zbd1960

Specialist shops are getting fewer and farther apart. It's even worse for orchestral instrument players. There's only a handful of specialist saxophone shops in the country. String players are a little better served with shops often a sideline of a luthier. Quite a few instruments - e.g oboe, bassoon - there is only a very small number and these are often run out of someone's home as a high street presence is just too expensive. One of the issues is music shops usually require a large footprint to have practice rooms to enable people to try instruments etc. This means their business rates are very high. Business rates need to be completely overhauled as the current model just doesn't work. Small independents in high streets get caned and multinationals in out of town business parks get tax breaks...

Should be a relatively straightforward trundle to get there along 50 miles of rural A roads: A41, A51, A50....

I like that he had the money from the Stones to run his own full size big band

For those that prefer one-off payments for software to subscription models, Affinity have both a PS equivalent and a DTP product: Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher. These are generally £49, but they do have them on half-price offer sometimes.

I've had a couple of cables from Designacable.

I'm not a composer so the answer is none. Artists seem to fall into two broad camps: live hard, die young; live less hard and probably die a bit older. Some artists peak at an early age, others mature more slowly. For some weird reason the focus is always on either those that die young, or who produce nothing better in their later years. Generally, people's work usually gets better as they get older. I suppose some lose their muse, some like Rossini make so much money when they're young, they're not bothered, others like Sibelius became alcoholics and produced nothing for decades.

Over the years I've seen any number of people seriously panic at the thought of turning 30... The shallowness of some people's thinking is staggering

This is a technique issue. There are all sorts of muscles that can kick in and lock up and make singing harder than it needs to be. This also affects range.

I'm primarily a cellist. A cello is not a small double bass. A double bass bow is much shorter than a cello one, is much heavier, and has a much deeper frog. Even with an overhand bow hold which is superficially the same as for cello (i.e. rather than German / viol hold) the technique is different. I'm not sure how cello strings would respond to being tuned in 4ths rather than 5ths. The tension on the strings is going to be 'off' since the C will be E, G will be A, D is unchanged, and A is G. I suppose it is a form of scordatura tuning... What will be peculiar is the normal 'positions' on the cello are not going to do what you would expect. In standard tuning, sliding to 4th position with the thumb at the shoulder means your 1st finger is playing a 5th up, i.e. the next string. It's a bit like a bass viol I suppose, that's tuned DGCFAD

I hadn't sung a note until my mid-30s and I hadn't picked up a cello or sax until my 50s and bass until my 60s... Do your best to find a vocal coach / singing teacher. Almost everyone is capable of singing, but there's more technique to it than most people realise. Just be aware that not all teachers will teach all styles/genres, so you if you have a very specific requirement, you'll need to ask to make sure that it's something they can get to to in due course

Thank you. That resolved it.

Previously when entering a thread, it would take me to last one I'd read, whereas sometimes it is now taking me to the first post in the thread. I'm selecting 'unread content'.

Bass is my most recent instrument... it started with a Yamaha upright piano...Now there are alto, tenor and bass recorders; tenor and bass viols (viola da gamba); 2 cellos; soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxes; 4, 5, and 6 string basses....

Standard joke in any choir is: how to silence the sopranos? Ask them to sing the harmony line....

Fortunately, it's mostly only the top A string on cello that has to be changed with any regularity - they're about £45. Last one lasted 3 years. Glad the C string doesn't need changing too often as they're about £120 each

I had a serious orchestral concert gig a few years ago which included a gospel choir for backing vocals - it wasn't religious music though. They were very good. I also did a vocal training workshop which featured gospel singers as part of the day. The day would have been better in my view without the additon of the gospel singing. When I was younger I was involved with the church quite a lot, but I never liked the worship band type of music - I really dislike it. I know a few people who are involved with that though and they quite obviously enjoy it, but it's not for me. I have had issues with some extremely arrogant church band groups when I've been involved with music workshops and they come in towards the end to set up for their rehearsal whilst we're finishing our workshop. Rude would be an understatement. They quite evidently held in utter contempt the music that we were trying to perform and did nothing but bang and clatter whilst we were finishing off (we were within the time we'd booked and paid for). I have no involvement with church now, I'm an atheist and I really have no time for religion. I'm not going to stop people following their religion if they so wish provided that they don't start telling me what I may or may not do.

Allianz is more expensive than New Moon I think

I have several policies with Allianz. Glad I did as when my cello fell over a few years ago, there were no issues getting it fixed by the luthier (fingerboard had come off, the bridge snapped, seams sprung open and badly marked).

A friend of mine sometimes does sound for big arena gigs etc. He used to be a session bass player. He’s always saying that bass is tricky to do well, rooms can make or break it, and the audience makes a big difference

I've only ever had to hire concert grand pianos from Forsyth's and found them very helpful (and in case you're wondering, the cost of moving a grand piano is more than the hiring cost). Nevertheless, that's poor service.

I don’t play double bass, but I do play the Viol (viola da gamba) both tenor and bass. The bass is cello sized. They use gut strings. You can get wire wound gut for lower strings. Yes they can be bowed. I obviously have no experience of using them on DB but gut is a natural material that ‘breathes’ and tuning moves until the material reaches equilibrium with its environment.

In my musical world 'heavy metal' refers to composers with a penchant for the use of the heavy brass department... cue Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Shostakovich et al...

Welcome to Salopia.... I'm at the north end of the county.

I'm not an expert in this space, but the issues may be due to very low frequency rubbish being pushed out? Filtering might help?

For some weird reason there does seem to be an impulse to categorise everything and assign it to a group and tag it with a label. I've encountered it elsewhere in a non-musical context and I do find it frustrating as in that case it's about assigning 'labels' to groups of people.