Bilbo

I think the theme and variation element is the bit that turns you from being a tech head who is learning the dots to a musician. My blues solo was a realy eye opener for me in terms of making something of value vs something that showcases a lot of bullsh*t technique.

I did a Jazz Jam thing in COlcherster last night. The deal is, I get booked to play in a quintet for about an hour and then the rest of the evening is handed over to anyone who wants to have a go. Trouble was, no bass players. So I had to play without a break for nearly three hours. Now the great thing is that the last tune was (as it SOOO often is) Sonny Rollins' 'Tenor Madness' going by like s*** off a stick. Despite my own anxieties about stamina, this last tune was about 10 minutes long and I nailed it without any loss of impetus (it speeded up if anything ) and, more importantly, no hand or arm pains this morning. I have those gig with John Etheridge et al starting next week and it is a relief to know that I can at least keep going! I taped last night as well (Zoom H1) which gave me a frame of reference and some learning points.

Just listening to Aqualung for the first time. Not going to go there again but appreciate the craftsmanship.

Finished the last exercise. Only need to do the peer assessments and I am done. Time well spent but quite intense on top of the day job, gigs etc...

No-one ever mentions this guy. I got a couple of lessons with him in the 90s. I just got hold of his Life Without Trousers album. Great bass player but great music, not grandstanding. UK fusion at it's finest. Look it up.

Starting to twitch

I got marked down this week as I didn't do the peer assessments in time. It is so frustrating to always be stealing time for music instead of being able to focus on it.

Miroslav Philharmonik calls!!!

Did a wedding yesterday. Sax/Bass/Gtr/Vox. Good players but it didn't gel. Played at a Stately Home that was the bride's family home (Drayton House, Northants). Slightly iffy charts, strange mix of tunes (some very old, some cabaret, some newer - eclectic I can take but all over the place is something else )/ Still, good money, nice people and nobody died.

I got 11.6% of the vote. The Tories got in on less

Not really. A b13 would have a 5th in th associated scale whereas a +5 would not .

You will find that most of the information you will need is in one book and there is tendency to convince yourself that the route to bass wisdom is more and more 'stuff'. In truth, the path to knowledge is a long and tedious slab of tarmac that just requires you to sit there going over and over and over the same stuff again until it is internalised. Lessons are great but, fundamentally, we are all a product of the amount of time we spend running scales/chords/arpeggios, transcribing solos,learning lines etc. Oh - and learn to read music

I am, by nature, an auto-didact and find that one lesson every decade seems to keep me going Seriously, though, I think, for some of us, all we need is the occasional lesson to keep us on course and then the rest of the time is spent with self-teaching. I have never really been able to afford regular lessons so have just figured it all out myself. There are gaps but, like 90% of us, I have more technique that I can really use and most of the shortcomings in my playing are about a lack of REHEARSAL rather than a lack of knowledge. Where basis theory is concerned, there is not THAT much to learn but it does take a long time to internalise things and to incorporate the concepts into one's playing. It is a case of whatever works for you.

Hey, Stephen. I willvote for you if you vote for me?

The irony is the software came free with the Miroslav Philharmonik sottware I bought earlier this year so cracking it would not be that big a deal. I just don't know how to do that either!!

The emailed me a link and I downloaded the WIndows version. It seems to install then won't run. Version 1.0.9, the latest, I believe.

What's a friend?

Bland as vegetarian cheese

....is driving me nuts. Trouble is, the customer support takes a minimum of 24 hours to respond to every question. I aks a question today, I get a response tomorrown that I cannot action until three days later which them doesn't work so I ask another question, wait another 24 hours and so on..... After this month's Composition competition, I realised I needed to up my game in terms of better VSTs. The thing is, I have a truckload on my PC that I have never even opened so I went back to IK Multimedia and the emailed me the Authohrisation Manager so I can access them but my PC just spits the damn thing out (my music PC is NOT on-line so I can't use the AM on-line, obviously but I also cannot open it in off line mode because it won't open. AAAAARGH!!) Another two hours of my life gone on uncooperative IT.

Write a contrafact (new head over existing changes).

Bassace has one. He is in Swerford, Oxon.

Stagg EUBs move easily as a lot of folk who are attracted to the idea of double bass see it as a bridge then either give it up or go the whole way and go for the real deal. My thoughts were that I knew I would regret not buying a double bass if I went half the way.

Another Fishman Plat Pro here. Does the job. Perfick.

Worth a punt, methinks.