ambient

I think there’s an awful lot of crossover with singers anyway, what one person would class as soul someone else would describe as pop. To me at least soul is heavily blues influenced, I’d have described most of the singers mentioned as alternatives to the role as ‘queen of soul’ as being pop singers, for me at least they don’t fulfil the remit for being soul singers. Is Motown soul? I’d argue no, it’s pop; it doesn’t have the earthiness of soul.

Isn’t the ‘queen’ title there because of the longevity of her career, and the massive influence she had on so many during her time? She didn’t just appear and then disappear just as fast.

I hate pigeonholes.

Phil was one of my tutors at uni; an excellent player/tutor. Steve Lawson also does things on the Scot’s lessons site.

You only ever benefit from any lessons if you’re willing and able to go away from the lesson and practice what you’ve been shown or study what you’ve been told. If you can’t do that then any lesson is a waste of time and money. There’s nothing annoys me more personally than someone arriving and the second thing they say after saying hello is sorry, but I haven’t picked my bass up since last time I saw you. Just having lessons in themselves will serve no purpose at all.

Practice so your pick strokes have the same dynamic. Just sit down and practice going from one to the other.

It’s just me, I hate cars 😁.

There are three large stores in Birmingham; PMT, Fairdeal and there’s a Guitar Guitar. I’ve never set foot in either of them. We used to have a couple of real; i.e. not chain store shops when I was a child, I never went in them either, my mom used to go in while I waited outside. I have been to Bass direct, quite a few times, I bought stuff from Mark before he even opened the shop. I like that the staff there actually leave you alone, if you want something then you ask them. I hate; as is often the case, walking in somewhere and immediately being approached by someone, as well meaning as they are, it annoys me. I prefer shopping online. Something I did notice reading through this thread, totally off-topic, the amount of people who mentioned having to take into account petrol and parking charges, why not catch the train or bus?

Have you or the seller tried contacting the lost parcels people? They’re surprisingly good. I sold a pair of quite expensive headphones on here a couple of years ago, they were posted by special delivery (I always use that, it’s cheap and they are fully insured), anyway they somehow got lost. I refunded the buyer, even though it wasn’t my fault, but I also emailed the lost parcel place which is in Belfast I believe. It was quite a distinctive looking parcel; I’d sold the travel case too, and that was wrapped up with the headphones. I described it and they promised to look for it, I was sceptical but low and behold they did locate it and sent them back to me.

A total anathema to me, but she always has a very good band, and superb bass players; Jimmy Haslip, Anthony Jackson, Andrew Gouche to name just three.

Check out the programme synth Britannia, it's really good; all about synth bands from the late 70s up until the mid 80s.

Lots of videos of kittens.

Why only top two though I wonder? I’d prefer half and half I think.

That’s my opinion too, the Ibanez has never made sense to me for that reason.

What's the Ibanez one?

Richard Barbieri is a brilliant synthesist. I’ve seen him a few times, I love his solo work and his work with porcupine tree.

I like dream theatre, but skip past Jordan’s solo spots. It’s sound I love, and that’s definitely missing. Nick was similar to a lot of synth players in pop bands at the time, Richard Barbieri for instance in Japan, they weren’t great musicians, but were any of the members from bands at that time? I was watching a programme recently called ‘synth Britannia’, there was a guy on I think from OMD, he said though that synth players always had this stigma; people assumed quite wrongly that what they were doing was easy, it’s not though, and it takes a lot of imagination and creativity. There is no button on a synth that you press to create the perfect sound, or the perfect part.

I’ve never really listened to them tbh. I have studied the synth players from that era, the majority of them were like him; unschooled as musicians, but very creative, it was the sounds that were important to them. I think with him particularly he tried to be different with the sounds that he used.