zbd1960

I believe music teachers use coloured overlay sheets to help people with dyslexia read music - I know no more than that, but might be useful?

I've played medleys in various orchestras and even simplified versions are tough! I know people who've played the Symphonic Dances which Bernstein himself arranged and they are said to be some of the toughest stuff out there, especially for rhythm

Yes, and because of the instruments I play, I can read all four standard clefs (bass, tenor, alto, and treble). Last week I did a lot of sight-reading at summer school for both cello and baritone sax. I taught myself and passed grade 6 music theory - when I get a chance I'll do 7 and 8.

A feature of most basses it seems when you buy them is that they come with a little packet of bits and pieces to help make adjustments, like the Allen keys necessary to adjust bridge saddles etc. Cellos and saxes do not have these luxuries... and last week at summer school that proved to be an issue. Saxophones are real Heath-Robinson beasts, although they have evolved and improved since their invention in the C19th by Adolphe Sax, they are still mechanically complex and have inherent tuning issues arising from the laws of physics. The woodwind instrument equivalent of 'action' is 'regulation'. Saxes have an assortment of mechanical contrivances to control the opening and closing of cup keys. Give a sax a stern look and it can go out of regulation. There are needle springs , levers, rods in the mix. Some of the springs hold things open, others hold things closed. There is an art to balancing the strength of the springs. If you get air leaks caused by pads on cup keys not seating properly, strange things can happen. To give you an idea of just ONE thing these have to do: to play in the second octave, you have to depress the octave key. This opens a valve on the body and it's engaged by rolling the tip of your left thumb when you reach D on the 4th line of the treble clef. However, when you get up to A, the body octave valve is closed and a second one on the neck is opened. If you come down from A, then the opposite happens... this happens automatically through a complex arrangement of levers. Anyway, I was in wind ensemble on Wednesday after lunch and suddenly there was either no sound coming out of the baritone or weird noises. I played down GFED in lower octave and sound generally went up, sometimes by a 12th or more. Going up, some notes went down... There was a great deal of whistling and parping... It was obviously leaking all over the shop. One obvious things was the little 'see-saw' that controls the octave mechanism wasn't working, but there were other issues as well. The needle springs all seemed to be hooked on and seated. The big band tutor was sitting in on clarinet and she came over and agreed something was loose... The conductor of the group is an oboist and she spotted it - one of the screws that goes into one of the control rods was proud by about 3mm, it had obviously been working its way out and the control rod was loose meaning various key cups were not seating properly... that rod had three major key cups attached to it. The solution was a jeweller's screwdriver, which I didn't have (I used to carry bits around but had got out of the habit). Fortunately, the oboist in the group had some stuff and we tightened it (oboists and bassonist always have a comprehensive kit of tools and assorted bit and pieces). Once tightened, all was fine. Just as well as the big band recital was later that evening... Lesson learnt. I am putting together the tools that need to be in music case. I get issues with the cello's end-pin getting stuck as well. So, a set of various types of small pliers, an assortment of small screwdrivers, some tweezers have been acquired. I just need to add a crochet hook (used to hook needle springs back on), some felt, and some blu-tac...

Somehow I've gone from zero to 5 quite quickly: Fender jazz; Sire Marcus Miller 5 string, Spector 6 string, ACG Krell 32/4, Manton Custom Titan 32/6...

Last week was a busy week at music summer school. I mostly played cello and bari sax, but the Krell had an outing. I've been to many music summer schools of different types over the last 25 years or so. This year's one is one where you sign-up for an assortment of activities rather than say just orchestra or wind band. There are multiple options you can choose for each of the six sessions each day, although some like chamber orchestra are double sessions which means you do 5 options. There are quite a few options to choose from ranging from solo and sight singing, to folk music, trad and modern jazz, chamber music etc. My options were: chamber music, string orchestra, wind ensemble, chamber orchestra, and big band. I did an optional early morning session playing bass rehearsing the ceilidh band (which played for one of the evenings later in the week). You get challenged by a week like that, partly because it's immersive and partly the tutors are pushing you and you're doing things you might not otherwise consider (e.g. on cello I played movements from the Mendelssohn octet and Haydn's Lark quartet). They are quite sociable as well as there's usually a bar for the evening. Unfortunately for me this year, I was not resident on site so a pinto or two was not an option. There are lots of these kinds of things covering every genre and type of music. If like me you live on your own, they are a good option.

