Stub Mandrel

You know you are getting old when you would rather have roadies than groupies...

^^^ This!

It's probably because I came to bass largely from (amateurishly) fingerpicked guitar, so I find that sort of pattern relatively straightforward compared to learning several similar but different runs.

I was just going to say that.

That's only the Dave Brubeck Trio! I demand a refund.

If you play all the fills. Folks do realise the chorus isn't just 3 or 4 notes? This will play from 4:20:

I was a relic sceptic too, but I wanted an jazz, fancied an early 60s spec jazz, tried a Flea and it was awesome.

I always think one of the defining characteristics of Fraser's playing is how much time he spends in what is effectively the guitar's lower register. Honestly, if find the solo part easy, just needs care to get the jump up right on the first round.

The chorus ISN'T EASY!!!! Not if you try to sound like Andy Fraser.

I've been playing it for over thirty years. The bit under the solo is easy enough if you practice it, just need to be quick if playing it in the same position as Andy Fraser and not doing it around the 12th fret. The chorus is the tricky it, you can just bluff it with a few notes, but done properly there's a fair bit of variation as well as several improvised fills.

Just play TO the chords. If you know the chord the individual notes are usually pretty intuitive. You shouldn't have to be sitting there picking out individual notes of a run. ... As you clearly are unfamiliar with All Right Now, it might be a good one for you to try playing live without learning it first and reporting back on how it goes.

I should add that I agree trying to play along with random songs is a great way of developing skills. It isn't a way to learn how yo play them it isa way to improve your improvisation

There's a big difference between winging it which takes more confidence than skill, and doing the job well. In the blues band its great for confidence building, because there's a common musical language and conventions, even if you aren’t playing a twelve-bar. For example, its rare to have a true bridge. This means when on unfamiliar territory you can still anticipate enough to sound reasonably tight, and when you do know the material you can go off piste with confidence. In the covers band even something as simple as Chasing Cars - sure you could probably play it without having heard it before, but to do it well there's a fair bit of dynamics and stop start to learn. A better example would be Purple Rain where you have to build your playing over the song and can be fairly improvisational, but you need to know when and what you're building up to. Of course there are songs you can learn on a single pass, but on clser inspection most turn out to have subtlety you need to tease out to do them justice. If it was really that easy, why is such a large percentage of onlne tab wrong - I recently got a site to correct its "offical tab" for Green Onions FFS!

Then there's the Taco Belle's Canon phenomenon.

I learned wherever I lay my hat, only to be told 'we are doing the Marvin Gaye original'

You wait YT. All those years of penury await...

Tore Down

So basically you're a root and fifth kind of guy?

So basically you're a root and fifth kind of guy?

Last gig the encore was a song I'd never heard before. Guitarist told me C and played me the bass riff, once, quietly. I rather enjoyed it, crowd were happy. But It was a straight 12 bar, took a couple of verses to get the turnaround 🤪

What about standard short scale? Or long scale? Or fan fret? Or partially fretless? For God's sake get a grip man!

The advantage of flats is they sound craP but don't get any crapper. And they feelovely to play.

My brother has a tame luthier who does all his setups. I'm conflicted on one hand I enjoy incrementally tuning my instruments over time, on the other I am tempted by a good setup.

Just having a bit of fun under the affluence of whisky 🙂