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I needed a Schaller Bridge with a bit of wear & tear for a 30+ year old bass. Paul just happened to have one lying around so the deal was done & he was patient while I got my sh!t together. Top bloke, cheers Paul.

I gave up practice a while ago after I realised my brain puts the brakes on whenever it thinks I "have to", "must do", "should do" anything. Anything that feels forced is quickly met with a subconscious point towards whatever distraction the think melon decides it would rather do. So instead, I play now, everyday & it's effortless. I know what concepts I need to look at & I explore them as creatively/musically as possible & it's fun now. No more forced learning or outcome focused shedding. I've improved loads & I'm enjoying the process. I think the clever people call it cognitive reframing or something like that 🤷🏻 Sounds simple & even silly I know but our brains are strange little lumps.

Shaun Munday for me, great player & soul coming out his ear'oles

I'm sitting firmly on the fence on this one but what I will say is that music theory is exactly that, a theory, an agreed upon method of explaining the phenomenon that is music. Music existed long before the theory of it did.

Pat has taken the most awesome Yamaha bass from me & is giving it a new loving home. Great bloke to sell to, easy to communicate with & you should deal with him with absolute confidence. Cheers Pat

I certainly do & just for today it's on sale at a special discounted price of......... 😂 In all seriousness Matt, I stopped trying, became open to everything & made friends with the intuition that I'd been doing my best to ignore for a lifetime. Discovering my spiritually (which had always been there) & accepting it (I really didn't want it) helped too. I'm different & some people don't like different, my autistic traits scare people I think but hiding & trying to fit into a world that doesn't understand was exhausting & hurting me. I have to be vigilant & know when to leave a situation but for now at least life is colourful.

Ok, so this is a NBD post but there's a bit of a story to go with it. I've had the bass a couple of months but I wanted to make sure I was keeping it before posting about it. Anyways, I'll do my best to keep it brief. For as long as I can remember I've known that I'm a bit different, life has been a constant struggle & to be honest, just down right cruel at times but this is not about seeking sympathy or anything. My favourite saying had become "I can't wait for this planet to stop spinning so I can get off". With that said, my one true constant love has always been music & even on the darkest of days music has been there, a steadfast companion as loyal as they come. After spending almost a decade trying to figure myself out with no help from the NHS the answers finally came from my employers occupational health dept. They steered me in the right direction & along with the diagnoses came the discovery of my own spirituality (ok, I know most will leave this post now so thank you for reading this far). It was a relief & I binned off all the self help books but as an avid reader this left a hole in my spare time. So digging around my bookshelf for something to get stuck into I found my copy of "the music lesson". I had read Victor's book years ago & to be honest I thought it was pants. But with fresh eyes I had another go at it & began to think about my place in music as a musician. I discovered a few things, firstly, I had become a collector of basses, nothing at all wrong with that but it was never my intention & secondly, I didn't know what my "sound/style" was. I had gotten very good at imitating other people but there was no individuality in my playing. I wasn't "moving" myself so how could I possibly be "moving" the audience with my playing. I just wasn't grooving man! So after much thought I decided to sell on my beautiful basses because as gorgeous as they are & as lucky as I was to have them none of them were "the one". Off they went to members here & on a total whim in the early hours one morning I stumbled across this wonderful 90s Tobias & brought it. I know it's a Gibson model & purists might turn up their noses but it's actually a fine instrument, or at least it will be. When it came it needed a good set up & the dual truss rods gave me some grief but I stuck with it & got the neck nice & straight only to discover this particular bass also came with plenty of high frets. Awesome. Off it went to the shop I use to have them leveled & I asked my mate Rob to give it a nice low action as I wanted to force myself to play with a lighter touch. I've kept a Lakland 5 string because it was a gift from my wife & it's always useful to have a 5 but for the last two months or so this is the only bass I've played, or even wanted to play. I'm more inspired to play bass now than I've ever been & this bass really draws me up the dusty end. I'm not in a band at the minute so all my time is spent improvising & playing what's in my head with little thought & it feels liberating. It's like I've cut out there middle man & I'm really starting to discover my own sound. The only thing left to do is fit the East bass/treble stack eq that I have because I think the active contour it has standard really limits the Bartolini pickups. So, long story short, the last few years & challenges that they brought have led me to this bass & the musical self discovery I'm experiencing now. I'm a "one bass kinda guy" now & I really like it. If you read this far thank you! I'm sure you deserve to see a picture of my awesome bass 😁

Elf 1/10 arrived this week a Horizontal Towers for home practise. I'm actually really impressed!

That is a great looking bass, I love the natural/maple, makes it look really "clean". I can only imagine every tone you could ever want is lurking in that pickup & pre too 😎

I have it now dude, I'll drop you a message shortly!

I've been grounding myself for years by means of walking around the garden barefoot & to be honest, I feel different when I do. Would I buy a sheet that plugs into the socket & sleep on it? Nope but I'm not writing off the science. No-one can argue that we're not walking around constantly surrounded by invisible waves of this'n that & if you believe Nikola Tesla's ideas of energy, frequency & vibration how could anyone be sure that our man-made environment isn't messing with our mojo's? People believe what people believe & beliefs are powerful shiz man, placebo anyone? Anyways, I'm officially mental so you really shouldn't listen to a word I type 😁

I'll chuck some in. Most of us are taking it in the rear dry these days & I'm seeing the truth in the saying that "you're only ever one missed payment away from homelessness". Why not help a brother out?

Joel popped round mine tonight before his gig to collect a strap. Really nice fella, I think anyone can deal with Joel with complete confidence! Cheers Joel, it was nice meeting you!

Crispin has taken ownership of a Yamaha I had, great communication all the way & I have to commend him for bravery whilst tackling the M6 to get here! Top fella!

Kev kindly offered me some great East pre bits for a great price. Great communication & rapid delivery in bombproof packaging! Top Basschatter!

Such a tease JPJ! I have no use for the mid stack but I'd be all over the BTB! I'll drop you a message!

If only they knew..........

I too was told I was tone deaf by a music teacher whilst in primary school! Age 7 or 8 I think, the opportunity came up for a few kids to learn violin & I jumped at it. Had to audition for the teacher which basically involved her singing the major scale & me having to repeat it. Had one shot at it before bluntly being told no because "you're tone deaf". Doesn't sound like a big deal but I can tell you, she planted a belief that day that delayed my involvement with music & took a very long time to shake. I'm by no means gifted & I have had to work hard to develop my ear (probably because of the aforementioned belief) but tone deaf? Nah!

A few basses have gone off to new homes this last week 😭 but I do have a new addition 😀