Woodinblack

There was a maintainance guy where i used to work who used some kind of spray black paint on his head. He was fairly bald in the middle so that was sprayed too. From a distance it looked quite bad, close up it looked just like he had sprayed his head with a can of halfords black car spray paint. It was hard concentrating when you were talking to him.

Indeed, I don't think that has been documented before. Although I must admit, it does look like he used spray paint

My limiting factor is speed in my left hand. This isnt a new issue, this is since i have been a child, my left hand can not move as fast as my right hand. This is more a piano issue than a guitar / bass issue, as often on the piano your hands have to do the same things. Its not a huge limitation. I can play fool for your loving no problem, I don't find it hard. I am pointing out however that just because I don't find it hard doesn't mean that many other people might find it hard, and that saying 'oh its easy get over it' is not really that helpful. My piano teacher used to shout at me about my hand being slow, saying I was being lazy not making it faster. Probably why I react a bit too much to people saying its easy. Three finger plucking I can do all day, because that is my right hand. I don't find any steve harris song hard. Obviously if I had to do a whole set of his I would probably get knackered after a while and certainly if I haven't played much for a while my hand would notice after run to the hills, but in general not an issue. Having said that, Hysteria for instance, two fingered plucking, after a while I willl stop it and play plectrum style as my hand has a problem with that. HIt me with your rythmn stick I can do but in the middle change around bit my left hand with its clumsy slowness will often mess up. None of that, I just know after all these years of trying (and i really did try when I was young), the fingers on my left hand will not move past a certain speed.

Not always true, there is a hard physical limit of what you can do. I have no problem with Fool for your loving, don't find it that hard, but some of the faster lines, my fingers will physically not move fast enough with all the will in the world and all the practice. Running a 4 minute mile is just a question of running an 8 minute mile faster, doesn't mean everyones bodies can actually do it, even if they know how to put their feet in the right place!

If you have to have a 6 string, fender do actually do a 6 string Jazz bass! https://reverb.com/uk/item/2274150-fender-steve-bailey-signature-6-string-bass

Yeh, there were a few songs that we dropped for our singer, but in the end it just sounded a bit lifeless that low, so one we put back up for him to struggle with, the other one we dropped.

This is a nice example of Just tuning which is one of the original ways of tuning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Daw93bRHe4Y

Its that, its just higher or lower than you want. There is no difference in key in a current western scale.

Well, what it conveys now is nothing, it just changes the pitch. What it conveyed before was different. How you related to that and how you felt about it, obviously that is interpretation. Using certainly keys and intervals in the middle ages would have been enough to get you strung up, so you didn't do it to express some feelings, or at least not where the church was powerful! And obviously how the key feels depends what key the instrument is tuned to. That list up there of moods were playing keys in an instrument tuned to the key of C, ie, a harpsichord. If that instrument had been tuned to D flat, then all the moods would shift by one. Luckily with the bass, the frequencies are low enough to not cause us issues, but you certainly notice it if you ever try to tune a guitar, especially via harmonics. However it means you can do interesting things with tuning, like tuning to a key for a song will give you a much nicer tone, but then means you cant play other things.

Wait.. something in Radstock? I assumed there was nothing in radstock apart from a coop and a funeral place.

The relationship between any two notes can only be the same if the scale is even tempered. If it isn't, it means the relationship between a specific interval in a different scale has to be different. Hence why different keys in olden days had a different feel. Which is the reason that compositions were in specific keys. When it comes to even tempered, it isnt exactly in tune, like 3:2 is, that would be a frequency of 1.5 times the original. However, in even tempered it is 1.49831. ie, it is just off. All the notes are just off, and as a result, nothing is quite in tune, but nothing is very out of tune either. And more importantly, every key is the same off tune. Sadly audio frequencies weren't designed to be nicely divided by 12.

There was truth to it back in the day*. Now we have an even tempered scale, meaning the differences between each note is the same, no there is no difference (even d minor isn't really the saddest key). But back in the day, the notes were difference so there really was a difference between the scales. The day being about 200 years ago. Since the beginning of the 1800s even temprement has been the norm. Before that, anyones choice. Stuff really did sound different

Me too, with only my brief periods of anger at bax to keep me sane!

The vapours, It is in my bands current set list and with the last band - thinking about it it is one of the ones I copied across. Should have also copied pump it up, used to like playing that one. Well, and the jam stuff but that wouldn't suit our band

I see you still have the same keyboard

Well, agreed, it doesn't have to be a straight copy and fills and trills are certainly as required and when the band is playing it like there is a bus to catch some of those have to go, as long as the core is there, like the run down on the line 'fool for your loving' which i have heard reduced to a note on fool and a note on loving

TBH - Although I had all the early albums, they weren't a group I was crazy on, so didn't really keep up with stuff they did after the start of the 80s

Ah see I don't. I really don't care what they are like, I am not overly bothered about the relationship between a song and their artist, other than how it goes down with the crowd. I just really hate their songs. And more so, the drunk pub crowd singing their songs. I like free, I would't personally pick alright now, but to be fair, the rest of their stuff would be out of place with a general pub band. Maybe wishing well would be ok. Teenage kicks was played by most bands I have been with, and in my last band we did a multi band event, we started with it, so did the next band and I think another band did it too. BUt again, not very interesting song, but it has the advantage you can go from not hearing it to playing it live on the same day so its a space filler. Luckily we don't do that. I think in my main group we are lucky because for all the 'need your love so bad' and Cocaine (whisper quietly, we haven't played that one in a long time) and dull blues tracks, we have a huge range so we can do monkey man, take your mama, whole lotta love, money for nothing etc, so we can we have quite a bit of Ska, Pop and also some just weird stuff My motown group does the original version of tainted love!

Yep, exactly the same as here.

My Veto is 100% solid. OK, there are quite a few songs I don't like and I would rather not do, but my actual veto is inviolable! Well, we do some stuff like that, Oasis, luckily not teenage kicks as I have done that for too many years and never thought much of it to start with. 500 miles has also been mentioned. Crowd pleasers. I guess it depends on what else you are doing, whether it is interesting or not.

Irrational vetos are good. I have one on Oasis (although I would argue that is not irrational), which the others have been annoyed about many times.

Mine turned up today so I just unboxed it. Seems nicely made, will give it a spin tonight

Yes, aint no mountain high enough, have been playing that recently a bit since it was over social media. Its a fun (and educational) line to do. They always are. Luckily we have quite a few Ska tunes in my main group set.

Surprised noone mentioned that to us. We do motown but one of our number is a mad keen blues brothers and commitments guy that used to be in a blues brothers band, so he is normally suggesting we do some more of theirs.