Stub Mandrel

Thank you for teaching me a new word. Now know what my dumpty-dumpty-dums are really called.

No. It's bloody fantastic that you can share these feelings. My advice is, don't get to hung up on what you have to achieve, just treat music as an end in itself. If there's someone you get a chance to play with, but they are a bit over-confident or like different music, don't worry about it. Don't treat it as a chore, playing what they like is an opportunity for you to make THEIR life better.

Don't force things, but don'y get too hung up on what you play. I signed up for a 'weekend warrior' sort of thing where I've been thrown together with a random bunch of guys of varying experience from 'I used to sing but I've taken up guitar eighteen months ago' to 'I'm in two bands'), two about my age (mid-late 50s) two a bit older. We have had seven practice sessions (OK we booked the rehearsal room for an extra last night). the gig, with four other similar bands, is on Sunday. I was nervous we would end up playing either old rock'n'roll numbers or lowest common denominator stuff. In the end we are playing songs we all really like and having a storming time. One thing is we are all putting in the effort and the amazing thing is when we listen back to recordings we are surprisingly good! The point is, I used to be in bands up until 23(!) years ago and have been really miserable about my music going nowhere, so my brothers (who both play) really told me to get some targets like learning some new stuff right through rather than just noodling riffs. This thing has given me a combination of the comradeship of being thrown together with four other random but surprisingly like-minded guys and the reason to get my act together. I was impressed by how fast and how many songs I learnt (we changed the list a fair bit in the first week or two) and how my playing has come on. I found some of the songs really hard to learn and technically challenging - now I can't see what the problem was! The only downside is wondering what life will be like when it ends - except the one guitar player and me both love the same sort of music and could end up starting a band. So my suggestion is consider something similar. The best thing is that once other people are relying on you, motivation isn't an issue but teh payback is just how rewarding it is.

We did some 'A B testing' last night and decided playing staccato eights sounds better defined. To finish the set I need a really f'd up sound already got HM2, Flange and Chorus so going to use the tremelo on that as well for maximum noise death.

I took my fretless to a rehearsal and managed to play everything on it. Once or twice I got cocky and tried to do a big position shift without looking... Decided not to use it for Sunday, although back when I was gigging regularly I used to use it on a few songs each night.

When I lived in a maisonette the son of the couple who lived above visited and played the Chilli Peppers rather loud. As soon as the track finished, I played it back to him considerably louder. That worked 🙂

I really doubt it...

I've installed guitar pro but it's a bit tricky and I don't have the time to get to know it at the moment.

Hoist by my own petard! My problem is that tab is often not laid out with sensible fingerings in the sense that unfeasible stretches or pointless changes of position are given: I have seen an example of a program that can automatically move fingerings to different locations. That could perhaps be used/adapted to automatically detect and eliminate silliness like in the example.

An interesting idea. The bugbear is that not everyone uses the same fingerings.

The topic, as set out in my original post has barely been addressed. I wanted to start a discussion on Tab. It's been hijacked into a discussion of why standard notation is better. It's like telling a blind man who wants a better radio the advantages of colour television; but such is the way of the internet. It's almost as if there is a conspiracy to keep tab from improving in case it becomes better... 😁

But as I never intend putting myself out there for that sort of gig, I have no use for sight reading.

Missed point alert. I know how to do that I can recognise triads and sevenths. I just am pathologically incapable of working out the key (other than C/Am) or the root note other than by carefully working it out.

I did say that I have some theory, I also know how notation represents theory. My situation with notation is like someone with an understanding of English grammar faced with a coded message where all the letters have been substituted - able to see the structure of the message but having to manually decode most of the letters before they can get the sense of the message. So I can spot triads and sevenths, for example, but without working out the key and then identifying the root I can't say 'Ah yes that's Am7'. Yes I know, it's just learning perhaps 21 locations and linking each one with a note. If it was that easy for me, don't you think I would have done it?

Is that Disaster Area? Which one is Hotblack Desiato?

The potential for errors in parsing that sentence is not negligible. Possibly add a comma after 'parents'?

Bring back proper festival toilets, then no-one complains about the music.

That's a different class B. Also note my bolded 'and' just using pulses alone does not make it 'digital'.