OK gig updates... Bass wasn't my main instrument of the week - I played mostly cello and some baritone sax. With the sax there were two performances at the end of the week. I played in a big band, which wasn't full size, made up of clarinet, trumpet, 2 tenor saxes, me on bari sax, bass and rhythm guitars, keys, and drum kit. We did a 30 minute set of a mix of stuff including Green Onions (something like this, La Bamba etc We played in the room that was set-up with the bar, rather than the main hall, so it meant people were dancing... The other bari performance was wind ensemble, where I was a substitute bassoon..., playing more classical repertoire. For string orchestra performance, I was the concertante cellist (soloist) in a concerto grosso by Stanley, plus 'Elegy' by Elgar. For orchestra, the main work was Haydn symphony 104: the first movement has a slow start then sets off...

Tutor said dancers often speed up as the get through a set. I reckon you're looking around 240bpm or more for the quicker ones

I didn’t do anything for 4 or so years. My thread “non rock n roll bassist” talks about my musical journey. im primarily a cellist and yesterday I was sight reading Mendelssohn octet - here’s my part

Technically I had my first gig on bass this evening. I'm at a music summer school, mostly playing cello plus some baritone sax. I have brought a 4 string with me and the tce BG250. I though I might play bass in the big band session, but I'm on bari. I joined in with the ceilidh optional session before first session starts in the morning and I've just played for this evening's ceilidh. Harmonically, it's simple stuff. The only music is the 'tunes', some of which will indicate chords simply as say GCD, with the odd Gm or something added. Not many clues and how it is played does not align to standard practice... I mostly stuck to roots and the odd fifth - it's so fast that most of the time that you couldn't do much else. I was accompanying an assortment of flutes, tin whistles, recorders, fiddles. Definitely not rock 'n' roll... Overall it went OK despite the novice driving the bass. Some tunes had no chords, so I was doing my best to deduce a chord from the tune.

My main instrument is cello. I've been able to read bass and treble clef notation since I was about 10 or 11. Being a cellist I got used to listening out for the bass line. I did music O Level as an optional subject at school. I didn't do much until my mid 30s when I started singing lessons and ended up singing baritone (upper bass) in various choirs. Cello means I have to read bass, tenor and treble clefs. I then started learning to play the viola da gamba (viol) which is a renaissance/baroque instrument. For bass, you need bass and alto clef, and the tenor uses alto clef and treble. In 2011 I started to learn alto sax and bought a cello and picked it up after a 35 year gap. I put myself through grade 6 theory. So, when I picked up bass not so long ago, I could already read bass clef fluently and I've got more than enough music theory...

Hmmm... feel that musique concrète isn't out of place... This one gets going just under a minute in:

It's all very alien to me... I never went clubbing etc as a youngster

I have mixed feelings about this. If it's once every three weeks and it's a reasonable time of day, I think they're being a bit overly critical, especially if they say they can't hear it in winter... If it was more frequent, they'd have a point.

I've had a listen to quite a few of the links that have been posted above. It's interesting that some are stylistically similar to the minimalist genre in the classical world, obviously some are not. Some for me give me the same problems I have with C20th 'avant garde', 12 tone serialism, etc. as in 'where's the music?'. Musical preferences are very personal. In my younger days I was very much a 'classical only' person. My tastes and interests are much wider now, and even for genres that I don't get on with I can still appreciate good musicianship even if I don't like the music!

I’m a cellist and I go with those saying no. I have a challenge with a normal sized hand getting the 4th finger I tune and not slightly flat in first position when extending for say C# on the G string. Bass spacing is much bigger - it would be tricky. Cello involves a lot of shifting as well and bass doesn’t have an easy way of marking 4th position ( ok there are fret markers). I can cope with learning bass and I’m sure someone younger would adapt much more easily.

The bass viol bow came back from the luthier - £40 for a re-hair. I've put some anti-moth papers in the case - apparently these deal with the mites as well. So hopefully that doesn't recur.

