JoeEvans

Counterpoint is a whole huge thing in classical music and I wouldn't really know where to start with that... I think I'd suggest finding beautiful melodies in any type of music and learning to play them on the bass, as the best place to start. Nobody but you can find out how to create music that you find beautiful. It might not be your cup of tea at all but have a listen to a band called The Gloaming. The fiddle player is a guy called Martin Hayes who is a genuine genius at finding extraordinary beauty in simple melodies. His album The Lonesome Touch (not with The Gloaming, just him and a guitarist called Dennis Cahill) is up there with Kind of Blue to my mind.

I think beauty in basslines comes from a sense of melody - not just defining the chords and rhythm by moving through the root notes, but finding a tuneful line that is compatible with, but different from, the main melody of the song. It's counterpoint, basically, so a study of that would be a good starting point. My perception is that to feel beautiful, the bass needs to define a more complex chordal form - getting some seconds, thirds, sixths and sevenths in there as well as the 1-4-5. That means understanding harmony to some extent. I think a study of basslines that feel beautiful would also pick up the use of ornaments and incidentals - extra little details that highlight parts of a melody and adjust the harmony temporarily.

Are you looking for suggestions of beautiful basslines, or opinions on how to create a beautiful basslines?

That looks great... Wonder how much it will cost?

I think a double bass has plenty of stage presence of its own. You just need to look relaxed and suave, or failing that, inconspicuous.

I seem to remember that the Audix OM7 vocal mic is good for this situation - very directional, although the singer needs to get right up close to the mic to get the best from it. I think it's a common choice for very loud stages. Might be worth a try?

Two-part polyurethane yacht varnish is also incredibly hard-wearing and would be a lot easier to apply than epoxy - just prep, mask up the neck and do loads of coats, rubbing down with super-fine sandpaper in-between.

I used to own a (non-music) shop and I was always very welcoming when people came in just to browse, because although they think they're not going to buy anything, you know that deep down they do want to buy something or they wouldn't feel drawn to come in. Sometimes they'd come back a few times and just look around, and then you know that in due course they're very likely to buy. Browsers aren't time wasters, they're just the unripe fruit of the customer world, who need gentle ripening with the warm sunshine of the salesperson's welcome. If someone works in a shop and doesn't understand that, either they or the shop won't last long.

Have you still got the jazz? I'd be interested to know how well the coating has stood up - I've read mixed reports, some people saying that it got scuffed quite quickly.

Did it make much difference to the sound when you epoxied the fingerboard on your jazz?