JapanAxe

Yes and no. It's complicated...

Well in an interesting development, I am now up for the guitar job in the tribute band. Back to the drawing board. At least I know the chords already....

https://www.joinmyband.co.uk/classifieds/madonna-tribute-act-looking-for-musicians-t1151835.html Would-be Madonna tribute vocalist looking for someone with 'a good sound system and mic'. Eh? Think I'll look for a band that can provide a good bass and amp!

I use Elixirs on my acoustic guitar, and they do retain their brightness for ages. Never tried Elixirs on bass though.

You may find you have more boot width available if you put your bass on top of a cab or similar.

Lush!

I'm now learning a further 2 sets for a dep gig with a disco/funk/soul band. Same technique - quite a few numbers I already know (Soul Man, Uptown Funk), several with online transcriptions available (Boogie Wonderland, Burn This Disco Out - I have re-drafted some in Sibelius for clarity) and a few that are brand new to me (Mama Told Me not To Come, Starsky & Hutch). When I get tired of one, I can do some work on the other!

Met up with Sid in a classic Service Area rendezvous. He liked the goods and did a bank transfer there and then. Great comms throughout, and a pleasure to meet.

I think you've done well to last 8 years as a band Blue - in my experience, 4 years is generally good going for a covers band.

1. I can access Trello from any device that can get me online, so I’m not dependent on having a particular piece of paper to hand. 2. Post-its lose their stickiness after you’ve moved them a few times and have a tendency to curl up. 3. You can have a Trello board that would equate to a piece of paper much bigger than A3. 4. Before Trello, I used to make Excel spreadsheets and give my learning of each song a grading from 1 to 5. It wasn’t immediately obvious how many songs were in each category, which Trello shows at a glance. 5. It costs less than paper and post-it’s.

^^^ ForScore will work with any pdf file. Not sure about other file formats as I’ve never tried it.

Neither is it in the UK. We have implemented the same EU Pricing Directive since 1991. Current law can be found here if you're suffering from insomnia.

It certainly does, and it certainly is. This to some extent, but also I find I can move around the neck more without having to go a long way back to find a suitably high or low note.

Sounds like a plan. It would pick up some traffic form the Amps & Cabs section, where people are sometimes posting about going direct, with no dedicated bass amp or cab.

I used to be a tutor for something similar to this, run by the Music Service in Swindon under the name 'Rock School'. The skill level of the adult students varied widely, but they were all there to enjoy playing together, and especially for the buzz of a live performance. Come the concert, you will find the audience very supportive of you all. Nobody will mind (if they even notice) the odd mess-up, even if it seems cataclysmic to you. To quote Brian Eno: In music, you can crash and burn, and walk away.

Yes, I suppose he's using it to soak up the energy from his rest strokes. I think I play almost exclusively free strokes.

What the hell is he doing with that B string?

I'll announce it later if I am successful! Audition is likely some time next week, or the week after. Working backwards from the end wasn't my original idea, I read it here on BC, which is also where I heard about Trello!

I am currently in the running for a shared bass seat in a tribute band, so I thought I would share how I have gone about approaching this. The band cover 30+ of the artist's songs, and I will have to play about 8 of the bigger hits at the audition - as yet, I don't know which. Obtain the set list from the band's website. Set up a Trello page with lists entitled 'Set', 'Familiar', 'Nearly There', and 'Sorted'. Import the audio of each song into Capo transcription software, and correct the pitch if necessary. I already own just about everything this artist has ever recorded - it really helps to be a fan if you're going to play in a tribute band! Mark up the verses, choruses etc in Capo. Make a playlist for the car, and listen out for the bass parts. Make a reasonably accurate transcription of every song, with chord symbols. I had already transcribed (for my own entertainment) one of the artist's albums, plus a few other tracks, so I had a head start. I work in Sibelius, then export the transcriptions to PDFs, which I load into ForScore on my iPad. Add a label to each card in Trello to keep track of what I have transcribed. Do a play-through of each song, and if appropriate drag the Trello card from 'Set' to 'Familiar'. Go through again, this time looking at the song in detail. I work on the last section first, and work 'backwards' through the song. This has the advantage that when you get to the end of a newly-learned section, you are then into familiar territory. I use Capo to loop and slow down (if necessary) the section I am working on. Drag the song's Trello card either to the bottom of the list, or to 'Nearly There', as appropriate. Once a song is 'Nearly There', play it along with the track, without looking at the dots. Note any bits that have not lodged in the brain, and give them extra attention. Rinse and Repeat. I have also split the 'Set' list into 'Hits' and 'Other', concentrating on the Hits for the time being. So far there are a handful of songs that I could pretty much play on demand. Once I know the audition set, I will focus almost exclusively on that. Resources: www.trello.com - online Kanban board http://supermegaultragroovy.com/ - Capo transcription software (sorry, Apple only)

My fist guitar was a Grant copy of a Les Paul Special - a complete pile of poo. The pickups were screwed to the flat top of the body. At home I discovered that it was impossible to tune, as the bridge was not far enough back. I took it back to the shop and managed to swap it for a Cimar Strat copy, which was much better. A couple of years later, I saw Prefab Sprout in a pub in Durham. They were not famous at the time. Paddy McAloon was playing the same Grant guitar, which fed back microphonically every time he turned it up for a solo.

I taught myself rhythm guitar from Harvey Vinson's 'Rhythm Guitar' book. It stood me in good stead. First tune I learned on bass was probably either Peaceful Easy Feeling or Apache, learned for a home recording on 4-track cassette.

Gigged again last night with the Cobalts. I think I've 'got' them now. I turned up the amp a bit so I wasn't exerting too much effort with the plucking fingers, and didn't experience any dragginess; in fact I felt like the Dingwall was making me play better. The only song where I didn't feel so liberated was The Beat's version of Tears of a Clown, which is a finger-fuddler for me at the best of times! I also A-B'd the Dingwall against my Precisions through my gigging rig at home this morning, and I love the brightness and clarity of the Cobalts. Thanks for all your suggestions - I'll stick with these for now, and maybe try some GHS Pressurewounds at some point.

Ah but was it a serious smiley or an ironic one? Fair enough, but just in case there are people that really think that (as I used to)...