upside downer

Give it a go. Learn the easiest tunes and a couple of the harder ones and have a rehearsal with them. If it feels good, do it. Good luck!

My old three-piece band used to do Breathe by The Prodigy which was always well received. I think most punters love a 'curve ball', it shows you've made an effort. I'd like my current lot to try more but the drummer's a set in his ways rocker and won't have it! Would love to try something like a Lady Gaga tune or a 90s dance classic.

[quote name='gary mac' timestamp='1497906406' post='3321282'] Whole lotta love is one of those numbers that is considered simple, until you try to do it properly. [/quote] As JPJ explains here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=011ZJRydMSU

Blitzkrieg Bop by The Ramones. In fact, anything by The Ramones. Stereophonics are pretty straightforward too, basslines mostly root notes. And if your guitarist is experienced then he shouldn't have any bother either.

Public Image by Public Image Ltd springs to mind.

Friggin' In The Riggin' by the post-Rotten remnants of The Sex Pistols.

Play in a rock/pop covers band and current favourites are 'I Am the Resurrection' and 'I Am the Walrus'. Maybe I just like playing songs that are titled 'I Am....' something.

I used to have a real problem when i was in my teens and early twenties about bands not having 'proper' instruments. This was late 80s, early 90s so it was the time of rave and dance culture when a line-up of guitar, bass and drums was non-existent in much of those acts' line-ups. It wasn't until I heard The Prodigy a fair few times that I realised I was basically cutting myself off from so many forms and styles of music due to some outdated notion of what 'real' bands were. Silly, really. Decided there and then to listen to and absorb as much variety as possible. You still might dislike a lot of things but by opening up you're bound to come across something that otherwise would've remained hidden to you.

[quote name='Rich' timestamp='1486928889' post='3235665'] Yup. I frequently search for 'base guitar', often comes up with some interesting results. [/quote] Try 'base giter'. Might get even luckier!

You might find a bargain under gitar, guiter or giter. I've found that misspellings are a good indicator of someone not having a clue about an instrument or its worth.

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1486918574' post='3235510'] One word: market forces. [/quote] That's two words but point taken.

Currently Oasis' Rock and Roll Star but previously it's been The Who's Substitute or Dick Dale's Misirlou.

I've always struggled on guitar with anything more complicated than rhythm playing. Soloing remains a ham-fisted catastrophe. Mandolin is another instrument of fat-fingered frustration.

A chart hit from 1992. They did play it on the radio quite a lot. I threw a lot of radios at the wall. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqD1OohY2to

[quote name='Oopsdabassist' timestamp='1484511207' post='3216011'] I have a soft spot for Perfect Strangers myself. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ_kez7WVUU[/media] [/quote] Just beat me to it! Great track.

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1484324245' post='3214733'] Never Mind The Bollocks, by The Sex Pistols. Another 70s album as well! [/quote] Same here. And a later effort by Johnny too - Album by Public Image Ltd.

