Frank Blank

I play a 23 1/2 scale Taylor, this looks very interesting and not at all ridiculous.

Ignorance, stupidity, homophobia and racism are still rife and it certainly isn’t particular to any generation, dislike of the ‘other’ is a fundamental of the human condition unfortunately, self awareness on the other hand is a rare thing.

Up until last week I never had a teacher! My idiotic fault for not trying SS basses earlier.

Before you shell out on a five string try a short scale four or five string. I have small hands and played normal scale basses for years, trying a short scale was a revelation for me, should have been playing them all along.

I have only ever seen one in black, although someone on here did mention trying one somewhere. I emailed Jaydee and asked them if they could build me a short scale Supernatural and they can. I’m going to see if the Chowny SWB Pro satisfies the Jaydee gap, so to speak, if not I might order a new one.

I use an AER Basic Performer with my acoustic basses and I’ve seen many upright players using the Basic Performer and other AER combos, never heard a bad word about them

I just Googled ‘ear defenders in orchestra’ lots of articles and products, some of which are quite old.

Me too actually, although it makes sense to me now I had never thought about it before.

Both, just checked.

For what it’s worth I just chatted with someone who worked for Scottish Opera and they have issued ear protectors and utilised deflectors since 2002.

Actually these reasoned arguments have made me think again, indeed it is the responsibility of an employer to ensure the health and safety of its employees, hmmmm. I suppose adequate warnings about noise and adequate ear protection could have been issued and recommended, from then in it could be the employees risk if they wish to take it. I suppose it is a shock to me because it seems obvious that loud environments carry a risk and although I am wholly behind a culture of health and safety I also feel that people, generally, are less and less inclined to take responsibility for their actions and choices. If the orchestra was causing hearing damage due to neglect or exceeding some kind of recognised volume limit (it may well have done, I am no expert in this field) then fair enough and I suppose there has to be a first in defining laws and regulation in certain fields. As I said it’s just the trend for abdication of personal responsility that worries me, perhaps it’s an entirely different matter?

I would have done this once, maybe, if I’d been in a particularly good mood, which hasn’t happened for a couple of decades, but more than once with no thanks..? I call that, in polite language, being taken advantage of.

My hearing is in tatters after many years gigging, being road crew and sitting in on hugely over-loud rehearsals, all entirely my fault. He may well of been in the firing line but was he forced into it? Did he not realise it’s a loud piece, could he not have worn ear protectors?

Bollards, can you imagine Lemmy suing Marshall and Rickenbacker for hearing damage? Or perhaps a venue they were playing, utter tosh, is no one ever responsible for their own actions anymore? If I went deaf in a loud environment I wouldn’t even consider taking legal action unless it was explicitly due to someone else’s negligence and even then that would be highly difficult to prove. In fact if someone like me bowled over and said “But this is a loud environment, it’s a risk you take you plank”, I’d probably take the ‘fair enough’ high road (and then get hit by the car I didn’t hear honking at me).

I had a black Jaydee Supernatural that I traded way back in the late 80s or maybe early 90s and damn, I sure miss that bass.

I agree, I understand the temperamental creative type but such skittishness surely could be addressed by a cheeky uppercut?

It is a good watch, the longer version even more so. I also really like the History of the Eagles, fascinating watch

Isn’t this the much truncated version? I seem to remember watching this documentary over two hour and a half episodes that went into far more detail and the version that aired on Friday was the shorter version that’s been aired a few times. Having said that I can’t find the longer version anywhere, there was far more in the longer version about the Peter Green era.

Anyone?

Any Ibanez SRC6 owners out there who can tell me what make/product code/size string sets you may have used?

I hadn’t thought of this. I learned drums, or at least began learning drums, at 14 years of age on a borrowed kit and also began bass playing with a borrowed bass. However, I appreciated the importance and generosity of the loans, looked after the equipment and would have covered any damages incurred. I don’t find people, generally, these days, have such respect for borrowed gear or the people it’s borrowed from.

That’s not scarring, that’s knowledge, I’m envious.

I played in a thrash band for around ten years and never got nervous until the first night I had to drive myself to a gig so I couldn’t drink whereupon I discovered that, in fact, I got incredibly nervous. I stopped drinking before gigs at that point and found myself playing much better and enjoying myself lots more.

See, this is all good learning. I always assumed that etc. was a contraction of the word etcetera rather than an abbreviation of the phrase et cetera and I’ve acquired that knowledge via this thread. Marvellous. Thank you @prowla.

Now, gentlemen, let’s stop this bickering, talk of bullying and have that beer. S*** does get deep sometimes and sometimes we get caught out before we got the waders on. The important bit is that when we find ourselves in the deep and any of us is uncomfortable there we should recognise we are having difficulties, hold out a hand and get back to shore as mates.