Gareth Hughes

[i]OK - strap in and get comfy - I'm on a roll. I was going to PM this but here you go for everyone's reading pleasure. Don't hold me responsible if you get fired. (actually, I've been fired from quite a few gigs - not the worst thing that can happen to you)[/i]. A balance of brass neck and a controllable ego are a good asset. You need to be able to put yourself forward for a gig, but not come across like 'I'm bloody amazing, me - why haven't you booked me already'. I've known guys to do that - finding out from the guy who booked me and not them . In other words - hustle, but don't be a hustler. Without raising the debate of 'can you be a professional musician without reading music', I would 100% advocate learning to read. Love it or hate it, the undeniable fact is you can get reading gets if you can read. And vice versa. This leads to another factor - playing for a living more often than not can mean playing styles of music you wouldn't listen to and don't like. Here's my take - does a plummer care what style of toilet he has to install or what the bathroom looks like? Of course not. He has a skill like a professional musician has a skill. Like someone said about me once - I can play 1-5 in all sorts of styles. The point is to do the best job possible. Of course it can get frustrating playing a style of music you loathe, but that's where being a professional comes in. You're being hired to play a style of music, not create it like an artist. Be reliable - and that means more than just showing up on time. It means that if I call you to cover a gig for me and you're not already booked, I won't hear 'Ah, I planned on sitting in with the girlfriend' or 'I don't feel like heading out tonight', 'It's a bit far', blah blah blah. There's nothing more frustrating than having someone call you looking for work and then when you call to offer them work, they couldn't be bothered. It also means respecting what you've agreed to do. I've found out second hand that a guy I've booked to cover me has booked someone else to cover him because he got a better offer. Sure he's entitled to do what he wants, but then I have a bandleader calling me saying - who did you book? and that hurts my position. Reliable also means learning the material backwards and forwards. On Saturday night there I just played with a well known Irish trad group, filling in for their regular bassist, to a festival audience. I don't play trad AT ALL but that didn't matter - I learnt their set and got the best compliment possible - 'we didn't have to think about what you were playing, you fit right in.' You also have to keep yourself in check - and not just for yourself. Take the £300 gig one night, and then take the £80 gig the next night - if for no other reason than to show folks you're not above doing lesser paid gigs. Some folks think that once you get well paid gigs that you'll no longer take lesser paid gigs. Pure nonsense. The 'lesser' paid gigs happen more often than the better paid ones. Also, get out there and show your face. It's happened too many times when I take a three week tour and then someone thinks I'm away for three months so never thought to call me. On one gig years ago in Dublin a guy asked me if I had come down just for this one gig. I'd been living there four years and this guy thought I lived a hundred miles away. He'd have never thought to call me for a gig based on that perception. Anyway - that's my tuppence worth. Get out there, call the guys who have the type of gigs you'd like to do and let them know you're up for covering for them if they ever need a dep. Then learn their gigs. Record their gig somehow and learn it - be prepared to get a call to cover him/her tomorrow night, or tonight!!!! It happens.

I've been stubbornly making a living playing bass for 11 years now. I'll send you a PM later - Monday's are my weekend so I've just finished mowing me lawn and cleaning the driveway. Rock n' roll, wha?!?! Anyway - my nugget of advice is in the first line there - stubbornly. Brute force and ignorance can really take you a long way.

To the OP - would you ask your wife to give up something for you? Your answer, in my opinion, should determine whether or not your wife should ask you. I cannot fathom asking someone I love to stop doing something they love. Most, if not all, of us are biased here towards the music as we all hold music dear to our hearts, but in reality it doesn't matter what the passion is - gardening, football, pints...etc - take away something you love and you'll be miserable, and I can't imagine resent not building towards the person who insisted on taking it away. Luckily for me (tho it's still darn tough at times) if I stopped playing music the bills would stop getting paid, so I never have to consider taking gigs over something else. That said, it wasn't the easiest thing to go on tour for 4 weeks solid when my kid was only a month old. Anyone who thinks musicians are lazy bums can blow me. (STEP AWAY FROM THE SOAPBOX......STEP AWAY FROM THE SOAPBOX)

I'm another lefty that plays righty. Can't even hold a lefty guitar neck properly. Maybe someone mentioned it already, but I heard that Hendrix was a righty who played lefty. I could be wrong.

If you see one for sale, I'd heartily recommend a Fishman Dual Parametric DI. 2 channels of by-passable parametric EQ, phase switch that's amazing for taming acoustic feedback, and oodles of signal from the DI to drive a power amp. All good. So good, I have 2.

Digging it. Solid tight playing, and the right punchy tone. .............Git.

There is indeed enough space to put two pots on a Nano BassBalls, as I just had mine modded and hand delivered by the wonderfully talented Bigwan on this forum. He also did a great mod to my old Mini Q-Tron, putting a volume trim on the output of the effect to tame the volume bump those pedals have. Great guy, great mods.

Aye, fer a bit o'craic - I'd be up for that.

The easiest things to check are to see if the any of the seams have opened - ie if the front or back tables/plates have separated from the ribs/lower or upper bouts. It won't be life threatening if the have, but get them glued by a luthier asap. A major thing to check is that the soundpost is still in place. Look inside the f-hole on the g-string side and check there is a wooden pole wedged into place from front to back. If it isn't there DONT play the bass. If the soundpost ever falls out of place DONT play the bass. As for playing in an orchestra -play away. I've played in community orchestra's and they're always crying out for bass players. Don't worry about how much you're being heard by the rest of the orchestra. Use your time with them to learn as much as possible.

Haven't heard this but I will, thanks to the blessing of BBC's iPlayer thingy. For a great read and a mind-opener on how important CHIC were and just what they did, I'd heartily recommend 'Chic: Everybody Dance: The Politics of Disco' by Daryl Easlea [url="http://www.amazon.com/Chic-Everybody-Dance-Politics-Disco/dp/1900924560"]http://www.amazon.com/Chic-Everybody-Dance...o/dp/1900924560[/url] Much respect for Nile, Bernard and Tony.