ambient

I had a 5 string Marcus Miller bass that was embarrassingly bad. Maybe I was just unlucky? The neck joint looked like I’d done it. The little metal inserts/cups for the through-body stringing were loose and kept falling out.

The Japanese built ones I’ve seen have tended to be massively better than the American built ones.

I’ve never tried one. Steve Lawson was using one at a recent gig I went to, he seemed to like it.

You’re actually learning it, memorising it? From my experience things can change when you get along to the technical rehearsals, that why you often see pencil annotations on the scores.

It’s why I insist on collection only for instruments.

I’m sure I read somewhere that Mark King described himself as yawning over the music.

Very good! I can’t sing a note, if I try and talk at the same time as playing I end up dribbling, so well done to you.

It’s reason 49 for playing solo 😁.

Maybe email Status Graphite.

People who don’t stop talking at gigs really annoy me.

How many people listening would know it was an organ originally? How many of them would be bothered you were playing it on a bass guitar?

I’ve played a couple, like others have said it doesn’t take long to get used to them. The only thing that puts me off buying one is that it’s extremely difficult to play chords on them.

My W&T is 33”, I seriously don’t think it’s any less of a B than my old 35” Modulus had.

I came across this on Facebook. It’s not to everyone’s taste I know, but I liked it. I’m intrigued by the Spider capo too.

Yes. If you look at the chords in the real book, you’ll see they’re often written to include the extensions; 11th, 13th etc. See how it sounds to you. It’s good too if you can listen to a master of the art; Paul Chambers or Jimmy Garrison, and see what they do.

Do it, it’s like making a curry, the notes are spices. They’re diatonic, the chord tones are obviously the strongest notes, but others from the scale work fine too.

I tried the PJB Bighead recently, it’s head and shoulders above the competition 😁

I’d just mention it to him, no point being rude. It might be one of those things where he means well, but it hasn’t come across well.

JMB is known for that. It seems to be either 16 year olds convinced that they’re the next huge thing, or middle-aged drummers who played the big bass drum in the boys brigade 40 years ago. In the case of the drummers the closest they’ve ever got to being in a band, is asking the one in the local for a request. I think Facebook is pretty good for finding musicians. You’ll generally find pretty good musicians wanted and available groups on there. The time wasters usually get weeded out pretty quickly.

It’s not something that they seem to sell. Quite odd really. I’ve looked several times.

Anthony Jackson is a genius. I’m sure I read recently that he was ill. I saw Hernandez playing with Matt Garrison in London a few years ago.

You're right about non-musicians not being bothered what instrument is doing what. It’s particularly strange the way musicians are obsessed with what other musicians are doing, especially if it’s not in the traditional way. I think it depends on how prominent a particular instrument is. I was reading recently how in experiments non-musicians and singers were asked to sing a song. They were incredibly accurate with regard to both the tempo, and the key and pitch of the notes. Even though they couldn’t actually sing the pitches, they knew mentally where the pitch was. They were remarkably accurate with the tempo. I think most people who know Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean for instance, would be able to sing; however badly, the opening riff. The same probably with Lou Reed’s walk on the wild side. A non-musician probably wouldn’t know what’s going on in the bass line, but they’d probably have a good go at singing the ascending/descending tenth figure. It’s possibly the same with My Girl by the Temptations, Walking on the moon by the Police maybe too?

This is something that dawned on me midway through my second year at uni, studying bass of all things. It suddenly occurred to me following a tutorial with my composition tutor, that what I was being asked to do, ie all the technical stuff, the slapping, grooving etc, really hadn’t much attraction for me. It was something she had noticed, I think I’d tried to ignore it. I’m actually just writing a piece for my blog site about it. Funk and groove mean nothing to me, I’m really not interested in them. I see bass as an instrument, a very beautiful instrument, to be played however you want to play it. If that means ignoring tradition, then so be it.