I'm familiar with the symptoms and the cause, which is moving my wrist and lower forearm back and forth over an edge, whether of desk or bass it's the same effect. It's hard keeping the discipline to lift my wrist clear of the bass, especially with some of my instruments. Never an issue with the small body B2 or my acoustic (where my arm crosses nearer the elbow). If a brace or pad of some sort 'spreads the load' like the gel pad for the mouse I am pretty sure the symptoms will go. Just using a big green elbow support on it seems to have helped yesterday so I'll use it again at tonight rehearsal. If I don't get the 'nerve son edge' feeling then the answer is finding a brace I am comfy to wear and that doesn't make me look like Jane Fonda. 🙂 That's pretty much my playing style for 90% of the time, problem is it doesn't take much to set it off so 10% is probably too much 😞

There was probably a curtain of p***-filled plastic bottles between us....

As a user of professional GIS, that's kind of like me saying to an amateur naturalist 'bear in mind you won't be supplied data from google maps'. Perhaps that's exactly it. I can't read notation, so better tab would help me. Aside from my inability to even achieve reading at a sub-Grade 1 level, despite years of attempts, I already know that. Why, for the love of God, is it that raising the issue of improving tab generates such an outpouring of (effectively) demands that the questionner should learn notation? The fact is I don't, and never will, be in a position where I need to sight read unless I volunteer myself into it. In forty-plus years of playing with other people I have never needed to sight read (although i did bluff through singing lessons by being very quick at picking up a simple melody by ear). I use written music as a way to assist with learning (or very rarely composing or transposing) music and speed of reading is not the priority. I just need a guide , and I find tab works for me and notation doesn't. Also, sight-readers need to accept that for some people there is a dichotomy between theory and practice. I have bothered to learn some musical theory and it does help me a bit (but not much) when learning a song. I'm sure notation helps keyboard players and those who wish to understand the harmonic structure of a piece, but in practice most people just use notation to know what note to play next, just as with tab. No amount of protestation by sight-readers is going to change that, I'm afraid; they have to accept that for some people under some circumstances, tab is not just the better option, but the only option. The point of this thread is that some tablature is great and makes it really easy to learn a piece of music, some of it is abysmal. I was hoping to discuss what the features of good tab were and ways to promote them. But it seems that either other tab users don't want to or they fear the scorn of the sight-readers. As a result of this discussion and my attempts to learnt quite a lot of music over recent weeks, I have seen a lot more variation of approach. I honestly think that notation itself will get a lot of competition in the next twenty years as more expressive and accessible ways of presenting music that use dynamic display are developed - already a lot of keyboard players are getting started using 'waterfall' display, for example, which has huge potential to be developed further. There is also dynamic tab that replaces the heads of notes with fret numbers and uses very strict spacing rules for duration information, done well this gets close to classical notation for readability. With existing technology you can just share the music over bluetooth as midi file and each person can display it on their own device and switch it to their favourite 'reader' while keeping in synch with everyone else. So one person could be reading notation, another tab and another just getting chord symbols, all in real time while they play together. This is the sort of idea I was thinking of: I think bass could be presented as an image of a fretboard with markers for finger positions that behave to show when they are damping, pressing down and also highlighting the next ones coming. An arrow could fade in show a pending slide and the marker could actually make the movement when it is due. Combine this with lower level indicators to show the scale currently in use (and highlighting root etc.) you could probably convey more information than on a stave. Imagine being able to see not just the line you are playing on the fretboard but also all the opportunities for improving or adding fills while staying in key and yet changing dynamically through the piece. Might work better for Giant Steps than notation?

Alternatively... play Clash of Clans. I find winning three versus battles and two multiplayer battles takes about 15 minutes clears my head and leaves me ready to kip.

The rehearsals might be making you feel guilty about not doing all the other things instead. Plus the fear now that the insomnia will stop you coping on Tuesday, so it's a vicious circle. Perhaps something that helps you step outside all the day to day worries for a few hours is just what you need to 'depressurise' and face lifes's little challenges. Also it's likely that the relief of rehearsal is giving you a big buzz. My advice is no caffeine after 6-7pm, I go tea only before then. When I have had insomnia in the past, I found valerian works well, but if you take it too regularly it gives you (very) lucid dreams. Once a week after rehearsal might work for you.

The Midas touch..... Goooowldfiiiiingeeeerrrrrr.....