Staggering on

In case anyone is playing this song over the Christmas season you should know it has been banned from a number of radio stations and networks in the USA and even here in Canada where the CBC(public broadcaster) will not be playing it. It has been deemed to be offensive to some people and does not fit well with the Me Too movement. We will continue to play it in our band and it always goes over well and we often get requests for it. Bah humbug!

Definitely a hip cat! Right hand technique looks good but left hand needs a bit of work.... Thanks for that HJ, it made my day and I've sent it on to other bass and/or cat lovers.

I found it online and thought since it looked like me and I play DB I just had to have it. It is the stikman( sic) bass player t-shirt design from zazzle.com. Here's the actual design...

On the subject of t-shirts, mine's not bass clef but definitely bass (and me 😁) on my long sleeved tee.

...and thank you for your comment, I know you know where I'm coming from.😀

On Saturday we played a breakfast gig (8:30 to 11:30) for an investment company and its clients and staff.Our jazz quartet has done this gig for about six years now and although it is essentially playing "wallpaper music" we do get some occasional applause and a lot of comments from individuals.Over the three hours about 300 people came and went while we played some lighter jazz and some Christmas songs and we view the gig as a good rehearsal and play some songs that we don't play too often on our regular gigs. It's always fun to hear our singer/keyboardist do "Santa Baby" and we do some "jazzy" arrangements of Christmas songs and we all enjoy "Everyone's Waiting For The Man With The Bag" and "Baby,It's Cold Outside" which the singer and I do and is a lot harder to sing while playing a good bass line that it sounds but we nailed it.I used my DB and had fantastic sound straight into our Bose PA using just the Schatten Mini Pre for volume control and the EQ on the Bose. I know it sounds like a dreadful gig to some of you but it is held in a beautiful venue, we are fed well from a huge breakfast buffet, easy load in/out, nice friendly crowd including some young kids who dance up a storm and we are well paid and can pretty much play what we want.We are booked for next year already. Downside...I leave home at 6:30 for a snowy one hour drive for 7:30 load in.

As suggested above, new songs in genres that are not what you normally play. Another idea would be try 5 or even 6 string bass or fretless if you haven't played them. When I switched from EB to EUB and then to DB I had to learn a whole lot about bass playing and have become a much better and much more confident bass player and I am playing things that for years I thought were way beyond my ability.I should add that I started on EUB about four years ago and bought a DB this year after many years of playing guitar and the last 30 years gigging on bass. I am 72 and having a blast learning all sorts of new material and techniques and playing in two gigging bands playing jazz standards with very good musicians and that has forced me to up my game.

My fault when I posted that reply, I think I've got it sorted this time.Maybe I can blame it on my excitement when someone actually wants to talk about banjos.Sorry about that. It sounds like you have an interesting band, I've always liked the Pogues and I would love to hear your band, maybe even play a bit of banjo but I'm on the other side of the Atlantic(Canada).I have been to England three times in the last five years and was at the BC double bass bash in April this year but at this point it would be a very long trip for rehearsals and gigs.😀 Good luck finding a banjo player, it sounds like a fun gig.

NO! How could you? ...now if it was an accordion or bagpipes....or maybe an oboe....

5 string is played with finger picks and used for bluegrass and country (unless you're Bela Fleck) and there are three types of 4 string banjos-tenor(ragtime and old time Trad jazz),plectrum(longer neck and different tuning than a tenor but same music styles) and Irish banjo which is different again. Most serious banjo players don't consider the 6 string banjo to be a "real banjo" but it is an easy switch for guitar players and sounds somewhat like a real banjo.None of the others have tunings that are the same as guitar or bass. Your choice of instrument is determined by the music you want to play because each banjo type is made for a specific style, if you want to play bluegrass you will have to learn to play 5 string. It's kind of like "I want to play bass".Double bass(orchestra, solo,jazz,folk,Bluegrass),acoustic bass guitar, electric,EUB.....and on and on... I agree, this is an odd place for this topic but since I play bass and banjo(tenor) I'm OK with it.

I used the Mini Pre at a house party our jazz quartet was playing at last night and it worked exactly as I had hoped and I even got the chance to use the volume control when a bass player in the audience said "more bass".Perfect.

Great way to look at things...have fun and keep on learning!

If you think 5 string and fretless open up possibilities, upright(EUB or acoustic) will take you into yet another whole world.I am a completely different bass player than I was a few years ago when I fell under the spell of uprights.Not for everyone but a great challenge and another way of seeing bass music. Isn't it wonderful to have all these choices!

As a contrast to the Hartlepool gig above, our jazz quartet played a house party with about 30 folks in a woodworking shop that had been cleaned up for the occasion.We played two one hour sets to a very appreciative audience and had a great no pressure evening.Not your usual house party with people wandering in and out, these folks were there to hear us and were actually seated in chairs while we played-definitely different.I used my new Schatten Design Mini Pre with my Englehardt ES9 upright straight into the Bose PA and it was great and I got several compliments on the sound(not necessarily the playing!) from a couple of bass players in the audience.Good sound, good music, good crowd, good pay=excellent night.

