Richard R

Welome aboard, to all of you!

Welcome aboard! There are so many good value basses available, and anything by Yamaha is good. I first picked up a bass three years ago. I'm not good, but I can get by, and it's one of the best things I've done. Welcome to a great, if occasionally very frustrating, hobby 😎

Welcome aboard!

Welcome aboard! Hope you find the site to your taste. Less brash than our American cousins, and with a tendency to descend to silliness rather than flame wars, but a hugely knowledgeable and helpful community.

Welcome aboard! Lots, and lots, and lots, of dots!!

Welcome aboard!

https://open.spotify.com/track/6P8bxNBbTGozvidJV9fjrG?si=4CMgILuURR60Dd3jHcpKgQ&utm_source=copy-link Thanks @LukeFRC !

Sad to hear you're not going to church @oldslapper - you do realise of course that most* of the people on this thread will now start earnestly** praying for you? Agree completely on the songwriting front. It's hard work! I have written a few worship songs, but only two were in my view good enough to record. All of the others at some point either fell into clichéd rhyme or phrase, and if I couldn't replace it I ditched the song. They were no worse than things I had sung, but no better. Thankfully I don't earn a living from shifting music, so I didn't have to put them out. *well maybe some. I have no actual idea on the percentage 😇 ** also I have no idea how many people on this thread are called Ernest.

Welcome aboard! Lots of friendly people here if you need help on the setup. (Don't ask me though, I don't know one end of a truss rod from the other...)

Excellent start to the day! Can I count it as my devotional?😇

Matching phoenix tail feathers for the neck cores? "The wand chooses the wizard, Harry, just like the bass chooses the player"

Oh, now I am envious! I saw him at the library theatre in Solihull on the tour for Slide Don't Fret. Great player.

I bought that on the strength of the cover, and played it twice, it just didn't grab me. This one, also bought for the cover, did grab me:

Free advice: Stay away from the marketplace!! And welcome aboard!

Two absolute favourites from school days. I haven't seen listed so far: Bryn Haworth- Live! Twelfth Night - Live and Let Live. And then of course the obvious candidates such as Live at Leeds, Yessongs, Three Sides Live, ...

This! So many songs are written for performances and recording, rather than for congregational singing. I don't want a mass return to Wesleyan Hymns, but at least write things we can sing. I didn't know that. Songs in D should be easy to sing then?

We use song select, except for one BL who writes out bespoke lead sheets in Sibelius so that the flute ornamentation is exactly what he wants. Where we have recordings of his songs I like trying to double up the flute ornaments on the bass. Done properly it sounds great, but I have never dared do it in church as I am not that reliable!

My colleague has just sent me this 😁

Belated welcome .

Welcome aboard!

Welcome aboard! Hope you're staying safe and warm. Colleagues from Texas have been appearing on video calls in full artic gear, or not appearing due to power failure or dealing with the weather.

I'm out! I thought I would be in for ages, especially as my budget wasn't really as high as I'd suggested here (maybe by the end of the year it would have been) but in a stroke of good fortune I've just bought a bass I've been looking for for ages. NBD - Brawley 5 string at last :-) - Bass Guitars - Basschat

I did. And it's fantastic: NBD - Brawley 5 string at last :-) - Bass Guitars - Basschat 😁

Funny how things turn out (as Victoria Wood sung many years ago). I've been keeping an eye out for a 5 string version of my bass, a Brawley. They aren't well known in the UK, but were made briefly in the US for a couple of years and are a very nice mid-range instrument. Last year I posted this: https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/398769-brawley-artemis-5-string-but-in-manchester-new-hampshire, which was an observation that there was a 5 string Brawley for sale in Manchester, but it was Manchester in New England not the UK. Earlier this year @Larry D messaged me to say that he'd seen the post, and I was the first person in the UK he had come across who had even heard of Brawley. He also had a very nice 5 string and we agreed we should meet up at a bass bash when we're next allowed. Then a bit later on he PM'd me again asking if I would be interested in buying the bass as it wasn't getting a lot of use. Well that was a silly question - of course I was! He sent some pictures, and the one thing that worried me was the width of the fretboard, 51mm at the nut and wide all along. Not having played a 5 much I was concerned how this would feel, and wondered if there was any way to try the instrument out. Step forward Larry's neighbour, who was working in Birmingham last weekend and offered to bring the bass up and meet somewhere public so I could try it out and if I liked it buy it! She knows nothing about basses or guitars, but what a very generous offer. So on Sunday I met her (and her colleague who very sensibly came along riding shotgun) in Tesco's car park near the M42 and was able to try and buy the bass. Pics now, and opinion afterwards 🙂 Brawley 5 string.MOV It is very pretty - and even better in real life. You can see what I was worried about with the width of the fretboard, but I really needn't have been. The 5 string bass has exactly the same scale length, 35", and string spacing as the 4 string, and the neck is equally shallow - which means it feels exactly the same to play. In fact I make exactly the same mistakes on it 😞 The low B sounds great, and I'm enjoying playing across the neck. Fortunately I've always muted with a sliding thumb, so no change there. The four isn't going anywhere, but the plan is to focus exclusively on the 5 for at least a few months and get good at that.

I'm playing in church on Sunday, but not as part of any band. I got a new bass at the weekend, and since I will be in church as part of the tech team I am taking it in with me, purely so I can play it LOUD through the PA when we are all finished 😎