[b]This is from musiq.com. It explains it all. I think. Got to be honest, it makes my head hurt a little. [/b] [b]Tuning systems, theoretical and performed[/b] There is a lot of confusion as to the tuning systems of music in the makam/ maqam system. Particularly, scholars from Turkey and Egypt have developed sophisticated theories to justify particular symmetrical tuning systems, but in reality, musicians play altogether something different. [b]Historical systems[/b] The work of Safi al-Din (c. 1293) describes the tuning of scales based on 17 unique notes per octave. This is significant, since some fretted instruments from Turkey and Egypt, capable of playing more than 12 notes to the octave, have frets that allow exactly 17 unique pitch classes. The [i]baglama-saz[/i] and [i]divan-baglama[/i] are examples of modern instruments with this ancient tuning system in mind. Some Arab quarter-tone accordions, as well, offer 5 additional non-Western notes. Additionally, one can define a hierarchy of important pitches based on modes (maqamat) at root position. This root position limitation restricts possible tonics to three primary: G, A, and B "half-flat", as can be seen on the following diagram: Now, moving to modern Turkish music, we find that with 17 notes we can represent the most common of Turkish folk [i]and[/i] classical music modes, though Turkish notation would describe these notes differently. Thus, the baglama-saz, the national instrument of Turkey, is capable of playing all the common makams at root position without moving any frets. However, one of the most common aspects to the improvisatory genre known as [i]taksim[/i] is the use of modulation, and in particular makams modulated fromt their root position. Thus, we find that the five non-Western notes required to represent root-position music, in transposition, form a set of somewhere between 24 and 36 unique pitch classes per octave. Additionally, some performers and ensembles perform multiple subtle variants on one or more of the pitches: thus where I loosely mentioned two distinct notes that Western musicians may mistakenly think of as E "half-flats," there are in fact sometimes three unique notes with this designation. Thus, where Western music has the pitches: we would find the following potential pitches in use in standard repertoire in Turkey and Egypt: [b]Arab music theory versus practice[/b] In 1931, the Cairo Congress was organized to discuss Arab music, and part of the meeting was devoted to attempting to define a universal intonation system for music of the Arab world. Scholars, both Arab and European, as well as musicians from each country, were brought to the conference, and debated the musical characteristics of Arab music. The main conclusion of the congress determined that Arab music could be adequately represented by a 24-note equal tempered system (all the Western notes plus the quarter tones in between). But, at the last minute, there was discussion that two or three extra notes were needed in order to represent the most commonly played forms of several particular makams. Thus, the official system is 24 notes equal tempered, with a defacto understanding that three extra pitches (higher versions of the E-half-flat and B-half-flat used in maqam Rast specifically, and a lower E flat to be used in makam Nahwand) are necessary. In practice, musicians in certain groups still play with intonations that draw more on the older style of playing; the half flats might be a bit lower than the "technically accurate" quarter-tone for certain makams and higher for other. [b]Turkish music theory versus practice[/b] In a similar move, Turkish musicologists decided that the Turkish system, which historically had not been rigorously theorized, required an equivalent system, but without the "plus 3" assymetrical aspects of the Arab system. In the system that developed, the octave is divided into 53 equal-tempered notes to the octave (yet through some funny math scholars deny that the intervals are indeed equal tempered and thus "out of tune" in relation to the harmonic sequence), of which 24 are named and perhaps 36 are commonly used. The fundamental interval of Turkish music is called the [i]koma[/i] (comma), which is defined as being 1/9 the interval between any Western equal-tempered whole step (for example, between C and D there are 9 koma). Though in theory this sounds great, it was not based on a rigorous measurement of intervals actually played by musicians of the time. When one listens to Tanburi Cemil Bey or Sukru Tunar recordings, for example, so-called "1-comma flat" intervals are played consistently lower (1.5 commas or so), while so-called "4-comma flat" intervals are played quite a bit higher (between 2 and 3 commas flat, or more close to the Arab quarter tone than to the notated pitch). In some modes, slight intonation discrepancies are consistently used when the melody is going up, while a lower intonation is used for descending passages. Though this can't be adequately notated with the current Turkish system, the older ways of tuning things have been passed down and by and large continue unchanged, though some musicians today use strict 1 and 4 comma intervals rather than the in-between notes. Thus, Arab and Turkish music are similar in that complex, mathematically-derived theories dominate published work on makam, while musicians perform something different than the specifically notated music, or perform with an understanding that there is a system for translating the notated pitches into the actually played pitches.

Cheers for the heads up about Jah Wobble.

Always quite liked 'Your Woman' by White Town. Quirky tune from late 90s, got to number 1.

Westfield VB960 violin bass that I won at an auction for £32 is my current gigging weapon of choice.

Think there's something of interest for us low-enders. The Listening Service - Why Is Music Addicted To Bass? www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07vwg5w

"What a f***ing rotter"

Got a Westfield VB960 copy of the Hofner. Great feel and tone and seeing as we play for over 2 hours per gig the lightness of it helps my poor old back no end. Saw it at an auction house that had a spree of selling off some half decent stuff a year or two back, lots of Peavey stock etc. Prepared myself for a bidding war but ended up winning it for £32! Result!

That's awful news. RIP Colgraff.

Instantly recognisably song from the last chord...? A Day In the Life.