Fun gig for our jazz standards quartet on Saturday night, a somewhat rustic old fishing lodge on the shore of Lake Nipissing here in Ontario.We hadn't played there before and didn't know what to expect but it was a lovely big room that is a bar/restaurant and we had lots of room to set up beside a huge fireplace. Unfortunately on Friday night and most of Saturday we had our first real Northern Ontario snowstorm and although the roads were generally in good shape we knew some of our friends and band fans would not want to make a long snowy drive and so we were pleased with the 30-40 folks who showed up. Most would have had about an hour drive on a mix of highways and rural roads so we knew they would be an appreciative crowd. We usually play three sets over three hours and got through our first set and then passed out copies of our playlist (almost 150 songs) as we have done in the past in situations like this and after a couple of songs to start the set we played mostly requests for rest of the sets so the audience is involved and get to hear what they want and we play songs we might not have chosen for a particular gig.Everyone is happy and it keeps us on our toes. Meals supplied, good staff, plans to rebook us soon and an extra $100.00 on top of our usual fee.Everybody wins ! We were in good form and played exceptionally well and had a lot of fun going into our seventh year together.

Just picked up my Schatten Design Mini Pre and it is exactly what I need.I got the single input model but there is a two channel one available also.It is designed for any acoustic instrument.I have rigged my bass with a KNA DB 1 pickup that sounds great but apparently any type of pickup can be used. This little wonder is made here in Canada but is available through Gollihur (about $60 USD) and is listed by Thomann at what seems to be a ridiculously high price.In Canada it goes for around $70 CDN. It is a very basic preamp with volume control and an adjustable trim pot to match the input.Since I use the EQ on my amp or the EQ on the Bose PA if I'm going direct, all I wanted was an easy way to control the volume and this seems to be the perfect solution-small,simple,adjustable trim, 9V battery(up to 2000 hours apparently).It comes with a belt clip that you can screw onto it but I have it mounted on a bracket on my mike stand which makes it very handy and not as easy to accidentally bump with my arm or hand or jacket. So far I have only tried it at home but I will use it at a gig this weekend with my Englehardt Swingmaster ES 9 and am looking forward to a worry free night and when somebody says "more bass" I can do it! Life is good.

Good one! I will remember to use that one as I continue to improve on the upright acoustic that I bought after attending the double bass bash in April and meeting you and the other BC members.Thank you bassace and BC.

Excellent gig Tuesday night with the jazz standards quartet at Jazz At The Junction in North Bay Ontario, an hour from home. We were the first band to play when it opened about a year and a half ago and we get booked back every three months or so.The place was packed and extra chairs had to be brought in and the crowd was really up for it with many of our regulars and some new faces too.It was one of those nights when everything just goes well-good audience, good songs and all of us played better than usual and we all clicked on pretty much every song( which doesn't happen every time we play).Even our usually very serious keyboard player came out of her shell and surprised us with some great solos and her voice was in top form too.One of our best performances in the six year history of the band. This was the first time I have used my new KNA DB-1 pickup on a gig and I was really impressed as were the band members and some musicians in the audience.I was playing my Englehardt Swingmaster ES 1 and used a K&K preamp as a volume control only and went straight into our Bose PA.With the Bose you can set the input to "Bass" and then choose from a whole bunch of choices of electric(eg.Fender Jazz) and acoustic basses to get the correct input.I used "Acoustic Gage Pickup" and it was awesome.I then used the EQ settings on the Bose to dial in exactly what I wanted, set the trim and channel volume and used the preamp to make minor adjustments to the volume.Best sound ever for me...I love the Englehardt(not everyone's choice of course)and the KNA is very powerful and has a great sound, not as "quacky" as a lot of piezos. All in all a fun gig and very satisfying to find to find that my new pickup was all I had hoped for.I will use it next week for a seven piece swing band gig and for the other gigs for both bands-happy days! I drove home after the gig in a bit of rain that turned into snow as I got closer to home and ended with an inch or so in my driveway, good thing I put on my snow tires last week.

According to the string ID illustrations on the Gollihur site you are correct.You can tell if they are light or heavy by the colour of the ring at the pegbox-light is yellow, heavy is dark orange.

Perfect! ...I can't add anything to that except to say that I played my first gig 56 years ago.

Looks like "reasonable travel time" varies a lot.I play in two bands that rehearse an hour away from me and both bands rehearse weekly.Gigs(15-20) are also also at least an hour away.I also have played in pit bands for musicals that also require an hour each way.Unfortunately things always seem to be on different days/evenings due to work/family/other musical groups ,especially in the 7 piece swing band. I live in Northern Ontario in Canada where nasty winter weather is just part of life and sometimes the drive to rehearsal is a bit more of an adventure than I would like but I'm smart enough now to know when to stay home on really bad days/nights.I'm 72 and still working part time as well as my band commitments but as was said above "being in a band at all is golden" and even though I figure it actually costs me money to play in the bands it is worth the time and money to me.I have gear(BG,EUB,DB,amp) that works for me and is paid for and currently have no GAS,well,nothing serious. As I have said before, we are so lucky to have music in our lives and be a able share it with bandmates and audiences.I am fortunate at my stage of life to not have some of the responsibilities that many of you have but I also realize my time is running out and I want to use it musically as much as I can,I'm contemplating finding a DB teacher(also an hour away of course) to help me with my DB skills and augment the teaching vids on the net.I live in a very rural area so any type of public transportation is out of the question...remember this is Canada. I'm lucky I get to play lots of different types of music with very good musicians and at this point I'm willing to make time for it and my playing is improving as I try to keep up with them.Making music is magic.

I Googled around a bit and found a reference to "Fingerboard Oil-Number One" manufactured by Logic Promotions in Monmouth Gwent on the Rob Chapman(Chapman guitars)forum.Same stuff?Maybe he has a source.It was in a post dated from April 2018.

I've tried Take 5 on my upright and it's a challenge.What key are you playing it in?