from the third scale step. Go up and down the neck then start on the 2 so I play 2 - 3- 4 - 7. Or 1-2 4-5, 2-3 5-6 up and down two octaves (*bonus points for using all the scale notes on the fretboard beyond two octaves).
Not using a metronome
you wise guys who read that epic thread.
None of which really helps me to stand in for a couple numbers for an open mike, except I can count a twelve bar head as well as any. Unless there's too much spendy craft beer inside me.
I'm practicing through a combo amp.
<EDIT> Roland Micro Cube? 15#, 1/4"headphone/record out, $280 +/-
Seriously, I'd never heard that line about "every song in the real book", but I grew up listening to big band(dad played sax)and lots of "walking" bass lines; play(ed) in a coupla big bands, and started playing bass in'67 doing bossas and standards. I'll play droning tonics if that's what the song requires, but
. I'd much rather do patterns. On another note(F#), your comment on flying reminds me, I haven't flown commercially since Christmas Day 1970!
(We didn't go through Atlanta: Miami-Tampa-Milwaukee)
