Stub Mandrel

Surprisingly easy to do...

If that guitar doesn't play true-tempered harmonics I'd want my money back.

Actually yet ANOTHER gig slips in before the PC&TBS one. My brother is taking me to see Marillion for my birthday 🙂 Last time I saw them was Reading 1983, and before that the Script for a Jester's Tear tour: I still have both programmes!

Where..?

Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons at the Patti Pavilion. Last gig of the tour and on home turf so hopefully something special.

*may not apply in the case of certain modern jazz fusion 'funk' bands...

In case it's not obvious, a Jazz or other bass with a pickup near the bridge will deliver more harmonics than a P-bass.

Gary Clark Jr Live.

I could post a video of the guitarist I've started playing with recently, made when he was 14 he's ripping through a live version of Parisian Walkways. He's in his early twenties now. There's definitely no shortage of feel or ability to play well with others, and great knowledge of the blues. Jimmy Page was on BBC1 at 13 and went pro at 15.

The first audition I went to, I learned (approximations of, no easy to get tab around 1986/7) seeral songs with help from my brother, a guitarist with a better ear than me, especially back then. Met up with guitarist and drummer. It seems that the sings were 'just an indication of the sort of thing'. They bumbled around various things that may have been nascent songs or just jams At the tiem I felt out of my depth and almost relieved not to be asked back. Looking back now, I suspect they actually didn't know how to play those songs themselves... but at teh time it was a blow to my confidence. Remarkably, I fell in with another bunch without muso pretensions, and we just clicked and had a great couple of years improving our skills and having fun, although we didn't set the world alight. When I moved away I was in a position to do much better at auditions and ended up in an originals band. I did get thrown out for 'being too widdly' - perhaps more that I wanted to play space rock, while the others wanted a sort of garage/goth fusion. By the next band, the audition was basically a pub interview followed by a session with the band leader who taught me a lot of their (Jam-like) bass lines, and passing the audition was basically just being able to play them properly! Left them when I change jobs/married in 96. This time around it's been much easier as when getting into things I developed a voracious appetite for learning songs, without being precious about genre or style. Over time, you develop a whole swathe of skills that help in getting into bands, that aren't simply being able to play difficult passages. Some of these are: A better ear, so you can rapidly work out the key without watching the guitarist and pick up the basic riffs (play along to random songs on the radio). This means you can jam with anyone, even if you just pump out root notes. The ability to identify the core parts of a song you need to do as original, where you can simplify and where you can improvise. A subconscious 'library' of riffs and runs that make improvisation easier. An intuition for anticipating chord changes, including hearing when the melody (often voice or guitar) is leading into a change. Fitting your rhythm to the drummer. Dynamics - when to ease back and when to dig in. I'm sure others will suggest other things, but what they all have in common is that they come with practice, and the best way is learning lots of songs all the way through. I suppose this is really a very long way to say learning those ten songs was not wasted effort!

A good starting point would be in guitarists knew what a 'key' is - and that (a) it's more likely to be the last note of the song than the first (b) it might not be either and (c) it might change as the song goes along.

Yeah, but think how much time they spend practising their bass faces instead of being delinquent.

Can we post this every time someone says "I need a short scale bass because I have little fingers/small hands/short arms"?

If you have 'fret position dots' set the intonation so your 'natural' finger position is in tune at the octave 9I can't say "12th fret") and magically that finger position will work along the whole length of the neck. As you move up a position mean you have to adapt constantly so there isn't one simple 'muscle memory' to build. I found that my fingers naturally come closer together as I move up a result of playing fretted bass anyway. What is trickiest is keeping positions consistent across the strings. The ultimate arbiter is sound, the dots guide to then changing position, then you will eventually start to subconsciously adjust if out of tune, in the same way you probably bend a string slightly if it sounds flat when playing a fretted bass. You don't learn this, you just discover you are doing it one day, and feel smug 🙂

I bought some no-name ones from Amazon or eBay... they seem to be really good. But I only use them on basses whose original buttons are too small. I have a strap for each bass/guitar.

Just to say Richard Thompson is still as awesome as ever. Some old, some new, some excerpts from his new bio Beeswing, vocal accompaniment from Zara Phillips (not that one). Excellent support from Katherine Priddy. He (at 73) did pass comment on the demographics of the audience. Let's say an above-average number of punters had to pop out for a pee... But, by gum, his guitar playing really ought to put him up with the greats.

Oooh...

I just use generic sheets off eBay. There are two types, white and clear. If you use white you have to trim very carefully, but colours (rather than black) on clear will come out transparent*. I use an inkjet printer. The best lacquer I've found is Windsor and Newton Gloss, several coats to build a nice strong decal. The body decal on this guitar is the biggest I've done. You can see how the yellow is translucent, if not transparent. Grey works fine on pale maple for 'Fedner' style decals. *Unless you have one of the legendary old inkjets that had white ink and can source the ink!

Thirded. I also love Blues Power with Bernard 🙂

Crikey moses, is Lee Aaron still going? I saw her at Reading in 1983!

Has to be a provisional answer as I'm waiting for some out of stock items, but this pairing: Worst purchase was the Stagg 1/4" jack to speakon cable, the jack is about 2mm short and the vibration causes it to self-eject from my Elf causing trouser-browning silence...

Virtuosity before musicality, IMHO.

If the screw comes loos on the old style, the button will tend to slip if the strap causes rotation. With the new screw button any rotation will tend to unscrew it.