Okay, different topic today. I've been reading about the various issues people have playing in bands - much entertainment and drama it seems! By and large the choirs and orchestras I've played in are an entirely different beast to the bands discussed here. You pay a subscription to be a member (around £140 pa these days). They have a music director to lead/conduct. The nearest equivalent at the moment is probably the saxophone ensemble I play in. We're a disparate group that came together via an online community. We're currently an octet if everyone turns up playing SSAATTBB. We're widely scattered and meet near Manchester as it's equally inconvenient for most of us! That leads to the first 'problem'. Given the distances involved for all but one person, we meet monthly for a 3 hour rehearsal. Sax, for everyone except me, is their first instrument and they've started as 'late adult learners'. Being an ensemble playing orchestrated arrangements means you have to read staff notation and for most this was new as well as playing. It was me that started the group, originally as a trio meeting at my house. The loss of high street music shops makes it very difficult to find suitable music to play especially as I ideally need to have a look through to see if it can be managed by the group. Some of the players are very competent. The issue with most is like many they they play with backing tracks at home and have little or no experience of playing with others in a group. As the person with the most experience of playing/performing in large ensembles, some experience/training in conducting, and also with the most music 'knowledge', I've ended up being the conductor of the group and I run the rehearsals and sort out the music. People do sometimes buy/obtain music for the group. We've been meeting for several years now. Compared to when we started, the group has made a lot of progress. Things like sight-reading and timing have improved a lot. The biggest issue is timing/rhythm and that's where playing in a group is a big difference - you need to be listening to the other parts as well. The thing that prevents more progress is the irregular nature of the monthly meetings - it's not a fixed date as we try to pick dates when the most people can attend. We have discussed meeting more regularly, but logistics are against us. The distance between me and the most northerly member of the group is nearly 100 miles, and east-west we're scattered over about 80 miles. The issue I have is that I started playing trios as I wanted to play in a sax trio/quartet. For reference I'm grade 6 on sax. One player is grade 8, the rest are 3 - 5. I've ended up being the leader, conductor, music arranger (I've edited various pieces of music for us to play) for the group. Large parts of most meetings I'm standing there with a score and a baton conducting and working to help people sort out issues. I usually bring both a Bb and Eb sax so that I can help out people with their parts. I actually don't get to do much playing most times. Sometimes, if I am playing, I'm playing my part from the score so I can watch what else is going on. I kind of feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. I really want to play. I accept that I'm the one with the experience to help rehearse the group. But it places all the onus on me. It was interesting a few meetings ago when one of the soprano players needed a break and said they'd conduct whilst I played their part on tenor. At the end of that they said they hadn't realised how difficult it was to try to beat time, read the score, and listen to what everyone is doing... Sometimes the G8 player will conduct, although he's stopped doing it except when I'm away. He freely admits he lacks the experience of working and rehearsing groups and he's told me he finds it very difficult. If I opt to just play, the group will struggle and it's not a realistic option really. I am likely to be moving later this year, that may adjust things dramatically. The move will put me much nearer other players and I may just have to move on and accept that I've helped develop the group and that it's tie to move on.

I used to play tenor sax in a wind band that's 50 miles from here. One of the reasons I stopped playing with them was repeatedly coming home from rehearsals or gigs and discovering random overnight road closures with 20 mile detours...

Yes, if you use Photoshop, In Design etc and you need to fill a text box with text then 'Lorem ipsum' is the default text that gets inserted until replaced by your real text.

Definitely musique concrète... This was the nearest I could find to neo-brutalist music...

Oh dear... someone hasn't done their proof reading and site checking...

They should just go the whole hog and buy a theorbo...

I have several A4 magazine holders which occupy the bottom shelf of one of my bookcases in the study

I understand the pain, but as an amateur musician that has sung for years in various choirs and played in various orchestras, with one notable exception, I have to pay to perform via subscriptions etc. I did some film work for ITV where they needed real musicians who knew how to play their instruments. We were filmed but MU rules meant pros sound was overdubbed onto our playing... It was fun and well paid. I get paid for repeats too... (only once so far). A friend of mine who's done band work etc for decades says the fees are ridiculous as they're less than they were 30 years go. As noted, costs haven't gone down...